Case Western Reserve University Distinguished University Professor and H. Clark Ford Professor Richard Boyatzis has been awarded the Christopher J. Peterson Gold Medal for contributions to the field of positive psychology from the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA).
“The IPPA award is a delightful surprise,” says Boyatzis, who is a professor of organizational behavior in the Weatherhead School of Management. “It is a deep honor to be recognized by one’s peers.”
The Christopher J. Peterson Gold Medal is awarded to a member, who best exemplifies positive psychology at the personal, professional and academic levels.
Boyatzis’ research largely focuses on how people and organizations engage in sustainable, desired change using his well-established intentional change theory (ICT) and complexity theory. The theory predicts how changes occur in different groups of human organizations, including team, community, country and global change.
“I began my work on change, first at the individual level with alcoholics and drug addicts, then dyads in therapy and later coaching, then teams, organizations, communities and even country level change,” Boyatzis says. “The dominant paradigm in all of the related change fields was and has continued to be to identify and fix problems.”
Boyatzis started his research with Professor Emeritus of Organizational Behavior David Kolb at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967, where he received his bachelor’s degree. The work continued with Kolb at Harvard University, where Boyatzis earned his master’s degree and PhD.
The pair's work focused on how to help people change in desired ways and how to help sustained, desired change.
“The key, it turns out, decades and many dozens of studies later from behavioral, longitudinal to neuroimaging with fMRI [functional magnetic resonance imaging] and hormonal studies, is hope and vision—a sense of purpose—not fixing a problem or achieving a specific goal,” Boyatzis says. “The most pivotal context is the caring and trusting relationship with others involved, not an instrumental task focused relationship.”
Boyatzis continues, “Our studies show what my intentional change theory predicts, which is a positive bias through the positive emotional attractor makes it possible. For years, some of the purists in positive psychology believed I was not one of them because I acknowledge the need for working on weaknesses at times and the utility of the negative emotional attractor.”
The award from IPPA joins a long list of honors Boyatzis has received over his lifetime. Two of his most recent recognitions from 2022 include: the Lifetime Achievement Award from Organizational Neuroscience Interest Group at the Academy of Management; and being named in the top 2% of scientists in the world by citations from PLOS Biology Journal.
Boyatzis will receive the IPPA award at the International Positive Psychology Association World Congress on Positive Psychology conference on July 20-23 in Vancouver, Canada.
“This award assured me that others see the possibility of sustained, desired change in a similar way,” Boyatzis says. “Without amazing colleagues like Professors Melvin Smith, Ellen Van Oosten, Tony Jack and insightful doctoral students, like Professors Scott Taylor, Angela Passareli, Kylie Rochford, Hector Martinez, Anita Howard and many others, none of this research would have been possible, and without the support and encouragement of a brilliant OB department.”