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Intentional change from a complexity perspective
Professor Richard Boyatzis
Much has been written about the importance of our dreams or aspirations in motivating change or development ([73] Oettingen, 1996; [90], [91] Snyder, 2000a, b; [120] McClelland, 1985; [58] Lewin and Dembo, 1947). Some of this comes from the goal setting and goal orientation literature ([60] Locke and Latham, 1990; [104] Van Der Walle et al. , 2001), and reaching as far back as [58] Lewin and Dembo's (1947) conceptualization of levels of aspiration as contrasted to a person's level of activation. In recent years, a person's "vision" and visualization of desired behavior ([102] Taylor et al. , 1998) have been described as an element in sports performance ([94] Snyder et al. , 2002), academic performance ([36] Curry et al. , 1997), psychotherapy ([78] Schecter, 1974), and helping recovery from illness and surgery ([71] Moyers, 1993; [66] Matthews et al. , 2004). Related psychological concepts, such as hope, efficacy, optimism and positive expectations, have helped to elaborate selected processes by which the person may look to the future, and a hopeful and/or positive future, and drive the popularity of positive psychology ([84] Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Yet, little theoretical work has been done to integrate these ideas or research.
In this article, we offer a theoretical model of the ideal self. It is proposed that the ideal self is the driver of intentional change in one's behaviour, emotions, perceptions, and attitudes. The ideal self is the first discovery of intentional change theory (i.e. ICT) as described in the first article in this special issue (Boyatzis, earlier in this issue). Because of misguided and incomplete models of how to stimulate desired, intentional change, the ideal self is perhaps the least understood of all of the components of ICT.
The ideal self
The ideal self is a psychological component of the self ([17] Baumeister, 1998, a, b; [49] Higgins, 1989a) partially conscious and partially unconscious, varying from individual to individual. It is both privately conceptualised and socially influenced (in [72] Nasby, 1997; [78] Schecter, 1974). The traditional psychoanalytic therapeutic model sees idealisation as a defensive function of the self and thus in need of therapeutic intervention (in [78] Schecter, 1974). Within the perspective of positive psychology, the ideal...