Victor W. Harris

• PhD
• Professor at University of Florida

This study explored the relationship between mindfulness and conflict resolution in 536 heterosexual couples in the southeastern U.S. Using regression and actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) analyses, the findings revealed that higher mindfulness in both male and female partners was linked to better conflict resolution skills. Mindful partne...

This study investigated a hypothesized model underlying the association between consensus on common topics in couple relationships and romantic relationship satisfaction, while investigating the roles of the need fulfillment of romantic partners and relationship commitment (i.e., dedication commitment) among a sample of 183 adults from the southeas...

This publication takes a look at two different parenting styles, discusses their potential impacts on children’s development and behaviors, and lists helpful parenting strategies. Written by Madalyn Klein and Victor W. Harris, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, October 2024.

This study examined the impact of the Positive Behavioral Management Strategies (PBMS) online educational program on 624 participants in the southeastern region of the United States. The PBMS program incorporates established behavioral management principles with new research-based practices to promote healthy, positive relationships between adults...

At its core, the family unit is composed of individual members. The way in which an individual engages in self-care practices has been shown to influence their ability to interact with others. Minimal research has explored the impact of an individual’s self-care on broader family functioning. Through a systems theory lens, this paper aims to elucid...

Although studies have examined the association between individuals' mindfulness and romantic relationship quality, additional empirical research is necessary to specifically comprehend the potential factors influencing the association between mindfulness and couple quality. The purpose of the present study was to inves-tigate the association betwee...

Although studies have focused on identifying the association between family-related factors (e.g., family relationship quality) and youth’s career decision-making self-efficacy, additional empirical evidence is necessary to clarify the potential factors influencing the connection between family relationship quality and youth’s career decision-makin...

Studies investigating the potential structures underlying the connection between mindfulness and romantic relationship quality are not sufficient and require additional empirical findings. The current study aimed to examine a hypothesized model underlying the association between mindfulness and relationship quality, while investigating the roles of...

While all families are responsible for the ethnic-racial socialization of their children, this process represents a nuanced undertaking for parents who have adopted transracially. Following the model of change (Mace, Citation1981), this paper first presents a review of the socialization and transracial adoption literature with a special focus on in...

Relationship satisfaction has consistently been associated with numerous important intrapersonal, interpersonal, and familial outcomes. In accordance with affection exchange theory, positive interaction between romantic partners should contribute to greater relationship satisfaction. However, what is less understood is the specific theoretical mech...

Objective We describe the process and outcomes of developing continuous quality improvement (CQI) procedures for a multiyear, multimillion‐dollar healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood (HMRF) relationship enhancement education program. We present lessons learned, including adaptations used to move all programming online due to the COVID‐19 pan...

Studies to identify the association between individuals’ attachment patterns and their marital attitudes are insufficient and necessitate more empirical study. The current study aimed to investigate the impact of attachment styles on attitudes toward marriage and the mediating role of emotional intimacy among 182 participants at a southeastern univ...

In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, governments around the world implemented lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, requiring many families to quickly adjust to drastic changes in their daily lives. Business closures have caused many individuals to transition to working remotely, deal with the loss of employment, or, for essential employees, face...

Social emotional abilities (i.e., specific skills), defined as the set of cognitive abilities, emotion-based knowledge, and behavioral competencies (i.e., skill levels) that facilitate adaptively employing prosocial processes and behaviors (i.e., “actions”), such as emotional regulation and sympathetic and empathetic response behaviors, is contempo...

Social Judgment Theory can be a useful tool in understanding the ways in which judgment plays a role in how Child Protective Investigators determine if a child has been neglected. In most States, more children are removed by charges of 'neglect only' than for any other reason. A close examination of the States' definitions of childhood neglect may...

Background: Sibling perspectives on the experiences of families caring for an autistic child are often overlooked in autism research. While qualitative research on these lived experiences has grown, it continues to primarily focus on parent reports. Aims: This study explored how having a sibling with autism impacts the non-autistic siblings with...

Contemporary society has been characterized by its social complexity, which was boosted thanks to international migration flows, among other factors. This phenomenon brought us ‘superdiversity’ as a concept, which has been very well received by many social scientists, as well as criticized by others due to its similarities with previous notions suc...

