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The
EO in OBM
Richard W. Malott1
Behavior Analysis Program
Department of Psychology
Western Michigan University
Abstract
Olson, Laraway, and Austin (2001) propose an increased emphasis on
the establishing operation in organizational behavior management.
Their proposal raises interesting questions about theory, science,
and practice. (1) What should be the role of theory in behavior analysis?
(2) Should we try to find problems that match our solutions or vice
versa ? (3) What is the relative importance of the establishing operation
and the performance-management contingency in managing organizational
behavior? (4) Should theory and basic research be more informed by
the issues raised in applied settings?
The
EO in OBM
Olson, Laraway, and Austin (2001) make a thoughtful, well-informed,
and well-argued proposal for the importance of the establishing operation
(EO) in organizational behavior management (OBM). Furthermore, their
proposal raises interesting issues about the way we behavior analysts
do our science:
Theory
Phobia
I welcome the proposal of Olson et al that we look to the EO as a
way of achieving “a more comprehensive theoretical understanding.”
And they have gotten off to a good start. Their support of theory
is especially important in behavior analysis, because, most empirical
articles in behavior-analytic journals are bereft of theoretical analysis.
This exemplifies a theory phobia suffered by many, if not most, behavior
analysts, a phobia that may result from a misinterpretation of Skinner’s
argument against the use of explanatory fictions (i.e., hypothetical
constructs and intervening variables) and against the reductionistic
need for behavior analysts to reduce their findings to a lower level
of analysis (e.g., physiology).
In defense of theory in behavior analysis, I suggest that Skinner
was not arguing against an effort to understand complex behavioral
procedures in terms of the underlying behavioral concepts and principles,
even if such an understanding might involve speculation. In other
words, looking for (or even speculating about) the behavioral concepts
and principles underlying complex behavioral procedures is not the
same as unneeded reductionism, nor is it the same as speculating about
underlying explanatory fictions. Behavior analysts seem to have over
generalized Skinner’s concerns about these two forms of speculation
to a fear of speculation about underlying behavioral processes, which
involve neither a different level of analysis nor explanatory fictions.
This fear of speculation has produced a science that, though it has
great methodological sophistication, it also has great theoretical
naivety. Its practitioners are skilled at detecting the most subtle
of methodological flaws, while overlooking the most gross of conceptual
errors. For example, behavior analysts consistently commit such simplistic
conceptual errors as classifying complex, delayed-outcome, performance-management
contingencies as if they were the simple reinforcement contingencies
of the Skinner box. (For discussions of the nature of these contingencies
see [Malott, 1993; Malott, Shimamune, & Malott, 1993; Michael,
1993; Olson, Laraway, & Austin, 2001].)
Our theoretical naivety is sometimes said to be justified because
our behavioral procedures work (e.g., our performance-management contingencies
increase productivity). But, the New Guinea aborigines have productive
yam patches, as long as they appease the hungry earth god by feeding
it with a piece of each yam they harvest; yet we would not argue that
the success of these agricultural practices makes a science of biology
unnecessary. And even if we do not value the understanding of our
universe that results from the sciences of biology and behavior analysis,
the history of science and technology suggests that better science
will result in better yam patches and more productive, healthy workers.
So, again, I welcome Olson, Laraway, and Austin’s support of
theory in behavior analysis. And I encourage the Journal of Organizational
Behavior Management, as well as other behavior-analytic journals,
to strongly urge their authors to include theoretical analyses addressing
the fundamental behavioral processes underlying their complex behavioral
interventions, including the underlying EOs, when relevant.
Solutions
in Search of Problems vs. Problems in Search of Solutions
There are two, not necessarily exhaustive, approaches to using science
and technology to solve real-world problems. The one Olson et al recommend
is the solution-in-search-of-a-problem approach. In other words, analyses
of EOs seems to be helpful in reducing dysfunctional behavior of clients
who are non-verbal; so Olson, et al, propose that we search problems
solvable by analyses of the EOs among those problems involving the
increasing of functional behavior of clients who are verbal.
This solution-in-search-of-a-problem approach has become so prominent
that it may now dominate behavior analysis (e.g., behavioral momentum,
the probability matching law, functional analysis, the EO, itself,
and from an earlier era, schedules of reinforcement). Of course, the
solution-in-search-of-a-problem is a reasonable, valuable approach;
but it has at least two drawbacks. First, behavior analysts become
so enamored with the currently fashionable solution, that they force
fit the solution in a nearly rote, unthinking manner, with little
concern for the appropriateness of that fit (like the little boy with
a new hammer who must hammer everything in sight, whether it is hammerable
or not).
