A motivating operation that temporarily increases the effectiveness of a stimulus thereby having an evocative effect on behavior is called what?

• A. Abolishing operation
• B. Discriminative stimulus
• C. Ecological assessment
• D. Establishing operation

Answer: (D)

The concept here is establishing operation, a subtype of motivating operations. It temporarily increases the reinforcing value of a stimulus, making the behavior that has previously produced or could produce that stimulus more likely to occur. For example, when you’re hungry, food becomes more valuable and you’re more motivated to seek and eat it; the hunger state elevates the effectiveness of food as a reinforcer, evoking eating behavior. An abolishing operation would do the opposite, reducing the value of the stimulus (satiation would make food less reinforcing). A discriminative stimulus signals that reinforcement is available for a certain behavior but doesn’t by itself change the stimulus’s value. An ecological assessment is simply a method for identifying environmental variables that influence behavior.