Superdiversity as a term has captured the attention of many researchers since it was first coined in 2007. However, the very characteristics of the concept have made its methodological operationalization insufficiently clear, beyond being bridged by the great migratory movements of the 21st century. As a result, we find a considerable diversity of...

The Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS) evaluation is a random assignment impact study and in-depth process study of five healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) grantees funded by the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). To maximize its contribution...

SMART Couples Florida is a five-year (2015-2020), five-million-dollar federal grant project under the direction of Dr. Victor Harris in the University of Florida’s Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences. The project’s goal is to strengthen marriages, relationships, and families among Florida residents across ethnicities and income level...

SMART Couples Florida is a five-year (2015-2020), five-million-dollar federal grant project under the direction of Dr. Victor Harris in the University of Florida’s Department of Family, Youth, and Community Sciences. The project’s goal is to strengthen marriages, relationships, and families among Florida residents across ethnicities and income leve...

Residents of Andalusia (Spain) experienced major public housing challenges during the financial crisis. In this study, social work practices in the public housing field in Andalusia and the primary roles they are playing to help negotiate these challenges and influence housing policy are analyzed. Twenty-eight in-depth qualitative interviews were c...

The United States of America is a country with a long tradition of migration in which second- and third-generation Americans have been assimilated into a cultural ‘melting pot.’ This multicultural reality highlights the many varied elements of superdiversity that make up the complex characteristics of contemporary society in this country. In the pr...

The purpose of this qualitative study was to assess how eight categories of needs are met in Hispanic American families within the context of familism. Derived from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the categories examined include the need to: (1) feel safe; (2) belong; (3) develop a positive self-concept; (4) experience close real-love relationships; (...

Using their cross-disciplinary review of Ideas that Work in College Teaching, the authors explore the pedagogical commonalities of fifteen higher education instructors from SUNY Potsdam (State University of New York at Potsdam) in an attempt to reveal the secrets of teaching success across thirteen academic disciplines—math, computer science, geolo...

Human services educators are continually seeking ways to make instruction more effective and engaging. This study evaluated the AIAI-FTFD (Attention, Interact, Apply, Invite-Fact, Think, Feel, Do) Start-to-Finish Teaching Model for educators in an ongoing premarital educational program to determine the model's effectiveness in implementing the conc...

In this study, household “Negative Interaction” behaviors (counterproductive behavior between home occupants) were measured by examining “Household Budgetary Constraints” (a relative measure of the balance between income and expenses), via the discriminant analysis segmentation strategy: Decision-Ade. In the current methodological study, the Decisi...

Relationships are significantly stressed in the Southeastern United States. Of the six states in the Gulf region (Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas), four are in the top-third of the nation's highest divorce rates. Threats to relationship household stability cause a myriad of social problems and public expenses of approxi...

Relationship stability represents a major economic interest not only to Florida, but to every state in the nation. The cumulative expenses related to relationship dissolution (including litigation costs, foregone tax revenues, and federal assistance programs such as Medicaid, child welfare SCHIP, TANF, WIC and SNAP) are estimated to cost taxpayers...

Relationship mindfulness is the degree to which individuals tend to be mindful during interactions with romantic partners. In this study, we examined both the intrapersonal and interpersonal links between relationship mindfulness and psychological and relationship functioning in a sample of 219 couples who had been in their relationship for at leas...

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore American parents' proximal and distal motivations for choosing domestic and international adoption from the distinctive viewpoint of adoptive parents own words and perspectives using the lenses of culture and social exchange theory. The findings from this study revealed three primary factors that...

LGBTQ children are overrepresented in the foster care system in the United States. These children are also at higherrisk for homelessness and suicide. While there are some legal protections for this population, more research andadvocacy are needed to help these young people thrive despite their situations. An intersectional feminist perspectiveon a...

Siblings share a compelling bond that can be either positive or detrimental to their individual development. This article discusses siblings in the unnatural context of foster care, using attachment theory to explain when siblings should be kept together, and then examines underlying concerns that make separation the healthiest option. While it is...

This paper examines, through the lens of critical race theory (CRT), beliefs often asserted by self-described,open-minded white educators about their students of color. While these teachers may perceive themselves as liberaland inclusive, their interactions with students of color are shrouded by white privilege which can be disenfranchisingto stude...

