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Kevin Harris

Kevin Harris

Professor

Psychological Science and Counseling

  • PhD - Florida State University
  • M.S. - Mississippi State University
  • B.S. - University of Tennessee - Martin

I received my PhD in Cognitive Psychology at Florida State University under the direction of K. Anders Ericsson, the world's foremost "expert on experts." My primary interests related to expert performance are the cognitive factors underlying professional, athletic, and academic performance along with the underlying mechanisms allowing for skill acquisition and performance enhancement. Much of this work focuses on performance under stressful, dynamic, and potentially life-threatening situations in domains such as medicine, law-enforcement, and the military. This line of research has been featured in numerous outlets including Time, Slate, National Public Radio (NPR), The Tennessean, and a multitude of popular press books.

My education also included extensive training in the area of social psychology, and I maintain an active research interest in the domain. These interests include social cognition, stereotyping and prejudice, and the impact of social media on how we think about ourselves and the world.

  • Expertise and Expert Performance
  • Social Cognition
  • Harris, K. R., Foreman, L. N., & Eccles, D. W. (2020). Representative test and task development and simulated task environments. In P. Ward, J. M. Schraagen, J. Gore, & E. Roth (Eds.), Oxford handbook of expertise: Research and application (pp. 291-311). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  • Harris, K. R., Eccles, D. W., Freeman, C.*, & Ward, P. (2017). "Gun!, Gun!, Gun!": An exploration of law enforcement officers' performance under stress during actual events. Ergonomics, 60, 1112-1122.
  • Harris, K. R., Eccles, D. W. & Shatzer, J. H. (2017). Team deliberate practice in medicine and related domains: A consideration of the issues. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 22, 209-220.
  • Harris, K. R., Bradshaw, C. B., Koch, K., & Whyte, J. (2014). A prescription for misunderstanding: Opportunities for misinterpretation along the information flow from physician to patient. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 4, 1-6.
  • Whyte, J., Pickett-Hauber, R., Ward, P., Eccles, D. W., & Harris, K. R., (2013). The relationship between standardized test scores and clinical performance. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 9, e563-e570.
  • Harris, K. R., Eccles, D. W., Ward, P., & Whyte, J. (2013). A theoretical framework for simulation in nursing: Answering Schiavenato's call. Journal of Nursing Education, 52, 6-16.
  • Harris, K. R., Paul, S. T., & Adams-Price, C. E. (2012). An initial search for visual overshadowing. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65, 1511-1521.
  • Whyte, J., Ward, P., Eccles, D. W., Harris, K. R., Nandagopal, K., & Torof, J. M.*  (2012). Nurses' immediate response to the fall of a hospitalized patient: A comparison of actions and cognitions of experienced and novice nurses. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 49, 1054-1063.
  • Ward, P., Suss, J., Eccles, D. W., Williams, A. M., & Harris, K. R. (2011). Skill-based differences in option generation in a complex task: A verbal protocol analysis. Cognitive Processing, 12, 289-300.
  • Ward, P., Torof, J.*, Whyte IV, J., Eccles, D. W., & Harris, K. R. (2010). Option generation and decision making in critical-care nursing. Proceedings from the 54th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (pp. 354-358). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
  • Ward, P., Farrow, D., Harris, K. R., Williams, A. M., Eccles, D. W., & Ericsson, K. A. (2008). Training perceptual-cognitive skills: Can sport psychology research inform military decision training? Military Psychology, 20, S71-S102.
  • Harris, K. R., Tashman, L., Ward, P., Ericsson, K. A., Eccles, D. W., Williams, A. M., Ramrattan, J., & Lang, L. H. (2006). Planning, evaluation, and cognition: Exploring the structure and mechanisms of expert performance in a representative dynamic task. Proceedings from the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 328-332). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Stewart, T. L., Harris, K. R., van Knippenberg, A., Hermsen, B. J., Joly, J., & Lippman, M. (2006). The effect of attitude toward women on the relative individuation of women and men is mediated by perceived gender subgroups. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 759-775.
  • Tashman, L. S., Harris, K. R., Ramrattan, J., Ward, P., Eccles, D. W., Ericsson, K. A., Williams, A. M., Rodrick, D., & Lang, L. H. (2006). Expert performance in law enforcement: Are skilled performers more effectively constraining the situation to resolve representative dynamic tasks than novices? Proceedings from the 50th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (pp. 1213-1217). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
  • Stewart, T. L., van Knippenberg, A., Joly, J., Lippmann, M., Hermsen, B. J., & Harris, K. R. (2004). The influence of attitudes toward women on the relative individuation of women and men in the Netherlands. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 28, 240-245.