Motivating Operations ➠ Exploring the Future Impact of Behavior
March 19, 2023
Question: What is the term used to describe when a consequence for behavior in the presence of an MO changes the behavior evoked by that MO in the future?
Answer: Function-altering effect.
The clue here is the word “future” in the scenario. MOs typically affect behavior in the moment that the MO is in effect. But, an MO can also give us the opportunity to evoke a new response and change future behavior. Consequences delivered for behavior in the presence of an MO change the behavior evoked by that MO in the future. This is very important for teaching functionally equivalent replacement behaviors, like functional communication. By promoting a functionally communicative response when someone is, for example, hungry—that’s the MO. And then reinforcing the response in the presence of that hunger, that MO, we’re paving the way for the formation of a future behavior that is hopefully a lot more appropriate than the challenging behavior that the MO originally evoked, maybe crying or whining.
This is a means for future impact and can also help us choose interventions that don’t just manipulate MOs, which also is a great way to reduce behavior. But, if the MO is present, that behavior will occur again. However, if a new response is learned in the presence of the MO, that’s a new behavior that can be relied upon moving forward. Let me give you an example. You don’t want your client to cry when they’re hungry. So you manipulate MOs, which means that you feed them so regularly that they never get hungry, and therefore, they never need to cry when they’re hungry because they never get hungry. They’re just being fed constantly. That’s great until life gets in the way, and somehow the client, despite your best efforts, experiences hunger. What does the client do? They resort to crying. That’s the behavior they know. Although the proactive piece of manipulating MOs is really a great strategy, it’s not always a perfect solution.
But what if you teach the client that, when you feel hungry, in the presence of that hunger, you can say, “I’m hungry” or “feed me,” and then food is delivered at the same rate or higher rate than when you historically used to cry when you were hungry or wanted food? What we’ve done is paved the way for this new behavior, and that is cashing in on that function-altering effect of an MO.