This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the study abroad experience on student multicultural competence (i.e. knowledge and awareness) using the Multicultural Counselling Knowledge and Awareness Scale in two study abroad programmes during four separate yearly excursions. The first study abroad programme incorporated cultural immers...

Little research exists on long-term outcomes for adults who have been in foster care as children, with even less research on former foster children who become foster parents themselves. Foster care and maltreatment exert significant independent and interdependent impacts on youth outcomes. While traditional research often focuses on predicting and...

This study represents a Time 1 intervention and a three-month follow-up at Time 2 to assess the impact of a relationship education program adapted from Gottman’s nine skills of communication. The researchers mapped the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral learning outcomes generated by using the AIAI-FTFD start-to-finish teaching model while comple...

This study represents a Time 1 intervention and a three-month follow-up at Time 2 to assess the impact of a relationship education program adapted from Gottman’s nine skills of communication. The researchers mapped the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral learning outcomes generated by using the AIAI-FTFD start-to-finish teaching model while comple...

The importance of program evaluation for decision making, accountability, and sustainability is examined in this article. Pros and cons of traditional pretest-posttest and posttest-then-retrospective-pretest methodologies are discussed. A case study of Utah’s 4-H mentoring program using a posttest-then-retrospective-pretest design is presented. Fur...

The purpose of the current study was to explore social and cognitive relationships among students when they are solving complex cognitive tasks in online discussion forums (self-regulated). An online course targeting interventions for risk behaviors was developed in the Virtual Campus of Andalusia, Spain. A total of 9878 units of meaning posted in...

Extension educators are continually seeking ways to make instruction more effective and engaging. This study evaluated the Attention, Interact, Apply, and Invite – Fact, Think, Feel, Do (AIAI-FTFD) Start-to-Finish Teaching Model for human service educators in an ongoing Extension educational program to determine the effectiveness of this model in i...

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the role that friendship, trust, and love played in the courtship and marriages of eleven German heterosexual couples (twenty-two individuals, including three couples of mixed national heritage) who reported their marriages to be happy. A conceptual model is proposed of how the components of frie...

This paper presents an analytical approach to the reality of Spanish-Moroccan families in Spain, constructed from two areas of data collection. The first was collected from available intermarriage data (in which at least one of the two members of the couple was Moroccan) and the second from the available data about children of these unions. The ana...

The main objective of this study was to extend previous research in the area of longitudinal marital satisfaction by examining how marital issues, including decision-making, activities, affection, conflict, financial matters, stability, and values, changed over the first 5 years of marriage for 242 Utah, Latter-Day-Saint individuals. In addition, t...

“Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.” — John Wilmot Parents and teachers often experience a lot of insecurities, especially with regard to helping children manage their own behaviors. Not surprisingly, there are many similarities in the skills that effective parents and teach...

When a child is locked in the bathroomWith water runningAnd he says he is doing nothingBut the dog is barking,Call 911.–Erma Bombeck Research indicates that there must be at least an 8-to-1 positive-to-negative interaction ratio for parents and teachers to have a positive relationship with their children and students. Put simply, both verbal and no...

Tell me and I forget,Teach me and I may remember,Involve me and I learn. The general goal of healthy parenting and teaching is to produce children and students who can think critically, make good decisions, and become independent, accountable, responsible, and contributing members of society. Part 3 of this Positive Discipline: Behavioral Managemen...

American families have changed dramatically over the last century. Currently, about half the children in the United States will live apart from their fathers some time during their childhood because their parents have separated and the proportion of births to unmarried women has risen from 5 percent in 1960 to 41 percent in 2011. But a father who i...

The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, natio...

Extension agents are encouraged to use new technologies to reach and teach their clientele. To uncover the prevalence and effectiveness of technology use, a survey was conducted among family and consumer sciences agents in the southern region of the United States. The results show that there is not much deviation from PowerPoint presentations, thou...

Love is saying "I feel differently" instead of "you're wrong." Anonymous Conflict is natural. Everyone experiences it in their relationships and daily lives. No couple is perfect and agrees on everything or gets along with each other all the time. What's important is that healthy couples learn ways to manage these conflicts and negative feelings so...

I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that money affects a relationship more than anything else. "M" just does not stand for marriage, it also stands for money. Suze Orman 1 Financial management is the process of wisely budgeting, spending, saving, and investing the money you earn. 2 Managing money is an important part of being in a relationsh...

