Hoo boy, a few questions make me really have to think back, but ill give them my best guess! I've been filling out these surveys for years ^-^

Thanks! :D We really appreciate it! This is arguably one of the most important surveys we've ever done, since it involves testing a number of hypotheses done by other researchers - so it's a chance to see how well our findings stack up against other researchers!

Oooo fantastic! I always look forward to seeing the results, very eye opening ^-^

I... stopped doing them about, oh, three years ago.

For a time I was just burned. Still a 'furry' just... burned. Couldn't bring myself to care one way or the other. If I recall that was the year I forwarded my TFF reservation to Nuka. Haven't attended a con since - tho a big one happens right around the corner from where I live now.

But I'm climbing out of the hole, quite slowly, so I'll pick this one up.

If you need a big sample size, you should get the link out there to places like sofurry, weasl, inkbunny, ect. Having it alone here on SF where where the writers are far fewer lowers overall possible connections.

Heya! Long time no hear!

I'm glad to hear you're crawling out of the hole - it's good to hear from you again! And thanks for the suggestion - I'll be sure to get links up / get the word out to SoFurry, Weasyl, etc. :) And, of course, if you know of any furs you can send this too, I certainly wouldn't complain!

You planning on being at TFF next year? It'd be good to see you again!

I live in Atlanta, now, so making TFF, the only con I ever truly enjoyed, somewhat difficult.
FWA... just doesn't hold the same charm. I felt, and am, still a stranger there. I know no one, and the cliques are much more closed. They did not seem interested in interacting, like they did at TFF. The one time I went the cold shoulder was palpable, which was alien, and distressing to feel from the furry community. I haven't been back since in my three years here.

And, if you could read my last Sofurry journal you'd understand why I was feeling... burned. One of the furry community shut me down hard, and i have accomplished nothing since.

But, I'm writing again (as shown by my first upload here in a decade). I'll never be out of the shadows, but it's not so dark anymore.

I'm glad things are on an upward swing for you, even if there's still a long way to go. And I'm really sorry about FWA :( That's really unfortunate, and I wish I knew what to suggest =/

I'm nervous because I'm about to move across the country, meaning I'll have to poke around and discover a new local furry group. And there's no way of knowing how, exactly, it's going to go. Especially as I start to get older (I'm now very much aware that I'm about 10 years older than the average furry in my study), I worry about how well I can just fit into a group of random furs in the local area.

And I'm sorry to hear about feelings of being burned / shut down :( People can be shitty - especially online x.x'

'Across the country' is quite a big move... to further your research or for a better position?

Where is 'across'? Last I knew you were in BFE rural america somewhere, and/or London.

Finally got a professorship position! Up until now, I've just been a sessional instructor at a university (i.e., I'm brought in to teach classes that they have no one else to teach, but only on a semester by semester timeline; nothing permanent). But now I'm a professor with a tenure-track job - so a possible job for life! :) And I'm moving to Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada!

Well, congrats there, Doctor! :D
Just remember... firm handshake, and collar off camera. ;p

Sent in my results!

As the community is getting older, do you plan to have any surveys on aging in the fandom?

Great question! To be honest, we can't even take it as a given that the community is "getting older" per se. There's a bit of evidence for this, but it's not super-strong (i.e., it's not clear that the fandom is getting much older, on average, or if that's being washed out by a wave of younger furries coming in). Nevertheless, it's a great question, and I'll pitch it to my collagues during our meeting tomorrow :)

Thanks! That's understandable - I guess I just happen to notice a lot more "greymuzzles" being around since I am one.

Heh, graymuzzles. I wonder what the community will be like when the progenitors are whitemuzzles.

Probably about the same, but hopefully a bit better!

Haha - I LOVE the term "whitemuzzle"!

I started to do it but some of those questions are a little bit out of my comfort zone. Sorry.

No worries :) You're totally free to leave any blank or stop wherever you'd like! We're asking about a lot of different topics because other researchers have been asking about them, and we're hoping to test some of the claims they've published about what furries are supposedly like. Unfortunately, we can't really answer those questions without first asking them =/

Understandable.

