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Adrian Frank Furnham (born 3 February 1953) is a South African-born British BPS chartered occupational psychologist and chartered health psychologist. He is currently an adjunct professor at
BI Norwegian Business School BI Norwegian Business School () is the largest business school in Norway and the second largest in all of Europe. BI has in total four campuses with the main one located in Oslo. The university has 845 employees consisting of an academic staff o ...
and professor at
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...
. Throughout his career, he has lectured in the following post-secondary institutions: Pembroke College, Oxford,
University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...
,
University of West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in th ...
,
Hong Kong University The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the fir ...
Business School, and the
Henley Management College Henley Business School is a business school which now forms part of the University of Reading. It was formed by merging the previously independent Henley Management College (formerly the Administrative Staff College) with the existing business ...
.A-Speakers(n.d.). Speaker Adrian Furnham: Psychological Management & Mental Health. Retrieved from https://www.a-speakers.com/speakers/adrian-furnham/. Furnham has a broad range research interest within the field of
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
. He has explored topics within: applied,
economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
,
health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...
, occupational,
social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...
, and
differential psychology Differential psychology studies the ways in which individuals differ in their behavior and the processes that underlie it. This is a discipline that develops classifications (taxonomies) of psychological individual differences. This is distingui ...
. As of 2018, he has published 92 books and over 1,200 peer-reviewed journal articles. Furnham is a fellow of the British Psychological Society; he was granted the British Psychological Society of Academic Contribution to Practice Award in 2011.


Early life

Furnham was born on 3 February 1953 of British parents. He grew up in his birthplace Port Shepstone,
Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Tran ...
, where he was exposed to many people of different national origins. He was the only child of his parents. His father was a newspaper printer and publisher, while his mother was a nurse. Growing up, Furnham came to discover traits of his that were not shared by his parents. He found himself to be ambitious, striving for academic and financial success at a young age. On the other hand, his parents had no such ambitions for themselves. He was opened to new and exotic experience, unlike his parents, who were not eager with exploring things outside of the
Anglo-Saxon culture The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wi ...
. His parents were satisfied with a shallow understanding of things, while Furnham would crave for a deep level of understanding.


Education

Adrian completed in total one undergraduate degree, three master's degrees and three doctorates. In 1970, at the age of sixteen, he began his university education at the University of Natal ( Pietermaritzburg campus), completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1972, and an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973. His academic studies focused on history, psychology, and theology. He then went on to complete a Master of Arts in 1974, composing his thesis on "Cross-cultural conformity and field dependence". In 1975 he proceeded to complete an economics master's degree at the University of London, focusing his research, essays, and examinations on his thesis: "The relative contribution of verbal, vocal, and visual cues to person perception". Furthering his education, he completed a Master of Science at the University of Strathclyde, completing research on "Sex and class factors in the perception of social episodes". From there, in 1981 Furnham completed a doctorate at Oxford and later received a D.Sc. from London in 1991 and a D.Litt. from Natal in 1997.


Educators

Throughout his education, Furnham had many great educators who had a positive influence on his life, but two of them particularly notable. The first is Michael Argyle (11 August 1925 – 6 September 2002), who was Furnham's PhD supervisor. Argyle wrote approximately 250 papers on a number of different topics including body language, religion, money, happiness, and work. At one point, he was the fourth most cited British Psychologist. According to Furnham, there are many things that are unique about Argyle. One thing that stood out to Furnham in particular is that Argyle advised his Doctorate students not too read too much about an idea initially as it would limit their creativity and thinking. A significant impact that he had on Furnham's career is that he taught him not to be afraid to explore new areas of research, and not limit himself to already existing fields. Furnham also learned from Argyle the characteristics of a good doctoral supervisor, to be cooperative with colleagues, and to work hard and play hard. The second is Hans Eysenck ( /ˈaɪzɛŋk/; 4 March 1916 – 4 September 1997), who was Furnham's role model. Eysenck was the living psychologist most frequently cited in the
peer-review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...
ed scientific journal literature in 1997. Furnham met Eysenck while doing his PhD. He was one of the first theorists to advocate a biologically based theory of personality. Furnham became an Eysenckian after reading his books and papers, and started using his
psychometric Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally refers to specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and ...
tests during his PhD. In 2008, Furnham wrote a paper suggesting five reasons why Eysenck's tests have remained popular for a long time. He suggested that these reasons are: parsimony, explanation of process, experimentation, wide application, and continuous improvement and development.


