Because the world of furry content is so broad and all-inclusive, the fandom itself tends to reflect those norms. The furry world is one of fantasy, where dragons co-exist with bipedal, talking wolves and impossible hybrids. Source: Graph by Hal Herzog/Data from Courtney Planteģ. As such, furries are more likely than non-furries to be opposed to the use of non-human animals for commercial or research purposes. In the case of furries, who spend considerable time anthropomorphizing animals, this means that many non-human animals fall within the same moral domain as people do. Practically speaking, those who fall within our in-group tend to also fall within our moral domain, while those belonging to out-groups are less likely to gain moral consideration. In contrast, things excluded from that moral domain are deemed beyond moral consideration. Put simply, when something is included within a person’s moral domain, it is subject to their moral principles. Furries are an excellent case study for the psychological principle of moral inclusion and how it relates to non-human animals. Three findings are of particular interest.ġ. Now that you have a better understanding of what furries are, and what they are not, it is worth asking what nearly a decade of research on this group can tell us about people in general. What can furries teach us about our own psychology? And, like other fandoms, one’s interest in furry can manifest in a variety of ways: drawing or commissioning furry-themed artwork and writing, playing furry-themed games, costuming and performing, and gathering with others who share the same interest. However, as with other fan communities (e.g., video game convention attendees, anime cosplayers, sports fans who wear their team’s jersey), such costuming is rarely done for the purpose of sexual gratification and is almost always done as a form of self-expression or performance.

For example, the misconception that furries are people who obtain sexual gratification from wearing mascot-style fursuits stems from a small percentage of furries, approximately 20 percent, who manifest their fanship through costuming. Many such misconceptions are demonstrably false, borne often out of a lack of clear understanding about what furries do as a group. Misconceptions abound about furries, with media articles routinely mischaracterizing them as fetishists or as psychologically dysfunctional people.

Furries High Tail Hall