Robert J. Vallerand

Robert J. Vallerand (born September 8, 1954) is a Canadian Social Scientist, professor, and author. He is a Full Professor of Social Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal where he also holds a Canada Research Chair in Motivational Processes and Optimal Functioning. He is also the founder and current Director of the Laboratoire de Recherche sur le Comportement Social at the same institution. He is noted for his research over the past 40 years on motivational processes, including the Dualistic model of passion and the Hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, as well as other influential research and measurement of motivation. As shown on Google Scholar as of February 2024, Professor Vallerand’s publications have been cited over 105,000 times with a h-index of over 140

Early Life and Education

Born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, Robert “Bob” Vallerand attended the Seminaire de Sherbrooke (high School). While there, between 1967–1972, he played varsity basketball, contributed to the school newspaper and radio station.  He then went on to pursue post secondary studies (CEGEP) in Health sciences for two years. His first year was conducted at the College of Sherbrooke and the second one in Montreal at de Maisonneuve College after having made the Quebec basketball team. The health sciences program was to have an important influence on his subsequent scientific position toward psychology.

Vallerand went on to study in Kinesiology with a minor in Psychology at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières while on a basketball scholarship (1977). He then chose to do a Masters in Sport, Exercise, and Health Psychology at McGill University. He established connections with Ed Deci, and later Rich Ryan, the founders of self-determination theory, a theory who would later come to influence his thinking. He obtained the MA in 1979 and went on to pursue at the Ph.D. level at the Université de Montréal again in Sport, Exercise, and Health Psychology. Most of his courses were in social psychology, statistics, and psychometrics and he worked there with Lise Dubé, Jacques Bergeron, and Wayne Halliwell. Following the Ph.D., Professor Vallerand went on to conduct postdoctoral studies in experimental social psychology at the University of Waterloo (1981-1982) with Michael Ross, as well as Mark Zanna, John Holmes, and Mel Lerner. The social psychology section had a great influence on his perspective on science and mentoring.

Career

In 1982, Vallerand took his first academic position in the Psychology Department at the University of Guelph in Ontario. The following year (1983), he moved to the Department of Psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He helped establish the Social Psychology section and founded the Laboratoire de Recherche sur le Comportement Social (Research Laboratory on Social Behavior) which he still directs to this day. In 2013, he moved to McGill University to Chair the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology and where he held a Canada Research Chair on Motivational Processes and Optimal Functioning. He returned to UQAM the following year where he also obtained a Canada Research Chair on Motivational Processes and Optimal Functioning. He has since remained at UQAM. He was also a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Positive Psychology and Education at the Australian Catholic University (2014-2017).

Leadership

Professor Vallerand has displayed administrative and scientific leadership in a number of ways. For instance, he has served as Chair of both the Psychology Department at the Université du Québec à Montréal (1991-1994) and the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology at McGill University (2013-2014). He also has been the President of the Quebec Society for Research in Psychology (1988-1991), the Canadian Psychological Association (2006-2007), and the International Positive Psychology Association (2013-2015). He was Conference Chair of the Canadian Psychological Association Convention for three years (2006, 2007, 2008) and that of the World Congress on Positive Psychology held in Philadelphia, USA (2011).

Professor Vallerand has also served as Consulting Editor for several of the top international journals in the field, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Motivation and Emotion, Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice, the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, and many others. He has also served on several national committees such as the College of assessors of the Canada Research Chair program and the Molson Prize committee as well as international committees in several countries such as the NIMH (USA).

Research

Professor Vallerand is recognized as a leading international expert on motivational processes where he has developed theories dealing with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, as well as passion for activities. He has published or edited 12 books and well over 400 scientific articles and book chapters. His research has been cited extensively (more than 105,000 citations with a h-index of over 140, GS- February 2024). He has received several millions ($) in research grants, including a Canada Research Chair-Level 1. Professor Vallerand has presented over 110 National and International Keynote addresses and has given colloquia at more than 60 different universities worldwide.

Vallerand’s research on motivational processes has made a number of significant contributions. His research has looked at the role of social influences and outcomes of intrinsic motivation (engaging in activities out of pleasure and enjoyment). For instance, his research has shown how competition, types of structures, success and failure, types of coaching, and other social variables can increase or decrease intrinsic motivation depending on how they are experienced by the individual. Other research has shown how parents, teachers, and high school administrators can affect students’ motivation and subsequently dropping out of school (Vallerand et al., 1997).

