The Motivating Operations Concept: Current Status and Critical Response

Sean Laraway; Susan Snycerski; Ryan Olson; Bernd Becker; Alan Poling

doi:10.1007/s40732-014-0080-5

The Motivating Operations Concept: Current Status and Critical Response

Sean Laraway, Susan Snycerski, Ryan Olson, Bernd Becker, Alan Poling

Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper reviews the current status of the Motivating Operation Concept (MOC), followed by a critical response to Whelan and D. Barnes-Holmes (2010), who argued against the MOC and proposed an alternative analysis of motivation, the Consequence-Valuing Operation (CVO). In this paper, we: (a) review the MOC and discuss its conceptual and empirical status, (b) clarify certain aspects of the MOC, (c) correct Whelan and D. Barnes-Holmes’s inaccurate descriptions of the MOC, and (d) critique the CVO and related concepts. We demonstrate that the MOC is a high-impact innovation in behavior analysis that provides a useful theoretical framework for analyses of operant (instrumental) behavior. In contrast, the case made by Whelan and D. Barnes-Holmes for the competing CVO concept suffers from a range of problems. We, therefore, conclude that the MOC provides a superior and more useful behavioral analysis of motivation.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	601-623
Number of pages	23
Journal	Psychological Record
Volume	64
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-014-0080-5
State	Published - Aug 5 2014

Keywords

Abative effect
Abolishing operations
Conditioned motivating operations
Consequence valuing operations
Establishing operations
Evocative effect
Motivating operations
Motivation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
General Psychology

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10.1007/s40732-014-0080-5

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title = "The Motivating Operations Concept: Current Status and Critical Response",

abstract = "This paper reviews the current status of the Motivating Operation Concept (MOC), followed by a critical response to Whelan and D. Barnes-Holmes (2010), who argued against the MOC and proposed an alternative analysis of motivation, the Consequence-Valuing Operation (CVO). In this paper, we: (a) review the MOC and discuss its conceptual and empirical status, (b) clarify certain aspects of the MOC, (c) correct Whelan and D. Barnes-Holmes{\textquoteright}s inaccurate descriptions of the MOC, and (d) critique the CVO and related concepts. We demonstrate that the MOC is a high-impact innovation in behavior analysis that provides a useful theoretical framework for analyses of operant (instrumental) behavior. In contrast, the case made by Whelan and D. Barnes-Holmes for the competing CVO concept suffers from a range of problems. We, therefore, conclude that the MOC provides a superior and more useful behavioral analysis of motivation.",

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AU - Becker, Bernd

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KW - Evocative effect

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The Motivating Operations Concept: Current Status and Critical Response

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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