18.6 Review of Establishing Operation
The history of characteristic reinforcement does not account for the occurrence of a current response. What is needed is some environmental event that precedes the response and is responsible for increasing the probability of its occurrence. We need some event that is related to the reinforcement that typically follows the response. This type of event has already been discussed—it is the establishing operation presented in Lesson 6.
Establishing Operation
An environmental change or event with the following features:
Precedes the response to which it is functionally related
Increases the effectiveness of a particular stimulus change as reinforcement
The type of environmental event
The cause of the environmental event
The type of stimulus that gains reinforcing effectiveness