Motivation and Action

Jutta Heckhausen studied psychology at Ruhr University of Bochum in Germany. She wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on mother-infant dyads in joint object-centered action at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, in 1985, and her postdoctoral dissertation (Habilitation) on developmental regulation in adulthood at the Free University of Berlin in 1996. She was a postdoctoral Fellow, and then a research scientist, followed by senior scientist and head of a research group Developmental Regulation and Lifespan Development at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin. Since 2000, Dr Heckhausen has been a professor in the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. In 1999, Dr Heckhausen was awarded the Max Planck Research Award for International Cooperation. Her main research interests include motivation and development across the lifespan, goal engagement and disengagement, developmental regulation during major life-course transitions and health problems, and cultural universals and differences in striving for control. Heinz Heckhausen studied psychology at the University of Munster, Germany, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on task motivation and achievement in 1954, followed by his postdoctoral dissertation (Habilitation) on achievement motivation, hope for success and fear of failure in 1962. He was a research scientist at the University of Munster until 1962 and then became Professor of Psychology at Ruhr University, Bochum, where he founded the Department of Psychology. From 1983 until his death in 1988 he was director at the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich. Dr Heckhausen was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Wassenaar, 1971-2, and from 1980 to 1982 he was president of the German Psychological Society (DGPs). In 1981, Dr Heckhausen was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Oslo, and in 1988 he received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Dr Heckhausen's research interests included achievement motivation, motivation and volition in the course of action, development of motivation, measurement of motives, and causal attribution of action outcomes.