Question

Define an Unconditioned Motivating Operation (UMO). What are the nine main UMOs for humans? Define a Conditioned Motivating Operation (CMO). What are the three types of CMOs and how are they applied in Applied Behavioral Science? Your initial post should be 250 words

Answer 1

Define an Unconditioned Motivating Operation (UMO). What are the nine main UMOs for humans? Define a Conditioned Motivating Operation (CMO). What are the three types of CMOs and how are they applied in Applied Behavioral Science? Your initial post should be 250 words and you should respond to at least three of your classmates' posts.

According to Cooper, an unconditioned motivating operation (UMO) is “a motivating operation whose value-altering effect does not depend on a learning history” (2007). This means that a motivator that comes naturally and doesn’t require previous learning and/or pairing. For example, being thirsty is unlearned. When a person is thirsty, their throat gets really dry because the mouth lacks moisture. This is the body’s natural way of telling a person to drink water.

The 9 main UMO’s for human behavior is as follows

1. Food deprivation
2. Water deprivation
3. Sleep deprivation
4. Activity deprivation
5. Oxygen deprivation
6. Sex deprivation
7. Becoming too warn
8. Becoming too cold
9. Increase in painful stimulus

            A CMO is defined as “a motivating operation whose value-altering effect depends on a learning history” (Cooper et. al., 2007). This means that a motivator for a person depends on something that is learned and paired with. For example, a person needs to be taught that a token can be exchanged for a preferred item. There are 3 types of CMOs which is surrogate conditioned operations (CMO-S), transitive conditioned operations (CMO-T) and reflexive conditioned operations (CMO-R).

Examples of how it is applied

CMO-S: The hypothesis is that a person doesn’t like headaches and is very painful for them. When a person gets a headache, they will be in pain. This will cause them to take medicine because medicine has taken away the pain in the past. The medication will be a big motivator for the person to seek out whenever they have a headache in the future.

CMO-T: When a child puts the wrong shape in a shape box game, the shape will not go into the box. When the child puts the right shape in the shape box, the shape will go into the box. The hypothesis is that the child wants to put the shapes into the box. So, the next time the child will be more motivated to put the right shape into the box.

CMO-R: The hypothesis is that a child does not like loud music. Whenever parents come home from a hard day at work, they will put on heavy metal in the living room. A few days of this, the living room becomes aversive to the child. The child will learn to leave the room and/or escape to his room when the parents come home.