Richard Evans

1922 - 2015

Richard I. Evans
1922-2015
Richard I. Evans was born on August 29, 1922 in Chicago, Illinois and died on April 20, 2015 in Houston, Texas. He grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Before completing his undergraduate degree, he enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II and was assigned to General George S. Patton's Third Army. After landing at Normandy, he was later wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and earned a Purple Heart. During his recovery, Evans decided to pursue psychology as a result of encouragement from those who cared for him in the hospital. He completed his B.A. at the University of Pittsburgh and received his PhD in psychology from Michigan State University in 1950.
Professor Evans joined the psychology department of the University of Houston in 1950 and began the social psychology program. He was the first professor in the United States to teach a television course for credit on Channel 8 starting in 1953 with an estimated viewership of 20,000.
In 1957, Professor Evans performed a rare videotaped interview with Carl Jung. He then received National Science Foundation funding for numerous subsequent videotaped interviews of eminent figures in psychology and behavior including B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, Konrad Lorenz, Albert Bandura, and many others (available at www.mediasales.psu.edu/). He once said, "It was my dream to expose students to historically eminent figures in psychology and encourage them to read their work." With an avid interest in theater and the psychology of comedy, he also performed an interview with playwright Arthur Miller, Joan Rivers, Buddy Hackett, and others.
Johnny Carson read a review of Evans' book based upon the Jung interview and invited Professor Evans to appear as a guest on the Tonight Show with 10 subsequent appearances over the next decade. Professor Evans also had numerous other television appearances including The Dick Cavett Show, The Merv Griffin Show, 20/20, The Today Show, and the Houston news channels. Interviews appeared in numerous newspapers including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Houston Chronicle.
In the 1960s, Evans serendipitously coined the term "workaholic," which is still widely used today. In social psychology, he developed the social inoculation prevention model that addressed the problems of why children and adolescents began smoking, despite obvious dangers to their health. After conducting interviews with hundreds of junior high school students and studying how they resisted pressures to smoke, he and his colleagues gained insight as to how peer pressure influenced them. He authored the 1979 U.S. Surgeon General's Report on Smoking in Children and Adolescents. What began as research targeting tobacco use expanded to address other addictions such as drug abuse, alcoholism and gambling. The initial research was done in collaboration with heart surgeon, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, and Baylor College of Medicine. Funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Evans developed several strategies to get the message through to young people, with just one of the various resistance skills being "just say no." He never imagined that this one phrase would become a powerful campaign promoted by First Lady Nancy Reagan to discourage children from using recreational drugs.
In addition to publishing 20 books and more than 300 research papers and professional articles, Evans' extensive funding history included being among the upper 5 percent of total grant amounts funded by the NIH during the last 25 years of his career.
Among the numerous awards Evans received during the course of his lifetime, he was particularly proud of being recognized as a Phi Kappa Phi Distinguished Scholar and for receiving the Esther Farfel Award, which is the highest distinction bestowed upon faculty by the University of Houston. Among others, he was also awarded the 1992 American Psychological Association Award for Outstanding Contribution to Health Psychology; Distinguished Psychologist Award from the Texas Psychological Association and the Texas Psychological Foundation; the Award of Excellence from the National Association of Community Health Centers for his model community adolescent health promotion projection; and the National Media Award from the American Psychological Foundation for his book, "Gordan Allport: The Man and His Ideas." He was an outstanding teacher and mentor for several generations of numerous undergraduate and graduate students. He retired as a distinguished emeritus professor in 2011. Bringing psychology to both academic and mainstream audiences, Evans was a pioneer in social psychology, behavioral medicine and health psychology.
Professor Evans had numerous other interests including playing the violin, classical music, playing competitive tennis until the age of 80, college and professional sports (especially the Cougars, Astros, Texans, Rockets, and professional tennis), and the psychology of politics.
He was predeceased by his wife, Zena; by his sister, Esther; brother, Joseph; and by his parents, Louis and Rochel Evans.
Professor Evans was a kind and loving husband, father, and grandfather and will be greatly missed by his survivors (and their spouses) including his brother, Phillip (Roberta) Evans; his children, Sharon Dreyer (Lance, deceased); Dennis (Jayne) Cohan: Randy (Marilyn) Evans; Vicki (Carlos) Evans; his 12 grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.
Instead of flowers, a donation in his memory may be made to the University of Houston Department of Psychology (https://giving.uh.edu/psychology/ or 713-743-8522).
A memorial service will be held Friday, April 24, 2015, at 1:00 pm, at Congregation Beth Yeshurun.