Motivating Operations and Differential Reinforcement
For this assignment, you will provide a long answer essay response to each of the questions below. For each question, you are encouraged to use the peer-reviewed resources provided throughout the units to support your responses. Please do not copy and paste the whole question into the document. Rather, provide the question number (1-4) and a brief heading that correlates with each section of the grading rubric. (Ex. 1. Motivating Operations and Differential Reinforcement)
Discuss the differences between establishing and abolishing operations, and, with an example for support, explain why and how you might manipulate these Motivating Operations as part of a planned behavior change. Next discuss the differences between rule governed and contingency shaped behaviors, with one example to support each concept. Finally, define and describe the differences between the following processes: Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Punishment, Negative punishment and extinction. Be sure to identify the expected behavioral outcome for each process and provide one brief example to illustrate each.
First, define stimulus and stimulus class and provide an example for each concept. . Next, define the concept of stimulus control and how stimulus control is established, explaining the differences between generalization and discrimination of stimuli.
Review Jasmine’s Case Example and explain how you would use response and stimulus prompt fading to transfer stimulus control to a more relevant stimulus, including the application of differential reinforcement, as part of a maintenance plan for a target behavior.
First, discuss the basic concept of Verbal Behavior as an operant paradigm. Next, discuss each of the six elementary verbal operants, identifying them according to their properties of point-to-point correspondence, formal similarity, and appropriate reinforcement according to each operant’s specific function. Be sure to identify which verbal operants do or do not demonstrate the properties of point to point correspondence and formal similarity. Finally, provide a unique example of each verbal operant and how each is applied to the development of verbal behavior.
Discuss the concept of Derived Stimulus Relations as it applies to the development of verbal behavior and cognition. Explain the similarities and differences of how derived stimulus relations and verbal behavior contribute to the development of an individual’s verbal behavior and cognition. Finally, identify the three parts of stimulus equivalence, and explain how each part applies to the development of derived stimulus relations in verbal behavior.
Your assignment should be an 8-10 page essay, not including the title and reference pages, and should include the following elements:
Title page: Provide your name, title of assignment, course and section number, and date.
Body: Answer all the questions in complete sentences and paragraphs.
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Reference page: Sources listed in APA format. Be sure to include at least four sources to support your discussions.
Use Arial or Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced and left aligned.
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Use current APA formatting and citation style, including APA format section headings used throughout for organization
This assignment assesses the following Course Outcomes:
Examine how consequences affect behavior within an organism's environment.
Explain basic concepts in verbal behavior.
Unit 9 Essay
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Motivating operations significantly influence operant relations and have substantial implications for those practicing in applied contexts. It is necessary to delineate the concept of motivating operations and offer real-life examples. Investigating operant relations is an important aspect of applied behavioral analysis. For example, one of the functional analysis fundamental responsibilities entails identifying implications that reinforce problematic behavior. This contributes to applying interventions systematically emanating from such understanding, including functional communication training. These developments have significant implications for many people's lives. Apart from inquiring about what sustains behavior, it is increasingly crucial for practitioners and researchers to inquire about the rationales for such consequences acting as a practical reinforcement for the specific individual. In the operant framework, a specific consequence value as a punishment or reinforcement is within the constant flux, similar to the behavior probability happening that was previously linked to such consequences. This paper describes issues related to establishing and abolishing operations, rule-governed and contingency-shaped behaviors, reinforcement, punishment, and extinction. It also includes the definition of stimulus, stimulus class, and the concept of stimulus control as well as examines Jasmine's case scenario to inform stimulus and differential reinforcement. Lastly, the paper evaluates derived stimulus relations in verbal behavior and cognition.
Establishing and Abolishing Operations, Rule-Governed and Contingency-Shaped Behaviors, Reinforcement, Punishment, and Extinction.
Establishing and abolishing operations are significant behavior analysis concepts. Establishing operation implies the stimulus, which enhances the reinforcing value of a particular consequence, increasing the occurrence chances of related behavioral tendency. Conversely, abolishing behavior involves a stimulation that significantly reduces one specific consequence's reinforcing value, reducing the likelihood of the occurrence of related behavior. For instance, for a thirsty girl, thirst is the establishing operation that multiplies the reinforcing value of water. In such cases, there is a high probability that the girl will engage in such behaviors as asking for water or looking for it. Thus, thirst serves as the establishing operation by generating value for water as a reinforcer. In contrast, consider a girl who has taken enough water. In this case, the water satisfied thirst and decreased the reinforcing value of water. Due to the satisfaction, the probability of the girl asking or looking for water is dropped, considering the abolishing operation has reduced the reinforcing water's value. Interventions to behavior change involve such aspects as manipulating the motivating processes discussed above. Controlling these operations is vital since behavior analysts can impact specific behaviors by managing, establishing, and abolishing operations. The manipulation of establishing behavior may entail satisfying the reinforcement and abolishing operations. Such stimuli variations affect the behavior chain (Cooper et al., 2022). For instance, for the girl to concentrate in class, it would help satisfy her thirst; thus, this reduction of abolishing operations increases the reinforcing value of class activities.
