Research

R. Michael Furr
Professor R. Michael Furr
Department of Psychology
Wake Forest University
[FurrRM@wfu.edu]
(336) 758-5024

Major Areas of Research Interest:  Personality and Quantitative Psychology

Current Research Projects:

My research is dedicated to several lines of work. 

1. Moral character. 

    1. Through several funded projects (i.e., the Character Project, the Beacon Project, the Honesty Project), my colleagues and I have been exploring diverse issues related to personality and morality.  Lately, we have turned our attention to honesty as a particularly important and understudied (and timely) virtue. Topics include:
    • The personality basis of moral behavior, especially honest behavior
    • Moral reputations (e.g., what do people believe about highly honest people, how are honest people seen by others)?
    • How do people resolve moral dilemmas (e.g., what seems “correct” when honesty and compassion conflict?
    • How can we measure someone’s moral character?

Find more information at the Character Project , the Beacon Project, and the Honesty Project

Examples of Relevant Work

  • Collier-Spruel, L. A., Hawkins, A. A., Jayawickreme, E., Fleeson, W., & Furr, R. M. (2019). Relativism or Tolerance? Defining, Assessing, Connecting, and Distinguishing Two Moral Personality Features with Prominent Roles in Modern Societies. Journal of Personality.
  • Helzer, E. G., Jayawickreme, E., & Furr, R. M. (2018). Moral character: Current insights and future directions. In T. Shackelford & V. Ziegler-Hill (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Personality and Individual Differences Vol. 2 (pp. 278-300). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • Hartley, A. G., Furr, R. M., Helzer, E., Jayawickreme, E., Velasquez, K., & Fleeson, W. (2016). Morality’s centrality to liking, respecting, and understanding others. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7, 648-657.
  • Helzer, E. G., Furr, R. M., Hawkins, A., Barranti, M., Blackie, L. E. R., & Fleeson, W. (2014). Agreement on the perception of moral character. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 1698-1710.
  • Fleeson, W., Furr, R. M., Jayawickreme, E., Helzer, E. G., & Meindl, P. (2014). Character: The prospects for a personality-based perspective on morality. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8, 178-191.

2.  Personality Psychology in General – yhy do you do what you do – is it because of who you are or because of the situations in which you find yourself? To what degree is there something about “who you are” that drives your behavior, or is your behavior driven more by “where you are”?

    • One area of interest in personality psychology is understanding the connections between two important behavioral facts: 1) people differ from each other – for example, are some people are generally more compassionate than others?, and 2) people differ from themselves as they move from one situation to another – for each of us, our tendency to act compassionately might changes from situation to situation.
    • In some ways, these two facts seem to be contradictory – if people change from situation to situation, then to what degree should we discuss the “general” differences among people? This leads to question such as, what are the factors that change your compassion (or fairness, or anger, or anxiety, etc) as you encounter different psychological environments? Are some people more reactive to situational forces than others? If so, why? How do personality “traits” relate to day-to-day behavior? Can we conceptualize personality in a way that integrates the two behavioral facts?

Examples of Relevant Work

  • Furr, R. M., & Funder, D. C. (2021). Persons, situations, and person-situation interactions. In O. P. John & R. W. Robins (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research (4th Edition). Guilford Press.
  • Furr, R. M. (2021). Variability and consistency in the analysis of behavior. In J. Rauthmann (Ed.), Handbook of Personality Dynamics and Processes. (pp. 733-761). Elsevier.
  • Rakhshani, A., & Furr, R. M. (2021). A prospective longitudinal study of the reciprocal effects of personality and adversity. Journal of Personality, 89, 50-67.
  • Fleeson, W., Furr, R. M., Jayawickreme, E., Helzer, E. G., & Meindl, P. (2014). Character: The prospects for a personality-based perspective on morality. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8, 178-191.
  • Miskewicz, K., Fleeson, W., Arnold, E. M., Law, M. K., Mneimne, M. & Furr, R. M. (2015). A contingency-oriented approach to understanding borderline personality disorder: Situational triggers and symptoms. Journal of Personality Disorders, 29, 486–502

5) Finally, I’m very interested in measurement and statistics. All quantitative psychological research depends crucially on measurement and data analysis. I am interested in the process of constructing and validating personality inventories. In addition, I am interested in the development and evaluation of statistical procedures, particularly those used with repeated-measures data.

