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International Anthropomorphic Research Project International Anthropomorphic Research Project Furry Fiesta 2014 & Longitudinal Study Wave 2 Working Paper Full Citation: Plante, C. N., Reysen, S., Roberts, S. E., & Gerbasi, K. C. (2014). International Anthropomorphic Research Project: Furry Fiesta 2014 & Longitudinal Study Wave 2 Summaries. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/anthropomorphicresearch/past-results/2014-furry-fiest An example of the envelope the Furry Fiesta 2014 IARP Surveys were sealed in. This one was decorated by a furry participant. Furry Fiesta 2014 and Longitudinal Wave 2 Given the success of our large-scale surveys in recent years, the IARP decided to begin experimenting with new study designs. One of the main reasons for the novel designs was to provide converging evidence for our previous findings through alternative methodologies: if we come to the same conclusion using multiple sets of data obtained from different methodologies, we can be reasonably confident in our obtained findings. In addition, we at the IARP have struggled with the challenge of answering questions and addressing issues, both academic and furry-specific, that do not lend themselves readily to large-scale surveys of the fandom. To this end, our team pilot-tested running three separate methodologies at Furry Fiesta 2014: A) General Convention Survey As in previous years, we administered a general survey to the convention. Research assistants passed out copies of the survey to furries standing in registration lines and furries walking by the Dealers' Den. New to this year, we ran a shortened version of the survey (4 pages instead of 8- 10) in the hopes of increasing participation in the survey. Moreover, we experimented with a number of new question types addressing novel questions. In sum, we received 246 surveys in return, comprising 13.1% of the total convention’s attendance (quite a significant sample!) Novel questions addressed by this survey included, but were not limited to: 1) Do furries get more involved or less involved with the fandom over time? Can we predict when furries are going to leave the fandom before they actually do? 2) Does it say anything about a furry if their fursona is just like them? What about having a fursona that’s a “better” version of you? 3) How many furries wear fursuits? Tails? Ears? Does this tell us anything about the furries themselves? B) Three Focus Groups New to Furry Fiesta, the IARP conducted a series of three focus groups, each addressing a different topic within the furry fandom. The focus groups consisted of a room of 20-25 furries who completed a short, 2-page survey about a specific topic in the fandom and had an hour-long discussion about that particular topic while the researcher and two research assistants tape- recorded the session and took notes. Focus groups are particularly useful for addressing specific subgroups in the fandom who are often overlooked in large-scale surveys. For example, while it would be interesting to ask questions about the experience of artists on the general furry survey, the fact that most furries do not consider themselves serious artists means that asking such questions in this regard would be wasteful of valuable survey space, as most furries would simply reply that the questions were not applicable to them. Furthermore, while it is often useful to collect survey data, descriptive, opened-ended data from interviews and focus groups can give us ideas and hypotheses that we might otherwise have missed by asking closed-ended questions in a general survey format. Three focus groups raised a number of interesting questions about the furry fandom: Artists in the fandom (N = 20 Artists) 1) What are the demographics of the furry artist community? 2) Do furry artists start out as artists or as furries? 3) Do artists make their living from the fandom? 4) Are there issues with entitlement in the fandom? 5) What other issues do artists in the fandom face? Women in the fandom (N = 21 Female Furries) 1) How do female furries the furry fandom, and with whom do they interact? 2) Do women experience sexism in the furry fandom? 3) What other issues do women in the fandom face? Issues in the fandom (N = 25 Furries) 1) Is the fandom getting better or worse? 2) How does the fandom in general feel about artists? Women? 3) How do furries feel about the content and organization of the fandom? 4) What are the most commonly cited virtues and problems with the fandom? 5) What other issues do furries experience in the fandom? C) Longitudinal Study: Wave 2 Since last year, the IARP has started its biggest undertaking to date: the world’s first longitudinal, multi-year study of furries. The study investigates the long-term effects of spending time in the furry fandom on furries’ personality, beliefs, cognitive styles, identity, and much more. In addition, because of the additional temporal component (the survey takes place at multiple times), we can now begin to answer questions about direction of causality, something that previous survey-based research on furries has been unable to do. A preliminary glimpse of just some of the questions the longitudinal study will be able to address, based on responses from 124 furries who completed last year’s Wave 1 and this year’s Wave 2 of the study, includes: 1) Does spending time in the furry fandom affect furry gender identity? Sexual orientation? 2) Do furries like the fandom more as they spend more time in it? 3) Does spending time in the fandom make furries more “open” about being furry? 4) Does spending time in the fandom affect furries’ attitudes toward pornography? If you're interested in participating in this ongoing longitudinal study of furries, click here for more information about the project and how to sign up! As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or want clarification, please contact us (see link on the sidebar). Please note that all collected information is presented here in aggregate (summarzied) form, and there is absolutely NO identifying information in the data. We have no way of tracing responses back to the original participant (this is an anonymous survey). Additionally, any quotes presented are done so without any identifying information in them, to protect the anonymity of the participants. Part A: General Convention Survey Q1: Do furries get more involved or less involved with the fandom over time? Can we predict when furries are going to leave the fandom before they actually do? One of the most interesting new questions we’ve begun to ask furries involves their projected trajectory in the fandom. Furries are asked to list, on the figure below, a line indicating how involved in the fandom they were in the past, they currently are, and expect to be in the future: Since the survey was pencil-and-paper, our research assistants used rulers to measure furries level of involvement at each of the seven time points in centimeters. These numbers were converted into a value ranging from 0 to 100, with 0 representing “No Involvement” and 100 representing “Very Involved”. Using this data, we split our sample into three groups: furries aged 18-23, furries aged 24-28, and furries aged 29 or older. We plotted the average trajectory for each of these groups, shown below: The first noteworthy characteristic of the figure is the fact that on average furries identify themselves as particularly involved in the fandom presently. The second characteristic that stands out is the steady increase in involvement leading up to the present time. Most furries indicate that while there was some interest in furry content five and ten years ago, it has increased to the present day, regardless of age group. Most interesting of all, however, is furries’ projections for their future involvement in the fandom. Despite growing demographic evidence which strongly suggests that many furries leave the fandom in their late 20s and early 30s, most furries believe that their current level of involvement in the fandom will be maintained into the future. We also assessed these trajectories for furries who reported being in the fandom for 1-5 years, 6- 10 years, and 11+ years: A similar pattern was found, although furries who reported being in the fandom for more than 10 years did indicate that they had more involvement in the fandom 10 years ago than furries who have been in the fandom for less than 10 years. Regardless, the pattern remains the same: furries’ involvement in the fandom increases to the present day, and is projected to remain constant or, if anything, increase in the future, despite evidence to the contrary. On the graph below, we indicated the hypothesized trajectories for the upcoming year of all 246 participants in the study. A straight, horizontal line indicates the belief that one’s involvement in the fandom will not change in the next year. An upward line indicates a belief that one’s involvement in the fandom will increase in the next year, while a downward line indicates a belief that one’s involvement in the fandom will decrease in the next year. As you can see, with the exception of a handful of particularly pessimistic participants, the vast majority of furries indicated that they expected their involvement in the fandom to stay about the same or increase in the future. The average projected change was 3.16 (SD = 14.5), a value which was found to be statistically significantly greater than 0 (t(215) = 3.19, p = .002). Why are we interested in this? Well, one of the more difficult samples to obtain in our line of research is a sample of furries who have left the fandom.
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