Steven Reiss, Ph.D.

Steven Reiss was educated at Dartmouth College, Yale University, and Harvard Medical School.  Before he retired from academic life in 2008, he was Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at The Ohio State University.  He is currently Executive Director of the World Society of Motivation Scientists and Professionals (www.motivationscience.org).  He is the author of several widely used psychological measures including the Reiss Motivation Profile, the Anxiety Sensitivity Index, and the Reiss Screen for Maladaptive Behavior.   His research on 16 human needs has been adopted by numerous multinational businesses for coaching, leadership development, and marketing; by middle/high schools nationwide for assessment of poor academic performance and for career counseling; by sports consultants working with Olympic teams and world-class or professional athletes; by health psychologists; relationship counselors, media psychologists; and it has been applied to meaning of life and religion.  His early research on developmental disabilities was cited to justify hundreds of new clinics worldwide and was recognized with five national awards.  With now Harvard University Professor Richard McNally, he published the construct of anxiety sensitivity.  It has since been incorporated into more than 1,400 studies.   Anxiety sensitivity predicts certain anxiety disorders before symptoms can be diagnosed, and this creates new opportunities for prevention research on mental diseases currently affecting more than five million Americans.   Reiss's research has been recognized by numerous societies and government entities, including National Institutes of Health, American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, World Psychiatric Association, U.K. Royal College of Psychiatry, U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, U.S. Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, U.S. Administration on Developmental Disabilities, American Association on Mental Retardation, and Arc of the United States.  Media reporting on Reiss's work include  BBC national nightly television news, CNN, Today show (NBC), N.Y. Times, Time magazine, Newsweek, ABC Science News, Guardian, Times of London, Times of India, Globe and Mail, plus hundreds  of national magazines and metropolitan newspapers including full page reports on his work in the Washiongton Post and Dallas Morning News.  He gave an invited speech at Israel Ministry of Social Services, where he addressed 5,000 professionals.   He gave an invited presentation before the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  The U.S. Army found that anxiety sensitivity is an early predictor of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in troops.  Institutes dedicated to teaching Reiss's motivation theory are operational in Europe, North America, and Asia.   The institutes have trained more than 1,000 "Reiss Profile" masters, who work as business consultants and coaches.  The Normal Personality is now available in paperback from amazon.com.  How God Inspires Us: Personality and Religion is being written.  It will propose an original and detailed theory of religion based on the 16 human needs as elements of meaningful experience.