Harry Reis

Professor of Psychology and Dean's Professor in Arts, Sciences, and Engineering University of Rochester

  • Rochester NY

Professor Harry Reis' research interests involve social interaction and close relationships.

Contact

University of Rochester

View more experts managed by University of Rochester

View all Experts

Spotlight

1 min

Intimate relationships demand real understanding

University of Rochester psychology professor Harry Reis says it's important for us to have "real understanding" in our closest relationships so that others know who we are and will, in turn, be caring, validating, and accepting. And as Reis puts it, "With all the stresses and tensions that we're experiencing today, there's an even greater need to connect with people." In his research, Reis investigates some of the psychological processes that affect the course and conduct of close relationships, with a particular focus on intimacy, attachment, and emotion regulation. In any close relationship, Reis says it's important to put aside presumptions of what the other is thinking or feeling, and, instead, listen to what that person is actually saying. Reis points out that understanding has value beyond intimate relationships. For example, he says medical care works better when patients feel doctors are truly listening. "It's also important in the classroom. Students are more likely to succeed when they feel their teachers understand them and their priorities."

Harry Reis

1 min

Valentines Day thoughtfulness has intrinsic rewards, says University of Rochester professor

We’ve all heard that it’s better to give than to receive. When it comes to Valentines Day, there’s empirical evidence to show that being thoughtful to a spouse is rewarding in and of itself. A 2017 study by University of Rochester Psychology Professor Harry Reis shows that when we show compassion toward our partner—when we put aside personal wishes in order to meet the partner’s needs—it makes us feel better, even if—and this was a surprise—those acts of compassion go unrecognized by the recipient.  Over the course of 14 days, husbands and wives reported giving and receiving an average of .65 and .59 compassionate acts each day—with husbands perceiving more such acts than did their partners. The acts included such things as changing personal plans for the partner’s sake, doing something that showed the partner was valued, and expressing tenderness for the spouse. For Reis, the results suggest that acting compassionately may be its own reward, or in this case, its own Valentines gift. Professor Reis’s research interests involve social interaction and close relationships. He studies the factors that influence the quantity and closeness of social interaction, and the consequences of different patterns of socializing for health and psychological well-being. 

Harry Reis

Areas of Expertise

Marriage and Close Relationships
Health and Psychological Well Being
Social interaction
Intimacy
Emotion Regulation

Biography

Professor Reis' research interests involve social interaction and close relationships. He studies the factors that influence the quantity and closeness of social interaction, and the consequences of different patterns of socializing for health and psychological well-being. In his research, subjects keep detailed records on their on-going social interaction. These are tabulated by computer and related to various factors such as sex role, health, and emotional well-being.

Professor Reis also looks at the psychological processes that affect the course and conduct of close relationships. He is particularly interested in intimacy, attachment, and emotion regulation.

Education

New York University

Ph.D.

Social-Personality Psychology

1975

New York University

M.A.

Social-Personality Psychology

1972

City College of New York

B.S.

Psychology

1970

Affiliations

  • Council for International Exchange of Scholars : Fulbright Scholars Discipline Review Committee
  • Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology : Board member

Selected Media Appearances

This Science-Backed Trick Could Help Prevent Infidelity In A Relationship

Huffington Post  online

2023-02-14

“I think the benefits of perspective-taking holds true as long as people can stop and consider how romantic partners may be affected by these situations,” said study coauthor Harry Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester and the author of “Relationships, Well-Being and Behaviour.”

View More

5 Habits That Have Been Wiped Out By The Internet

Huffington Post  online

2022-10-31

Harry Reis said that arguably we're better off with the internet. If the whole point of a letter was to connect, the internet has allowed just that.

View More

Opinion | What Is Fun? Can I Have It? Will We Ever Have It Again?

New York Times  print

2022-08-21

Fun has just a few published studies. Dr. Harry Reis said that, to his knowledge, no psychology textbook has "fun" anywhere in its index.

View More

Show All +

Selected Event Appearances

Eclipsing Mars and Venus: Implications of a dimensional view of sex differences

Science Teachers Association of New York State  Rochester, NY

2014-11-01

The science of interpersonal relationships

Distinguished lectures, Universidad El Bosque  Bogotá, Colombia

2014-08-01

The science of friendship and marriage

One-Day University  New York, NY

2014-04-01

Show All +

Selected Articles

Does support need to be seen? Daily invisible support promotes next day relationship well-being.

Journal of Family Psychology

Grime, Y. U., Maniaci, M. R., Reis, H. T., McNulty, J. K., Carmichael, C. L., Gable, S. L., Baker, L. R., Overall, N. C.

2018

Direct and overt visible support promotes recipients' relationship satisfaction but can also exacerbate negative mood. In contrast, subtle and indirect invisible support can bypass costs to mood, but it is unclear whether it undermines or boosts relationship satisfaction. Because invisible support is not perceived by recipients, its relational impact may be delayed across time. Thus, the current research used three dyadic daily diary studies (total N = 322 married couples) to explore, for the first time, both the immediate (same day) and lagged (next day) effects of visible and invisible support on recipients' mood and relationship satisfaction. Consistent with prior research, visible support was associated with recipients reporting greater relationship satisfaction and greater anxiety the same day. In contrast, but also consistent with prior research, invisible support had no significant same-day effects, and thus avoided mood costs. Nevertheless, invisible support was associated with recipients reporting greater relationship satisfaction the next day. Study 3 provided evidence that such effects emerged because invisible support was also associated with greater satisfaction with partners' helpful behaviors (e.g., household chores) and relationship interactions (e.g., time spent together) on the next day. These studies demonstrate the importance of assessing different temporal effects associated with support acts (which may otherwise go undetected) and provide the first evidence that invisible support enhances relationship satisfaction but does so across days.

View more

Perceived partner responsiveness promotes intellectual humility

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Reis, H. T., Lee, K. Y., O'Keefe, S. D., Clark, M. S.

2018

The relatively novel construct of intellectual humility describes people's tendency to be open-minded and non-defensive when appraising oneself and one's beliefs. Although intellectual humility describes an intrapersonal style of processing information, we theorize that it also has interpersonal roots. This article describes four experiments and one daily-diary study examining the impact of perceived partner responsiveness and unresponsiveness on two manifestations of intellectual humility, lesser self-serving bias and openness to novel information that may contradicting existing beliefs. Studies 1–3 indicated that three well-established examples of self-serving bias—the tendency to rate oneself as better than an average peer, overclaiming personal responsibility for shared household activities, and hindsight bias—were strengthened when people were induced to perceive their partners as unresponsive, but weakened when they were led to perceive their partners as responsive. Study 4, a daily-diary study, demonstrated similar effects of everyday perceptions of responsiveness on hindsight bias, and also found that people reported having been more open to considering alternative, potentially conflicting points of view when they felt that their social environment was responsive to them. Finally, Study 5 found that perceived partner responsiveness led people to adopt a broader perspective. Together, these studies point to perceptions of responsiveness and unresponsiveness as one factor that lessens and intensifies, respectively, openness and non-defensiveness.

View more

Perceived Partner Responsiveness Scale (PPRS)

The Sourcebook of Listening Research: Methodology and Measures

Reis, H. T., Crasta, D., Rogge, R. D., Maniaci, M. R., & Carmichael, C. L.

2018

The PPRS is a measure of people's perceptions of their relationship partners' responsiveness to themselves.

View more

Show All +
Powered by