A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers." Ruth Bell Graham Negotiating conflict in constructive ways can help reduce negativity and preserve a healthy communication system that promotes appreciation, admiration, trust, and respect in a couple's relationship or marriage. A number of general issues can provide the context and trigger for c...

When we communicate in healthy ways, we build relationships that promote appreciation, admiration, trust, and respect. Developing healthy patterns of effective communication is as important in our interactions with family members as it is at work and in the community. Here are some examples of how healthy communication supports healthy relationship...

Children can be a source of happiness and joy, but they also can be a source of stress, frustration, worry, and heartache. All parents face challenges, so it's important to learn about healthy parenting practices. These skills can help you build strong family relationships and create a home where children feel safe, secure, and loved. Healthy paren...

Benefits of Healthy and Effective Communication When we communicate in healthy ways, we can effectively interact in ways that promote appreciation, admiration, trust, and respect in our relationships. Developing healthy patterns of effective communication is as important in our interactions with family members as it is at work and in the community....

Healthy financial management skills can be strong predictors of happy relationships. Couples who communicate effectively about finances, have little or no debt (or who are actively working toward paying off their debt), and live within their means tend to be more stable and satisfied in their marriages, while those who struggle with financial issue...

The purpose of this study was to expand existing research on the Attention, Interact, Apply, and Invite – Fact, Think, Feel, Do (AIAI-FTFD) Start-to-Finish Teaching Model to assess its effectiveness as an instructional tool for preparing Human Service and Extension (HSE) educators across instructional contexts to teach effectively. The study used q...

Learning to be mindful is a powerful skill that can help you face the stresses of day-to-day life and improve both your psychological and physical health. Because you don’t need any equipment to practice mindfulness, you can practice it discreetly anywhere, at any time. This 6-page fact sheet was written by Parth Naik, Victor Harris, and Larry Fort...

Over the past 30 years obesity among children has increased. One way to help youth make healthy food choices is by creating healthy eating choices and habits at home, starting with family meals. When parents value family dinners, children are likely to view family dinners as important. Family meals can provide important examples to show children wh...

Getting married and staying married require a complicated calculus of factors that must come together to produce healthy and satisfying relationships. While couple interactional processes tend to be the most predictive of whether or not they will stay together and find happiness, background and contextual factors and individual traits also factor h...

If your child is diagnosed with a mental illness, you will face major changes in your life. Being proactive about your child’s care and advocating for him or her will help you and your child handle the illness successfully. This 5-page fact sheet was written by Tracy DeCubellis, Victor W. Harris, and Martie Gillen, and published by the UF Departmen...

Families reuniting after an intervention that requires foster care for the children face unique challenges. Parents in these situations may need to learn about their parental roles, the basic needs for the healthy development of their children, and resources that will help the family in their reunification. Researchers and practitioners in child we...

Defining what a healthy romantic relationship is can be challenging. Thankfully, modern research has given us a good idea of what healthy dating and marriage relationships look like. Use this fact sheet to determine what a healthy relationship looks like to you. Then take the survey to get an idea of the strengths already present in your relationsh...

Cultivating healthy dating relationships that can lead to healthy adult romantic and marriage relationships is a science that reflects a complicated calculus of the premarital influences that may shape future relationship stability, quality, and satisfaction. This 4-page fact sheet was written by Victor W. Harris, Gilon Marts, and Martie Gillen, an...

Problem Based Learning (PBL) is a good fit for pedagogy in the family sciences due to the developmental and psychological theories that overlap with key features of PBL. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and “authentic problem solving” are examples of theories that explain how PBL works. These learner centered pedagogies increase engage...

Albert Einstein offered this perspective on dating and romantic relationships: “Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.” Dating relationships are the building blocks for healthy marriage relationships. To give them “the attention they deserve,” use different perspectives to h...

It was the author Paul Sweeney who penned, “A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance, and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.” Couples must make many adjustments as they learn to live with each other from year to year. When those adjustments include negotiating culture or religion, it adds another d...

One way to improve health and happiness in the home is to work toward becoming an energy giver rather than an energy taker. The first step in doing this is to accept that you have some control regarding the attitude you choose to display during your waking hours. This 3-page fact sheet was written by Randall A. Cantrell and Victor W. Harris, and pu...

