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 current research is dedicated to several lines of work: 1) Behavioral Prediction (Human and AI), 2) Patience and Honesty, and 3) Measurement and Analysis.

  1. Behavioral Prediction (Human and Artificial Intelligence prediction)

A very recent focus is behavioral prediction. To what degree can people predict behavior – their own behavior, the behavior of someone like them, the behavior of another person, the behavior of a typical person, etc? Psychologists have long sought to understand how (and how well) people process information about themselves, their social world, and human nature.

And to what degree can generative AI accurately predict human behavior?  More and more, people rely on AI for advice, friendship, support, even therapy. Such reliance seems to assume that AI understands human nature well and is thus able to provide well-grounded support. But how well does AI truly understand human nature?

Arguably, the ability to predict behavior is the gold standard for demonstrating one’s understanding of human nature. Scientists rigorously test their own understanding of a phenomenon by forming predictions (i.e., hypothesis) and observing whether those predictions turn out to be correct. How well do laypeople (and AI) understand the phenomenon of “human nature.” Successful prediction of behavior indicates a high level of such understanding.

This is a new line of work that will (I believe) reveal novel new insights that are interesting and important. Questions include:

    • How accurate are people, when they try to predict behavior?
    • How accurate is Artificial Intelligence, when it tries to predict (human) behavior?
    • Can people predict their own behavior, the behavior of people like them, or the behavioral of “the typical person”?
    • Are some people better at predicting behavior than others? If so, why?
    • How do people (and AI) form behavioral predictions?
    • Can peoples’ ability to predict behavior be enhanced?

2. Patience and Honesty as states and traits

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 patience and to honesty as a particularly important and understudied (and timely) virtues. Topics include:

    • The personality basis of moral behavior, especially patience. Are there truly differences between people, in terms of patience? Some people say that they are more or less patient than others, but is that really true?  What is the empirical evidence?
    • Patience reputations (e.g., what do people believe about patient people, how are patient people seen by others)?
    • What is the link between patience and well-being?
    • How do people understand patience, what do they think it means, what do they think its key elements are?
    • How can we measure someone’s patience?

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

Examples of Relevant Work

    • Crawley, H. K., Jayawickreme, E., & Furr, R. M. (In press). Moral character: A personality perspective on morality. In D. Lapsley & J. Gibbs (Eds.) Research Handbook on Lifespan Moral Development. Edward Elgar Publishing.
    • Reynolds, C. J., Jayawickreme, E., Wheat, R., Stokes, E., Santos, C., Fleeson, W., & Furr, R.M. (In press). Honesty as truthfulness: New trait and state measures of truthfulness to advance research and theorizing on when and why people are honest. European Journal of Personality. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070251338199
    • Furr, R. M., Miller, C. B., Cole, J., Li, J., Porth, A., & Good, R. (2026). What is patience? Insights emerging from an integration of philosophy and psychology. In S. Schnitker & M. Pianalto (eds.), The Virtue of Patience. Oxford University Press.
    • Furr, R. M., Prentice, M., Hawkins, A., Hartley, A. G., & Fleeson, W. (2026). Is doing good good enough? A motivation, action, sacrifice, and temptation (MAST) view of moral praiseworthiness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 52(1), 227-242. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672241273243
    • Furr, R. M., Waugh, C. E., Good, R. N., Ye, C., Li, J., Miller, C. B., Cole, J., & Porth, A. (2026). Patience and patience regulation: Development and psychometric evaluation of complementary scales with alternate forms. Journal of Personality Assessment, 108(5), 715-730. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2026.2621759
    • Miller, C. B., & Furr, R. M. (2025). Patience: A new account of a neglected virtue. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 11(1), 97-117. https://doi.org//10.1017/apa.2024.5
    • Reynolds, C. J., Stokes, E., Jayawickreme, E., & Furr, R. M. (2025). Truthfulness predominates in Americans’ concepts of honesty: A prototype analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 51(4), 573–595. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231195355
    • Furr, R. M., Prentice, M. Hawkins Parham, A., & Jayawickreme, E. (2022). Development and validation of the Moral Character Questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality

3. 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

    • Austin, K. D., Crawley, H. K., Fleeson, W., & Furr, R. M. (In press). Using generative artificial intelligence to advance hypothesis-driven scale validation: Identifying criterion measures and generating precise a priori hypotheses. Assessment. https://doi.org/10.1177/10731911251401321
    • Furr, R. M. (In press). Psychometric methods. In G. M. Breakwell & D. B. Wright (Eds.), Research Methods in Psychology (6th ed). Sage publications.
    • Reynolds, C. J., Jayawickreme, E., Wheat, R., Stokes, E., Santos, C., Fleeson, W., & Furr, R.M. (In press). Honesty as truthfulness: New trait and state measures of truthfulness to advance research and theorizing on when and why people are honest. European Journal of Personality. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070251338199
    • Furr, R. M. (2026). A largely univariate framework for understanding multivariate analysis of variance. Psychological Methods, 31(3), 501-515. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000819
    • Furr, R. M., Waugh, C. E., Good, R. N., Ye, C., Li, J., Miller, C. B., Cole, J., & Porth, A. (2026). Patience and patience regulation: Development and psychometric evaluation of complementary scales with alternate forms. Journal of Personality Assessment, 108(5), 715-730. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2026.2621759
    • Furr, R. M., Jeong, S. B., Fleenor, J. W., & Shrestha, S. (2024). Evaluating a novel method of scoring multi-rater assessments of leader competencies. Consulting Psychology Journal, 76(4), 348–366. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000285
    • Furr, R. M. (2022). Psychometrics: An introduction (4th Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
    • Furr, R. M., Prentice, M. Hawkins Parham, A., & Jayawickreme, E. (2022). Development and validation of the Moral Character Questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality, 98,
    • 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.