In subsequent work, Vallerand proposed the Hierarchical Model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Vallerand, 1997; Vallerand & Ratelle, 2002). This model offers a multilevel perspective on human motivation with the purpose of providing a framework for organizing and understanding the mechanisms underlying intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. According to this model, specific types of motivation exist. Specifically, there are intrinsic motivation (engaging in activities out of pleasure and enjoyment), self-determined extrinsic motivation (engaging in activities out of choice but not pleasure), non self-determined extrinsic motivation (engaging in activities out of internal or external pressure) and amotivation (the relative absence of motivation). These forms of motivation are observable at different levels of analysis from the global (i.e., personality level), contextual (in various specific life domains such as work, relationships, leisure in general), and situational (the here and now of motivation at the state level) levels. These forms of motivational processes are influenced by social and personal determinants at each level, and, in turn, generate predictable outcomes with the more self-determined and intrinsic forms of motivation generating the more adaptive outcomes. This model has served to integrate much of the field of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Since 2003, Vallerand has focused on a new motivational construct, that of passion. In doing so, with his collaborators he has opened up a completely new field of scientific research. Passion is defined as a strong inclination toward an activity that people like (or love), find important, in which they invest time and energy, and that becomes part of identity. Furthermore, two types of passion (harmonious and obsessive) are proposed. Harmonious passion leads people to choose to engage in the activity that they love. Conversely, obsessive passion creates an internal pressure to engage in the beloved activity. Harmonious passion is hypothesized to lead to more adaptive outcomes than obsessive passion. Results of now hundreds of studies has provided support for this major hypothesis and reveal that passion matters with respect to a number of outcomes deemed important for psychology such as flow and concentration, positive emotions, psychological well-being, physical health, performance and creativity, close relationships and intergroup relations, and contributing to society. Passion can indeed make people’s lives worth living to the extent that it is harmonious in nature. Such research has been largely summarized in his book The Psychology of Passion published with Oxford University Press. This book has received the William James book award from the American Psychological Association for 2017.

Vallerand has made a number of contributions to research methods. For instance, he has validated scales assessing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in a number of activities and life domains such as education, sports, work, and leisure. These scales are the most often used in the motivation field and have been translated in a number of different languages. He also recently developed a scale to assess Optimal Functioning in Society. This scale assesses psychological, physical, and relational well-being, performance at work (or school for students), and contributions to society. Finally, he has proposed cross-cultural validation procedures when translated scales in another language and has validated scales such as life satisfaction, self-esteem, and others.

Mentoring and Training

Over his career, Professor Vallerand has mentored a number of students at different levels, from the undergraduate to the postdoctoral levels. In particular, he supervised over 25 doctoral and postdoctoral students who are now university professors across Canada, from British Columbia to New Brunswick, and Europe. Several other students who have conducted honours theses, research internships, and assistantships have gone on to become university professors as well.  Other former students serve as scientists in different capacities either in governmental or private agencies.

In addition to the mentoring, Vallerand has also written or edited several books including some that have served to train undergraduate students in university psychological courses in French. These books include the following: “Introduction à la psychologie de la motivation” (“Introduction to the Psychology of Motivation”); Méthodes de recherche en psychologie (« Research Methods in Psychology »), and Les fondements de la psychologie sociale (« The foundations of social psychology »). Overall, these books have served to train well over 50,000 undergraduate students across Canada and Europe.

Awards and Honors

Professor Vallerand has received numerous awards and honors from over a dozen learned societies, including being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the International Association of Applied Psychology, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and the American Psychological Association (APA). He has also been independently elected Fellow of several APA Divisions, including Divisions 8 (Personality and Social Psychology), 9 (Psychological Study of Social Issues), 15 (Education), 20 (Aging and Human Development), and 47 (Sport and Exercise Psychology). Professor Vallerand has also received several career awards for his contribution to Science, including the Tang Prize (TANG Foundation), the CPA Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Canadian Psychology – CPA (Canadian Psychological Association), the Distinguished Lifetime Career Award (ISSI-International Society for Self and Identity), the Adrien Pinard Award from the Quebec Society for Research in Psychology, the Donald O. Hebb Award from the Canadian Psychological Association, and the Christopher Peterson Gold Medal Award from the International Positive Psychology Association. He has also received the William James Award from the American Psychological Association (Division 1) for his book The Psychology of Passion: A Dualistic Model (Oxford University Press). Finally, he has been awarded the Sport Science Award from the International Olympic Committee (1995).

Publications

Available online [1]

External links

• The Research Laboratory on Social Behavior (RLSB) [2]
• Valllerand, R.J. (2015). The psychology of passion. New York: Oxford University Press [3]
  

This article "Robert J. Vallerand" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Robert J. Vallerand. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---