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As a graduate student myself I’d be wary of taking students as a control group.

That might just be what you get with a WEIRD control group though.

Anthrocon was probably also dominated by the Western Educated Industrialised Rich and Democratic subset.

Might be related to the oxytocin furries get from all the snuggling, though.

It could also be biased by age; I assume that the furry subject group skewed older than the students (or at least that the students were a more tightly restricted age group). I know I felt far more self-assured at 30 than I did at 20.

The question is if this is caused by having an alter ego, or (for example) by the fact that these people experience more control over what they look like.

Anyway, whatever the reason, perhaps it is also why lots of people like to get tattoos.