Gerontological Society of America honors professor of psychological science
Jutta Heckhausen, professor of psychological science, is being honored by the Gerontological Society of America with its Distinguished Career Contribution to Gerontology Award in the Behavioral and Social Sciences.
The award, to be presented in November during GSA’s Annual Scientific Meeting, is awarded to an individual whose contributions over the course of his or her career has articulated a novel theoretical or methodological perspective or synthesis that addresses a significant problem in the literature.
Heckhausen has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Great Britain. She joined UCI’s faculty in 2000. Her research focuses on life-span developmental psychology, motivation, control behavior across the life span, developmental regulation during major life-course transitions, cultural universals and differences in motivation and developmental regulation. She has written or co-written more than 150 journal articles and book chapters and her books include:
- “Motivation and self-regulation across the life span” (Cambridge University Press, 1998)
- “Developmental regulation in adulthood: Age-normative and sociostructural constraints as adaptive challenges” (Cambridge University Press, 1999)
- “Motivational psychology of human development: Developing motivation and motivating development (Elsevier, 2000)
- “Motivation und Handeln” (Springer-Verlag, 2005, revised editions in 2010 and 2018)
- “Motivation and action” (Cambridge University Press, 2008, revised editions in 2011 an 2018))
Her honors include:
- Associate member of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Mid-Life Development (1991 to 1998)
- Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford (1995-1996)
- The Max Planck Research Award for International Cooperation, 1999
- The UCI Teaching Excellence Award, 2005
- Gerontological Society of America, Fellow, since 2011
- UCI Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Fostering Undergraduate Research, 2014
- UCI Faculty Mentor of the Month, UROP, May 2014
- Appointment to the Kuratorium (Executive Board) of the Leibniz-Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research – BMBF and the Bavarian State Ministry for Education, Science and Art (StMBW), December 2013
- Member of Survey Committee of the Socioeconomic Panel Germany (SOEP), since 2014
- Baltes Distinguished Research Achievement Award, American Psychological Association, 2014
- Research Fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), University of Bielefeld, Germany, 2015-2016
- Association of Psychological Science, Fellow, since 2016
- Robert Newcomb Interdisciplinary Team Science Award, UCI, 2017
In their nomination letter for the GSA award, several of Heckhausen’s peers from around the country and in Germany noted:
Dr. Heckhausen is a distinguished scholar who has made exceptional theoretical and empirical contributions to the field of gerontology. The Motivational Theory of Lifespan Development (earlier versions referred to as lifespan theory of control) has influenced many researchers and has been applied not only to the field of aging, but also to developmental psychology, social and personality psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, and most recently, health psychology.
Her body of collected work over the course of her illustrious career represents both theoretical breadth and empirical rigor, and her innovative research projects have helped to advance and lastingly shape our understanding of control, motivation, and developmental regulation as key processes throughout the lifespan.
Dr. Heckhausen has produced a highly focused body of work that defines the lifespan approach to agency and developmental regulation. She has enhanced our understanding of adaptive functioning in different domains and at different points in the lifespan, and has been highly innovative in testing and validating her theory in populations ranging in age from adolescence to young adulthood and midlife, and from old age to the very end of life. Understanding psychological processes underlying goal formation, engagement, and striving early in adulthood impacts later adulthood – as life course plans and decisions set the context for later life and the resources and constraints that individuals have at that point in their lives. We can think of no other body of work that is as creative, comprehensive, and thought provoking as hers with respect to addressing issues of motivation and lifespan development.
Dr. Heckhausen is engaged in further noteworthy work that synthesizes a variety of mainstream lifespan theories and so advances the field considerably. She has made excellent progress in reconciling different approaches with an eye towards integration. She has been successful in articulating the similarities and differences of several lifespan approaches: Accommodation and assimilation, selective optimization with compensation, and primary and secondary control (Haase, Heckhausen, & Wrosch, 2013). By clarifying the overlap and distinctiveness of the various approaches, this elegant work promises to move the theoretical and empirical work in the field forward in a much-needed way.
Dr. Heckhausen is a leader and a creative thinker in the field. She has made numerous important contributions and her unique lifespan perspective has enriched the field in a variety of different ways. The body of work she has amassed is impressive and has helped to define a lifespan approach to agency and developmental regulation. She has engaged in lively theoretical and empirical debates at conferences and in publications (e.g., Heckhausen, 2003). She is well known for the OPS measure of primary and secondary control, which is widely used. Her work on age differences in primary and secondary control is well known and frequently cited (e.g., Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Schulz & Heckhausen, 1996; Heckhausen, 1997). She has expanded our understanding of the development of adaptive functioning in different domains, at different points in the lifespan. Her innovative work on developmental deadlines (e.g., Heckhausen, Wrosch, & Fleeson, 2001) has taken the work on off time-on time trajectories of development to a new level.
Motivation research is a vibrant area, and Dr. Heckhausen is well known for developing and testing her motivational theory of lifespan development. This versatile and creative theory has stimulated a large body of research and is widely cited (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1999; Heckhausen, Wrosch, & Schulz, 2010). More recently, Dr. Heckhausen has expanded her theoretical framework to apply to circumstances of health threats, with her “Lines of Defense” model (Heckhausen, Wrosch, & Schulz, 2013). This work has tremendous potential with applied as well as theoretical value. Dr. Heckhausen works in a collaborative way, and it is this ability to work with others and to synthesize different perspectives that has helped her to make significant breakthroughs in interdisciplinary work. As a colleague and collaborator, Dr. Heckhausen is, in Eriksonian terms, an exemplar of generativity. Always willing to share her perspectives and advice, she is someone who is widely respected not only for her ideas, but foremost for her deep commitment to her fellow scholars in the field. Dr. Heckhausen has had a longstanding collaboration with Richard Schulz in developing the lifespan model of control and motivational lifespan theory. Perhaps more importantly, she has mentored numerous next generation psychologists and gerontologists who have become eminent and productive contributors to the field in their own right. This list includes Frieder Lang, Carsten Wrosch, and Kathrin Boerner, among others. She has single-handedly succeeded in bringing to life what Vygotsky referred to as an optimal zone of proximal development for her junior colleagues
Given Dr. Heckhausen’s high level of expertise and international visibility, she is often called on as an expert consultant. She has been invited to give talks around the U.S. and the world. She served as editor of the Newsletter for the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, and regularly serves as a consultant to major international studies currently underway in Switzerland and Germany.
Dr. Heckhausen has provided us with an amazing record of research, scholarship, service, and collaboration in advancing the study of human (behavioral) development, broadly defined. Dr. Heckhausen continues to be a major player in the field of Gerontology. She has been highly productive in publishing groundbreaking and highly insightful work and there is every reason to believe she will continue at this superior level. Dr. Heckhausen stands out with her long-term commitment to the field of lifespan development and aging, and her highly influential scholarly work.
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