Robert Vallerand

Robert Vallerand

Robert Vallerand is a Canadian psychologist at the Université du Québec à Montréal, where he holds a Canada Research Chair in motivational processes and optimal functioning. He has run a research programme on the psychology of passion for roughly twenty years and is the author of the Dualistic Model of Passion, which distinguishes harmonious from obsessive passion. It is a real and well-supported construct, and his own labels for the two forms are neutral rather than evaluative.

Who they are

Passion, in Vallerand's definition, is a strong inclination toward an activity that a person likes, finds important, and invests time and energy in. An activity becomes passionate when it satisfies needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness, which is self-determination theory supplying the mechanism underneath.

The model's contribution is the split. Harmonious passion is autonomously internalised: the activity is a significant but not overpowering part of identity, and it sits in harmony with the rest of a person's life. Obsessive passion is driven by contingencies such as self-esteem or self-acceptance which come to control the person, and it is addictive in structure, because the activity may be the only place where important psychological rewards are available. The same visible commitment can be either one, and the question the model asks is what is holding the commitment in place.

The construct is supported by a measurement instrument, the passion scale published in 2003, and by a research programme that has run on it since. It is one of the few genuinely new and well-founded additions this vault has taken from the popular psychology literature rather than in spite of it.

Two things to watch, both about how the work is reported rather than about the work. The first is the labels: a secondary source in this vault relabels the two forms healthy harmonious and unhealthy obsessive. Vallerand's own labels are neutral, and the evaluative gloss should not be carried into anything published as though it were the construct's own language. The second is attribution: self-determination theory supplies the mechanism the model runs on, and its originators go unnamed in the chapter this vault took the material from.

Key papers

Vallerand, R. J., et al. (2003). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(4), 756-767. The passion scale, and the instrument the research programme runs on. Note that one secondary source's reference list carries a standalone entry under a co-author's name that duplicates this paper.

Vallerand, R. J. (2008). Canadian Psychology, 49(1), 1-13. The definition of passion the Dualistic Model uses.

Curran, T., Hill, A. P., Appleton, P. R., Vallerand, R. J., & Standage, M. (2015). Motivation and Emotion. The likely source of the outcome claims made about the model in a secondary source this vault holds. That identification is this site's, not the secondary source's, and is marked as such.

Article titles are not recorded in the vault for these entries and are not supplied here.

Key ideas

Passion is a strong inclination toward an activity a person likes, finds important, and invests time and energy in. That is the definition the model works from.

Harmonious passion is autonomously internalised, a significant but not overpowering part of identity, in harmony with the rest of life.

Obsessive passion is driven by contingencies such as self-esteem or self-acceptance, which come to control the person. It is addictive in structure because the activity may be the only place the important rewards live.

Self-determination theory supplies the mechanism. Competence, autonomy and relatedness are what make an activity become passionate, and the theory's originators are usually left out of the retelling.

The labels are neutral, and should stay neutral. Healthy and unhealthy are a secondary source's gloss and not part of the construct.

Sources

  1. Vallerand, R. J., et al. (2003). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(4), 756-767. The passion scale.
  2. Vallerand, R. J. (2008). Canadian Psychology, 49(1), 1-13. The definition of passion.
  3. Curran, T., Hill, A. P., Appleton, P. R., Vallerand, R. J., & Standage, M. (2015). Motivation and Emotion. Identified by this site rather than by the secondary source that relies on it.
  4. Université du Québec à Montréal. Affiliation, and the Canada Research Chair in motivational processes and optimal functioning.
  5. Vault note: [[Robert Vallerand]], which records the instruction not to carry the evaluative relabelling.