Harry’s research investigates how people understand, communicate and experience health and wellbeing. His goal is to maximise the utility of research, and help people live the happiest and healthiest life possible. Specifically, Harry looks at how changes in context (i.e., different situations, people or emotional states) can change the way we interpret and share health information. This includes examining how people choose to deliver sensitive messages (e.g., bad news), as well as how our existing human biases cause us to interpret the same health information in different ways.

Harry also studies the robustness and reproducibility of research in Psychology. In other words, whether different scientists analysing the same data reach the same conclusions. He explores how research practices can be fine-tuned to make findings in the social sciences more reliable.

Finally, Harry is working on the Global Happiness Megastudy, a collaborative project investigating the effectiveness of various mood-boosting techniques frequently recommended in the media (e.g., exercise, meditation, gratitude, social interaction etc). By testing these interventions across cultures, the project aims to discover which activities are most effective for improving mood in the short term, as well as which activities work best for which people (e.g., specific cultures or demographics).