Americans love romantic books and movies that involve wedding vows and “happily-ever-after” endings. But in response to the high rates of divorce, a growing trend has emerged that focuses on developing a healthy marriage, rather than just the act of marriage. This 5-page fact sheet presents ten ways to achieve a healthy marriage of your own. Writte...

The inventor, statesman, and scholar Benjamin Franklin provided some wise advice to all those thinking about tying the knot. “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage,” he said, “[and] half shut afterwards.” Marriage is a partnership that has emotional, financial, and legal implications. Before entering into this union, it is important for you and...

In this study the marital quality of respondents who were currently receiving government assistance was compared with those who were not. Contextual variables (e.g., gender, age, age at first marriage, religiosity, education, etc.) and interactional variables (i.e., escalating negativity, criticism, negative interpretation, withdrawal) were measure...

Most marriages go through at least three distinct stages: romantic love, disillusionment and distraction, and dissolution, adjustment with resignation, or adjustment with contentment. Researchers have found that couples utilize at least four general strategies for adjusting to the realities of long-term marriages with contentment. Learn more in thi...

Effective communication is critical to successful relationships. Researchers and therapists have found at least nine skills that can help couples learn to talk effectively about important issues (Gottman 1994; Markman, Stanley, and Blumberg 2010; Schramm and Harris 2011). How we interact about issues such as time spent together/apart, money, health...

Determining how we handle conflicts, whether constructively or destructively, is a good way to see how functional or dysfunctional we are acting in our relationships. Take a minute and complete this quiz to see if you handle conflict in a constructive or destructive way. It will help you realize what you are already doing well and what skills you m...

One of our greatest desires is to be happy. So, what do you need in order to be happy? Have you ever sat down and made a list? This 3-page fact sheet guides you in listing needs for yourself, your partner, and your children; and lists eight needs identified by researchers that people need to feel happy. Written by Victor William Harris and publishe...

This article explores the relationship between religiosity, denominational homogamy, religiosity homogamy, and marital adjustment. Using a statewide sample of spouses in first marriages (N = 1,394) and remarriages (N = 601), the authors find that within-group differences in religiosity, denominational homogamy, and religiosity homogamy are not as p...

Using data from a random telephone statewide survey in Utah, the associations between income, government assistance and six dimensions of marital quality were explored with a sample of 295 married individuals with incomes below $40,000. Results indicate that income has a main effect on negative interaction and feeling trapped. An interaction of gov...

Black-White Differences in Wealth Accumulation Among Americans Nearing Retirement

Empirically-informed teaching is driven by empirically-based teaching methodologies and techniques. In this article the effectiveness of the Attention, Interact, Apply, Invite (AIAI) – Fact, Think, Feel, Do (FTFD) Start-to-Finish Teaching Model is explored through data collected from 41 students at a Western university. Results suggest that the AIA...

This qualitative study focuses on the role that friendship, trust, and love play in the marriages of 25 Latino couples (50 individuals) who, through a semistructured interview, reported having strong marriages. Latino couples were interviewed using questions developed within the context of Latino culture. A model of how friendship, trust, and love...

Although Judaism, Christianity, and Islam differ in some of their religious teachings, traditions, and dogmas, there are more similarities than differences. Fundamental to each are the primacy of God, marriage, and the family. Each religion also offers specific prescriptions for improving marital relationships, the implications of which make indivi...

Integrating mentoring into existing youth programs has been suggested as a promising approach to youth development. This article discusses a theoretical rationale underlying the integration of one-on-one mentoring into established youth development programs. From an ecological perspective, the addition of mentoring into traditional programs should...

Marital satisfaction, marital adjustment, and problem areas experienced during the early months of marriage were examined using a sample of 1,010 newlywed husbands and wives. Results revealed that between 8% and 14% percent of newlyweds already scored in the distressed range on measures of marital satisfaction and adjustment, respectively. For both...

Empirically-informed teaching is driven by empirically-based teaching methodologies and techniques. Three principles of teaching are introduced in this article as foundational approaches to effective teaching. These simple approaches to organizing any teaching presentation can increase an instructor's success in the classroom. The Attention, Intera...

Thesis (M.S.)--Utah State University. Dept. of Family and Human Development, 1999. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-85).