There might be fewer strained fits, if the those behavior analysts
followed the recommendation of Olson et al and based their science
and technology on a sophisticate interest in underlying behavioral
mechanisms. Much, though not all, of the inappropriateness of these
forced fits is again due to simplistic extrapolations from Skinner-box
research with non-verbal rats and pigeons; these extrapolations are
to complex, language-based, human contexts.
My criticism of these extrapolations is not to suggest that there
isn’t a little rat in all of us, not to suggest that basic,
Skinner-box research is irrelevant to our understanding of complex,
human behavior. However, to find the relevance, we must dig deeply
into the underlying behavioral processes, more deeply than most behavior
analysts usually go. So the first difficulty with the solution-in-search-of-a-problem
is that it may often result in inappropriate, forced solutions.
The second difficulty is that this approach has become so dominant,
at least in the research literature, that it may be driving out the
problem-in-search-of-a-solution approach. For example, researchers
who are successful publishers often explicitly ensure that they are
doing research on solutions currently fashionable in their targeted
journals. And researchers who are unsuccessful publishers often complain
that their manuscripts are being rejected because they are not using
fashionable solutions. (Of course, this applies to fashionable problems
to be solved, as well as fashionable solutions.) And while it is,
no doubt, valuable for individual researchers to carry out thematic
research, it may be harmful for an entire discipline to do so. (Incidentally,
the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior’s publication
of Michael’s original EO article [1982], itself, illustrates
that that fashion can be bucked, as does that article’s gradually
but steadily growing number of citations in the Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis [see Iwata, Smith, & Michael, 2000].)
I have some concern about both of these difficulties with regard to
the proposal of Olson et al; they propose that we look for OBM problems
that can be solved by manipulating the EO. First, in my opinion, the
authors had to strain considerably to find OBM examples that EO manipulations
might possibly solve. This suggests that, to avoid inappropriate,
forced fits, those who follow the EO-solutions strategy in OBM will
have to do so with considerable more theoretical sophistication than
has been evidenced in most empirical OBM articles.
The second difficulty is that this EO-solution strategy may have the
potential to dominate OBM research to the extent that it suppresses
other solutions to OBM problems. Fortunately, the empirical work in
OBM seems to be less driven by fashionable solutions than is the case
in the general field of applied behavior analysis (ABA). However,
the theoretical OBM articles do tend to sail in on the breeze of fashion,
as the article by Olson et al would indicate, not that this is always
bad, especially if such articles are accompanied by a critical, theoretical
intelligence, as is the case with that article.
There is another potential problem related to this second fashionable-solutions
difficulty: The EO-solution strategy may also tend to suppress work
on problems not readily solved by EO manipulations, a problem of narrowness
that may be occurring in the published literature in the general field
of ABA. This could be especially unfortunate, if it turns out that
the sort of problems EO manipulations can solve do not account for
the majority of the problems in OBM, as, in deed, the examples of
Olson et al seem to suggest.
None of this means it might not be of value for some researchers in
OBM to aggressively purse the EO as a fundamental cause of some OBM
problems and to purse the manipulation of the EO as a solution to
those problems. It is only to suggest that, in modeling after the
general field of ABA by exploring the importance of the EO, we should
not make the more general mistake of the researchers and editors in
general ABA, the mistake of becoming too fashion conscious.
There is another interesting issue related to the strategy of solutions
in search of problems. It is the concept in search of examples. Lindsley
referred to this as the problem of the conceptual zoo (Lindsley, 1977).
We can build a framework or matrix of concepts that might more or
less exhaustively describe a domain. Then we send explorers out to
find animals to fill each of the cages of our zoo, to find examples
to fill each of the cells of our matrix or framework, examples to
illustrate each concept. But we may discover that creatures do not
exist in nature to fill each of the cages of our zoo, in other words,
that examples do not exist in nature to fill each of the cells in
our framework, to illustrate each of our concepts. For instance, outside
the laboratory or the explicit behavior-modification setting, my explorers
and I have failed to discover realistic example of traditional shaping
(fixed-outcome shaping) or differential reinforcement of other behavior,
though these procedures are common and useful in ABA research and
application efforts.