Rule-governed behavior significantly differs from contingency-shaped behavior. Rule-governed behaviors are obtained through instructions and rules. Such regulations or instructions develop the behavior as desirable and suitable and offer its performance framework. The individual's verbal behavior underpins rule-governed behaviors, which do not need a direct encounter with the behavior's consequences. On the other hand, contingency-shaped behaviors imply those obtained through directly interacting with the surroundings and the ensuing behavior consequences. The natural reinforcement and punishment contingencies are fundamental in modeling such behaviors. Contingency-based behaviors involve continuous learning instead of rule-governed behaviors (Simon & Crump, 2020). An example of a rule-governed behavior is a girl following her parent's instructions to wash her hands after dinner. The girl obeys the instructions without encountering the consequences of malaria; thus, verbal instructions by authority govern the behavior. An example of contingency-shaped behavior is a girl learning to knit a dress and encountering the challenges of incorporating the dress successfully. Modeling the behavior of knitting a dress entails repeated fails and the ensuing consequences.
Positive reinforcement encompasses the presentation of a desirable stimulus following a behavior, which increases the likelihood of that behavior reoccurring. For instance, the teacher praises a student for attempting to answer a question, increasing the probability of the student trying to answer the following questions. Negative reinforcement entails the removal of an aversive stimulus following a behavior, increasing the likelihood of the behavior's reoccurrence (Cooper et al., 2022). For instance, a student does homework to avoid a teacher's punishment. Removing the aversive stimulus, the teacher's punishment increases the probability of the student doing their homework in the future. Positive discipline entails presenting an aversive stimulus after a behavior, reducing the likelihood of the behavior's reoccurrence. For instance, a student receives punishment for failing to complete homework, minimizing the chances of failing to complete the task. Negative punishment, on the other hand, entails the removal of desirable stimuli following a behavior, reducing the probability of that behavior reoccurring. For instance, a child loses his pad for engaging in destructive behavior to achieve a set academic grade, reducing the likelihood of the student engaging in such behavior. Extinction entails holding back a reinforcement that maintained a specific behavior before, reducing that behavior's frequency (Cooper et al., 2022). For instance, a dog that receives food when it barks will stop barking on withholding the reinforcement.
The Definition of Stimulus, Stimulus Class, and the concept of stimulus control
Stimulus and stimulus control are fundamental behavior analysis concepts critical for understanding environmental factors' effect on behavior. Stimulus implies a physical situation or event that the body senses, thus detecting and triggering a response. It can include sensory input like touch, sound, or light. To understand the stimulus concept, consider an example of a man hearing alarm sounds early in the morning. The alarm sound is the stimulus that, in this case, triggers a response, that is, waking up for the day's activities. Substantially the sound input of the alarm sound serves as the stimulus. On the other hand, stimulus class implies a collection of stimuli sharing standard features and with the same impacts on behavior (Fisher, 2021). Although the members of a stimulus class may appear different, they generate behavioral responses akin to each other. Stimuli in a class may differ based on physical features but depict similar functions. Consider a girl learning to identify alphabetical letters to understand the stimulus class further. In this example, a stimulus class includes alphabetical orders from A to Z. Despite the difference in notes; they share standard features of being letters and trigger a similar response of letter identification when presented to the girl.
Stimulus control implies the process where a specific behavior has a higher chance of occurring under particular environmental settings or stimuli. In essence, the behavior controls specific triggers or cues. Nes (2023) argues that the stimulus control process can generate representations of environmental factors, and proximal stimulation produced by such factors controls the stimuli. Establishing stimulus control depends on the discrimination training process, which entails reinforcing specific behavior in an environment with discriminative stimulus while failing to strengthen or completely extinguish the behavior before another stimulus (Cooper et al., 2022). Such a process is fundamental for people in selectively responding to certain stimuli. The establishment of stimulus control involves discrimination and generalization of stimuli. The two concepts are diverse, and it is essential to consider an example of a girl who has received training to utter the word "book" when presented with a book but not with other objects. Discrimination training allows response to a specific stimulus, like the girl responding to a "book" object, and not a general reaction to different things. In contrast, generalization happens when a behavior is acquired before certain stimuli occur in the presence of other stimuli with similar features (Cooper et al., 2022). For instance, in the case above, generalization could happen if the girl uttered the word "book" when presented with other objects like the Bible or envelope, owing to the similarities of such stimuli and the original entity.
Jasmine's Case Example Response
For the seamless transfer of stimulus control to a more suitable stimulus in the case of Jasmine and to enhance her to write her name independently, it is necessary to implement a systematic procedure and introduce response and stimulus prompt fading approaches. Also, it is critical to incorporate differential reinforcement to achieve Jasmine's desirable behavior. According to Cooper et al. (2022), fading is a process that entails stimulus control shifting from the antecedent stimulus to a novel stimulus while sustaining behavior. The fading process would first entail continuously decreasing the stimulus prompt's prominence offered by the teacher. Stimulus...