Examples of Relevant Work

  • Furr, R. M. (2022). Psychometrics: An introduction (4th Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • Furr, R. M. (2020). Psychometrics in clinical psychological research. In A. G. C. Wright & M. N. Hallquist (Eds.), Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology. Cambridge University Press.
  • Furr, R. M., & Heuckeroth, S. A. (2019). The “Quantifying Construct Validity” procedure: Its role, value, interpretations, and computation. Assessment.
  • Nave, C. S., Feeney, M. G., & Furr, R. M. (2018). Behavioral observation in the study of personality and individual differences. In T. Shackelford & V. Ziegler-Hill (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Personality and Individual Differences Vol. 1 (pp. 317-340). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • Hartley, A. G., & Furr, R. M. (2017). A profile-based framework for factorial similarity and the congruence coefficient. Journal of Personality Assessment, 99, 653-663. Note: This paper won the Society of Personality Assessment’s Walter G. Klopfer Award.

Representative Publications

(A full list is available here)

Books:

Journal Articles:

  • Rogers, K. H., Wood, D., & Furr, R. M. (2018). Assessment of similarity and self-other agreement in dyadic relationships: A guide to best practices.Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 35, 112-134. (Invited article for special issue, Data Analytic Issues in Relationship Research).
  • Hartley, A. G. & Furr, R. M. (2017). A profile-based framework for factorial similarity and the congruence coefficient. Journal of Personality Assessment.
  • Hartley, A. G., Furr, R. M., Helzer, E., Jayawickreme, E., Velasquez, K., & Fleeson, W. (2016). Morality’s centrality in liking, respecting, and understanding others. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7, 648-657
  • Wood, D., & Furr, R. M. (2016). The correlates of similarity estimates are often misleadingly positive: The nature and scope of the problem, and some solutions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 20, 79-99.
  • Wood, D., & Furr, R. M. (2016). The correlates of similarity estimates are often misleadingly positive: The nature and scope of the problem, and some solutions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 20, 79-99.
  • Law, M. K., Furr, R. M., Arnold, E. M., Mneimne, M., Jaquett, C., & Fleeson, W. (2015). Does asking frequently and repeatedly about suicide cause harm? A randomized control study. Psychological Assessment, 27, 1171-1181.
  • Hawkins, A. A., Furr, R. M., Arnold, E. A., Law, M. K.., & Fleeson, W. (2014). The structure of Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms: A multi-method, multi-sample examination. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 5, 380-389.
  • Helzer, E. G., Furr, R. M., Hawkins, A., Barranti, M., Blackie, L. E. R., & Fleeson, W. (2014). Agreement on the perception of moral character. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 1698-1710
  • Furr, R. M. (2009). Personality psychology as a truly behavioral science. European Journal of Personality, 23, 369-401. (Invited target article)
  • Furr, R. M. (2008). A framework for profile similarity: Integrating similarity, normativeness, and distinctiveness. Journal of Personality, 76, 1267-1316.
  • Furr, R. M., & Funder, D. C. (2004). Situational similarity and behavioral consistency: Subjective, objective, variable-centered, and person-centered approaches. Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 421-447.
  • Furr, R. M., & Rosenthal, R. (2003). Repeated-measures contrasts for “Multiple-pattern” hypotheses. Psychological Methods, 8, 275-293.

Book Chapters:

  • Furr, R. M. (In press). Psychometrics in clinical psychological research. In A. G. C. Wright & M. N. Hallquist (Eds.),Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology. Cambridge University Press.
  • Furr, R. M. (In press). Variability and consistency in the analysis of behavior. In J. Rauthmann (Ed.),Handbook of Personality Dynamics and Processes. Elsevier.
  • Furr, R. M., & Funder, D. C. (In press). Persons, situations, and person-situation interactions. In O. P. John & R. W. Robins (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research (4th Edition). Guilford Press.
  • Helzer, E. G., Jayawickreme, E., & Furr, R. M. (In press). Moral character: Current insights and future directions. In T. Shackelford & V. Ziegler-Hill (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Personality and Individual Differences. SAGE.
  • Nave, C. S., Feeney, M. G., & Furr, R. M. (In press). Behavioral observation in the study of personality and individual differences. In T. Shackelford & V. Ziegler-Hill (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Personality and Individual Differences. SAGE.
  • Fleeson, W., Furr, R. M., Jayawickreme, E., Helzer, E. G., & Meindl, P. (2015). Personality science and the foundations of character. In C. Miller, R. M. Furr, A. Knobel, & W. Fleeson (Eds.), Character: New Directions from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

Courses Taught

  • Introductory Psychology
  • Personality Psychology
  • Statistics and Methods of Psychological Research
  • Psychological Testing
  • Univariate Statistics (Graduate)
  • Multivariate Statistics (Graduate)
  • Psychometrics (1/2 semester Graduate)
  • Introduction to R