Finished it, but was *utterly* stymied by the section where each question ended with 'social reasons' - there was no leadin text to explain what was meant by 'social reasons'.
The subsequent 'sexual reasons' was pretty self explanatory, and did have a very small lead in explanation if I recall correctly.

Thanks for the feedback! There are definitely some awkward parts of the survey. A big part of the study is trying to test whether the results of someone else's studies hold water in a much larger sample of furries, and to test some new scales / ways of measuring things. That "social reasons" scale is new, and we're trying to work the kinks out of it, so it's good to hear this sort of feedback :)

Hooboy. As I said at TFF some of the questions I'm feeling less comfortable with myself.

Got it done though! For Science!





GLaDOS, can I leave now?

We appreciate it! And for clarification, none of the questions are mandatory - you're absolutely free to skip over any questions you don't feel comfortable answering! We certainly don't want to make anyone feel distressed or uncomfortable!

Oh it's perfectly fine for me, but good warning for everyone else.

Just had questions that made me have to stop and think further into things that I had to come to decisions on. The questions just bring to focus things that I've been ignoring.

Posted a journal linking to yours and filling it out now! :D

Awww, thank you! :3

Completed! Jealous that you're researching this! I wish I had the time to conduct some doctoral research on enclothed cognition. I think it would honestly go hand in hand with furry.

Awww, thanks :3 Indeed, I relish the fact that I'm lucky enough to get to do awesome research like this as my job ^^;

Have you ever had trouble with colleagues as a result of studying the furry sub-culture in which you also participate? That's made me worried in the past for myself.

Hmm, not really ^^; Though I'm usually pretty open and upfront with folks from the beginning about the furry thing. It's when you try to hide it that people often assume that there's something there worth hiding. On day one of grad school I put a "Furry Pride" sticker on the door to my office, so I never really tried to hide it =P

In terms of concerns about bias (i.e., me being a furry studying furries), that's not really an issue, since none of my collagues are furries, and all our work is peer-reviewed anyway. This means that even if it did seem like I was trying to push some agenda or make furries look good, others would call me on it :) And it's no different than psychologists who have a pet theory that they're motivated to protect - I'm just pretty transparent and upfront about it!

And it doesn't sound like it has hurt your credibility with your colleagues either. I've guarded it with my colleagues, but not too strongly. When they ask where I'm going on vacation and it's a furry convention, I call it a nerd convention. It's appropriate, I think, since I've dubbed my office the "Nerd Cave." Since my PhD is in forensic psychology, some of my colleagues are psychs and professors, but some are law enforcement. Since you're experience seems to have been fairly mundane, I think I probably don't need to guard it nearly as much.

Thanks for that!

I mean, to be clear, I'm in a pretty privileged position. I'm lucky enough to be working in a pretty progressive-minded field in pretty progressive departments. I'd always recommend being cautious before running out and telling everyone, but yeah, it doesn't hurt to test the waters a bit - perhaps starting with those whom you trust most.

Another thing worth considering is whether there's much need to tell anyone. Part of the reason I told folks early on is because, well, furries are what I research, so it was kind of hard to not let the cat out of the bag on that one. But if there's no reason to bring it up with folks (e.g., if "nerd convention" seems to do the trick), then it raises the question of whether there's any need to get any more specific than that. Ultimately, I'd say do a cost-benefit analysis: What do you stand to gain from your colleagues noticing versus what are the potential downsides, and what are the relative likelihoods of each of those outcomes :)

There's a good chance that if I do continue my work on enclothed cognition, it would be on those sub-cultures that embrace costuming and dress-up. Until then, it remains available to discover, but not announced, if that makes any sense. Again, thanks for being open about your experience.

Sure thing!

And, for what it's worth, if you'd like, you're welcome to do some background research on enclothed cognition and, if you have some references and/or a scale you'd like to suggest we add to an upcoming survey, let us know :) If the theory is sound, we can add it to a study and test some hypotheses for you! :)

Wow! That'd be awesome!