Similarly, we should remain sensitive to the possibility that, though
the EO is an important, fundamental concept in behavior analysis and
in general ABA, we might discover few significant instances where
knowledge of the relevant EOs will give us nontrivial insights into
the nature of the world of OBM and few instance where it will allow
us to manage performance better in that world. Olson et al seem sensitive
to the possibility that the EO/OBM cage might remain fairly barren;
I hope that other conceptual explorers maintain that sensitivity.
But, in any case, the only way to know the fate of the EO/OBM cage
is to send out a few exploring parties. (Incidentally, Lindsley also
suggested that our conceptual zoos should not blind us to the possibility
that we might discover in the real world important behavioral phenomena
for which we have not prepared a cage.)
The
EO (Motivation) vs. the Contingency
In his behavioral engineering model, Gilbert (1978) presents his
own six-cell conceptual matrix, with two cells devoted to “motivation.”
One of those two cells represents “incentives” and the
other, “motives.” The motive cell corresponds roughly
to the EO but lacks the sophisticated treatment provided by Olson
et al; it antedates Michael’s (1982) elaboration of the EO concept.
However, what Gilbert’s model does not have is a distinct cell
for contingencies, though the concept seems to be squeeze into the
same cell as incentives. But for most OBM problems in most OBM settings,
the lack of incentives and the lack of motivation, in the technical,
EO sense, does not seem to be the problem. The problem usually is
the lack of an effective performance-management contingency using
the incentives (reinforcers or aversive conditions) and the EOs already
plentiful in the OBM setting. While we can look for interesting, unusual
incentives, the most expedient and ubiquitous incentive is probably
money; the only problem is to make the money properly contingent on
the desirable performance.
In the OBM setting, logistics and social validity almost demand that
the incentive or reinforcer be a learned reinforcer, such as money.
And, our applied literature reflects a common misconception as to
what is the EO for learned reinforcers, an issue about which Olson
et al express concern. That misconception is that the proper EO for
a learned reinforcer is deprivation of the learned reinforcer (e.g.,
deprivation of approval or praise is an appropriate EO; and satiation
with approval or praise is an appropriate abolishing operation).
The error of this view might be clearer, if we look inside the Skinner
box. What is the appropriate EO for the learned reinforcer (the water
dipper click) that has been paired with the unlearned reinforcer (a
drop of water in the dipper)? As Michael (2000) implies, the EO is
the deprivation of water (a transitive, conditioned, establishing
operation), without which, incidentally, the click would not become
a learned reinforcer. But more to the point, if the click had previously
been established as a learned reinforcer, it would not continue to
reinforce behavior after water satiation. In other words, the EO for
a learned reinforcer is not deprivation of that learned reinforcer
(e.g., the EO is not deprivation of the dipper click). Aside from
formidable methodological problems, it would seem naïve to try
to satiate the rat with the dipper click (use repeated presentations
of the click as the abolishing operation [satiation]). (Those formidable
methodological problems involve confounding either click satiation
with water satiation or confounding click satiation with the unpairing
of the click and the water.)
So, surely something else must be going on when research shows what
looks like an EO effect resulting from “deprivation” and
“satiation” of praise for little children or “deprivation”
and “satiation” of towels for a psychotic lady who hordes
towels until she has dozens. That something else may be very complex,
but surely it is not an EO effect.
Now, back to the EO in OBM. Money and other learned reinforcers will
probably remain the major reinforcers in OBM. And, as we have just
seen, the relevant EO for such reinforcers involves deprivation of
the unlearned, backup reinforcers with which the learned reinforcers
have been paired. But it is unlikely that future performance managers
will intervene at the level of food deprivation as the EO to increase
the effectiveness of money as a learned reinforcer. Thus, it is unlikely
that the EO will ever play a major role in OBM interventions, which
is not to argue that it might not be important in the sort of niche
problems suggested by Olson et al. Instead, the major goal in OBM
should remain the implementation of effective performance-management
contingencies.
Incidentally, there may be some ambiguity, or even disagreement, as
to what constitutes an effective deprivational EO for such unlearned
reinforcers as water. Most clearly, something like 23 hours of water
deprivation is the traditional EO. But what about the momentary unavailability
of water, once the rat has licked the dipper dry? Is that momentary
unavailability also an EO? If so, surely it is a much different sort
of EO that 23 hours of water deprivation, so different that, though
the momentary unavailability might fit the operational definition
of an EO, it seems to me to be almost trivial to consider 23 hours
of water deprivation and the momentary unavailability of water as
the same class of phenomena. Yes, both deprivation and unavailability
are necessary for the rat to make water-reinforced lever presses;
but perhaps that should not make them force us to classify both as
EOs. The two phenomena may be analogous but not homologous.
