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Paul Harris

Paul B. Harris

Professor of Psychology

Decisions are only as good at the data that informs them. I love teaching research methods because, even if my students do not become researchers, they will become better consumers of information.

Paul Harris has been a professor in the Department of Psychology at Rollins College since 2000. His undergraduate teaching includes courses on research methods and statistics, applied social psychology, environmental psychology, and the psychology of diversity. He has also taught in several Rollins graduate programs, including courses on team building for the MA Human Resources and survey and experimental methods for the Crummer EDBA program. 

Dr. Harris’s training combines social psychology, experimental psychology, and interior design degrees. The design degree reflects an interest in person-environment relationships, which is reflected in research on home attachment, designing optimal library spaces, and environmental contributions to patient satisfaction. He also has expertise in scale construction, including assessments of patient perceptions of quality in healthcare settings, undergraduate perceptions of teaching quality, trait competitiveness, and prosocial and aggressive driving. 

Although he has been engaged in scholarship for over 40 years, Dr. Harris considers himself to be a teacher first and foremost. He grew up on a small liberal arts campus as the son of a chemistry professor and discovered early in his career that he was hooked on the “family business” of higher education. 

Research & Articles

Harris P. B., Houston, J. A., Vazquez, J. A., Smither, J. A., Harms, A., Dahlke, J. A., & Sachau, D. A. (2014) | Accident Analysis and Prevention72, 1-8

Surveys of 1217 undergraduate students supported the reliability (inter-item and test–retest) and validity of the Prosocial and Aggressive Driving Inventory (PADI). Principal component analyses on the PADI items yielded two scales: Prosocial Driving (17 items) and Aggressive Driving (12 items). Prosocial Driving was associated with fewer reported traffic accidents and violations, with participants who were older and female, and with lower Boredom Susceptibility and Hostility scores, and higher scores on Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness, and Neuroticism. Aggressive Driving was associated with more frequent traffic violations, with female participants, and with higher scores on Competitiveness, Sensation Seeking, Hostility, and Extraversion, and lower scores on Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness. The theoretical and practical implications of the PADI’s dual focus on safe and unsafe driving are discussed.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2014.05.023 

Houston, J. M., Harris, P. B., Patrick, S. (2023). | In: Krägeloh, C.U., Alyami, M., Medvedev, O.N. (eds) International Handbook of Behavioral Health Assessment. Springer, Cham.

The Revised Competitiveness Index (CI-R) is a 14-item self-report measure designed to assess the personality trait competitiveness or the desire to win in interpersonal situations. The CI-R total score is the sum of all responses after adjusting for reverse scored items. The CI-R has a stable factor structure and contains two subscales: Enjoyment of Competition, which assesses how much individuals like competing, and Contentiousness, which measures a person’s comfort in challenging or confronting others. Men tend to score higher than women on the CI-R and Enjoyment of Competition subscale, but no gender differences have been found with Contentiousness subscale scores. Researchers have used the CI-R in nearly 100 studies and have translated the measure into several different languages. Given that competitiveness becomes a potentially important factor whenever people socially interact, it is not surprising that researchers have used the CI-R to investigate a wide range of behavioral health topics ranging from aggressive driving to physical fitness. In addition, the CI-R has been used to examine work-related issues such as occupational choice, the attractiveness of job duties and activities, and work performance. Cross-cultural research indicates that the factor structure of the CI-R remains relatively stable across different cultures. However, gender differences tend to appear more in individualistic cultures with males reporting higher levels of competitiveness. Overall, findings from diverse research contexts and cultural settings indicate that the CI-R is a reliable and valid measure of competitiveness and that it is applicable to a broad range of research questions.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89738-3_30-1

Harris P. B., & Schweighardt, S. N. (2017). | In S. E. Montgomery (Ed.), Assessing library space for learning (pp. 29-49). Rowman & Littlefield.

With the surge in electronic access to the library’s resources, there has been an ongoing discussion about the need for a physical library building. On a college or university campus, the library is a destination for its users. Students, faculty and staff go to the library for various reasons. Their usage makes the academic library a valuable learning space on campus. However, not much is known about how the library space contributes to user learning. In Assessing Library Space for Learning, chapters discuss library usage at academic institutions and how that usage is an integral part of the student learning experience.

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442279285/Assessing-Library-Space-for-Learning