However, if my concerns are unfounded, then it may be that the momentary
withholding of the dipper click, the momentary withholding of praise,
and the momentary withholding of money are also EOs. In that case,
the EO might play a major role in mainstream, performance-management,
OBM analyses and interventions. But, also should that appear to be
that case, we may want to be sure we are wearing watertight goulashes,
should we fall through the thin ice of operational definitionism into
the water of trivial categorizing and end up all wet.
From
Theory to Application to Theory
OBM consultants often argue that our behavior-analytically informed
consulting is superior to the competition’s because our behavioral
consulting is based on basic, SCIENTIFIC, laboratory research, where
the competition’s is based on mysticism. And while the criticism
of the competition may be well placed, I think our behavioral consulting
practices have much shallower roots in basic behavior-analytic science
than we usually acknowledge, mainly because those roots are fertilized
with simplistic analogies that do not reflect how our laboratory-based,
behavioral principles and concepts actually underlie or fail to underlie
our consulting practices.
And, applied behavior analysis researchers have been chastised for
failing to make adequate reference to basic, laboratory research and
perhaps to behavior-analytic theory. Instead they operate from a pragmatic
bag of common-sense tricks disguised as science. That disguise is
especially deceptive because a few of those tricks may have been empirically
verified, though much as the feeding-the-earth-god trick has been
empirically verified in the Journal of Aboriginal Yam Growers;
complete with multiple-baseline designs it has both have been shown
to work.
So, we OBM practitioners yearn for the mantel of respect basic science
gives us, and we OBM researchers yearn for the relief from guilt basic-science
references give us. But, deny it though they often do, the basic-science,
experimental analysts also have a yearning; and that yearning is for
relevance. So these yearnings have combined to send a torrential flow
(or at least a torrential trickle) of basic science and advanced theory
into the laps of OBM practitioners and researchers.
But now, it may be time to start the flow in the other direction.
Now it may be time for basic science and advanced theory to more aggressively
reflect and address the issues encountered in applied settings, including
OBM. Now it may be time for applied practitioners and researchers
to stop forcing ill-fitting concepts and principles onto applied phenomena;
now it may be time applied workers to help the basic researchers and
theorists refine their efforts so as to reflect the phenomena of the
world outside the experimentalist’s laboratory and outside the
theorist’s office.
Furthermore, the EO might be a good conceptual area to start, if it
should need refining in order to increase its applied utility in OBM.
Here is why the EO might be an especially opportune area in which
to reverse the science/theory =>applied flow: Jack Michael, the
developer of the EO, has proven exceptional in his efforts at continuous,
quality improvement of that concept (see Michael, 2000). Therefore
he might be especially adept at working with the OBM researchers and
practitioners in refining the concept of the EO to meet these new
challenges. Furthermore, Olson, Laraway, and Austin have demonstrated
such a high level of mastery of the complex intricacies of the EO
concept that they would be ideal to play an active role on the OBM
side.
At the end of a rant such as this, it is only proper that I add: Of
course, these are just my opinions; and I may be wrong.
References
Gilbert, T. F. (1978). Human competence: Engineering worthy performance.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Iwata, B. A., Smith, R. G., & Michael, J. (2000). Current research
on the influence of establishing operations on behavior in applied
settings. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 33, 411-418.
Lindsley, O. R. (1977). What we know that ain’t so. Invited
address, Third Convention Midwestern Association for Behavior Analysis,
Chicago, IL.
Malott, R. W. (1993). A theory of rule-governed behavior and organizational
behavior management. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management,
12, 45-65.
Malott, R. W., Shimamune, S., & Malott, M. E. (1993). Rule-governed
behavior and organizational behavior management: An analysis of interventions.
Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 12, 103-116.
Michael, J. M. (1982). Distinguishing between discriminative and motivational
functions of stimuli. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
37, 149-155.
Michael, J. M. (1993). Concepts and principles of behavior analysis.
Kalamazoo, MI: Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis.
Michael, J. M. (2000). Implications and refinements of the establishing
operation concept. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 33, 401-410.
Olson, R., Laraway, S., & Austin, J. (2001) Unconditioned and
conditioned establishing operations in organizational behavior management.
Journal of Organizational Behavior Management. 21