Career

Adrian Furnham is currently a professor of psychology at University College London. Before his current placement, he had previously lectured at numerous institutes, including: Pembroke College, Oxford, University of New South Wales, and the University of West Indies. More so, he also taught management at both the Hong Kong University Business school as well as the Henley Management College. In 2009, he was assigned a position of adjunct professor of management at the Norwegian School of Management. Furnham has been recognized as a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. In addition to his professor roles at several universities, Furnham is an active member of many different associations. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, as he was renown to be the second most productive psychologist in 1995. He is also currently the elected president of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, as well as the founder and director of Applied Behavioural Research Associates (ABRA); which is a consultancy in psychology. Furnham's work was used at universities and other associations. He also proactively consulted for many international companies to assist them with top team development, create systems for performance management, psychometric testing and developing leadership skills. Following these experiences, he was elected Fellow of the Leadership Trust in 2010, Academician of the Learned Society of the Social Sciences in 2010, and British Psychological Society of Academic Contribution to Practice Award in 2011. He has written over 70 books, and many of them have been translated into different languages, including Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish.Corner, S. (n.d.). Adrian Furnham - Keynote Speakers. Retrieved from https://www.speakerscorner.co.uk/speaker/adrian-furnham. Alongside his books, Furnham has written newspaper pieces for ''Financial Times'', ''Guardian'', ''Telegraph'', ''Daily Mail'', ''Times Higher Educational Supplement'', ''Sunday Times'', and contributed to various magazines, including: ''The Spectator'', ''Personnel Management'', ''New Scientist'', ''Across the Board'', and ''Spotlight'', in both Europe and North America. He has been a columnist in multiple management magazines such as ''Mastering Management'' and ''Human Resources.'' He is also a regular contributor to national and international radio and television channels such as BBC, CNN, and ITV.


Research


Contributions

Furnham reports being uncertain as to what type of psychologist he is as he is interested in a multiple topics. He has been labelled an applied, differential, economic, health, occupational, and social psychologist at different times. However, he is a British Psychological Society chartered occupational and a chartered health psychologist. He believes that his personality and upbringing has resulted in his curiosity about a variety of issues within and outside the discipline, hence the diversity in his interdisciplinary work.


Themes


Psychometric housekeeping and reviews

Furnham has an interest in documenting different scales that measure the same thing and comparing their quantities. He has done this through reviewing old and new personality tests. These are critical reviews which are comprehensive, extensively quoted, and are updated occasionally. Some examples of his extensive reviews are Tolerance of Ambiguity (co-authored by Ribchester and Marks), Belief in a Just World, and the Protestant Work Ethic.


Test development

Furnham has developed several tests throughout his career. He adapted already existing ideas to make specific tests like the Economic Locus of Control measure in 1986, and the Organisational Attributional Style Questionnaire in 1992. He developed the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, which is a self-report inventory that measures the sampling domain of trait emotional intelligence, along with his PhD student Dino Petrides in 2006. He also developed the High Flyer Trait Inventory (formerly High Flying Personality Inventory), with his colleague Ian Macrae in 2014. The High Flyer Trait Inventory is a measure of personality traits directly related to workplace behaviours, thoughts, and perceptions of oneself and others.


The relationship between tests of preference and power

To this day Furnham had been interested in the distant relationship between the two pillars differential psychology. Furnham had given his opinion on this topic to the International Society for the Study of Individual differences. He works on this topic with the help of his PhD students.


Self-appraisal and awareness

Beginning early on Furnham took a great interest in self-awareness and self-estimating intelligence, in which he published many studies on. The findings of his studies revealed that males tend to estimate their general intelligence 5-15 IQ points higher than females do, these sex differences occur across the generations and that sex differences are cross-culturally consistent.


Dark side

Furnham was introduced to the dark side personality by Robert Hogan. Dark side personalities are those that portray dysfunctional behaviours and beliefs towards others. For instance, Psychopaths would fall under this category. These types of people do not consider how their actions affect their reputation, and, although this may seem like deviant behaviour, it also seems to help them people climb up the corporate ladder. Dark side personality research was based on the DSM-III. Using the Hogan Development Survey in various studies, Furnham was able to collect sufficient amounts of data, which later on aided in studying misbehaviour at work. According to the HDS, mischievous people were considered to be extraverts, disagreeable, deliberate, and stable. They scored high on the excitement scale and low on the consciousness scale. Furnham has written multiple papers as well as two books on this topic.


Publications


Books

As of 2019, he has written over 92 books and over 1200 scientific papers, including:ADRIAN FURNHAM. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.leadenhallconsulting.com/our-team-2-3/adrian-furnham/. * 1990 The Protestant Work Ethic * 1994 Culture Shock * 1994 Personality at Work * 1995 The New Economic Mind * 1996 The Myths of Management * 1997 The Psychology of Behaviour at Work * 1998 The Psychology of Money * 2003 The Incompetent Manager * 2004 The Dark Side of Behaviour at Work * 2005 The People Business * 2006 Management Mumbo-Jumbo * 2007 Head and Heart Management * 2008 Management Intelligence * 2009 50 Psychology Ideas you really need to know * 2009 The Elephant in the Boardroom: The Psychology of Leadership Derailment * 2012 The Talented Manager * 2015 High Potential * 2017 Motivation and Performance


Awards and achievements

* 2010 Elected Fellow of the Leadership TrustAdrian Furnham - Keynote Speaker. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://londonspeakerbureau.com/speaker-profile/adrian-furnham/. * 2010 Elected Academician of the Learned Society of the Social Sciences * 2011 British Psychological Society Academic Contribution to Practice Award * 2017 Lifetime Achievement AwardFrith, B. (19 September 2017). Adrian Furnham HR Lifetime Achievement Award. Retrieved from https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/adrian-furnham-recieves-hr-lifetime-achievement-award.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Furnham, Adrian Frank 1953 births Living people People from Port Shepstone University of Natal alumni British business theorists British psychologists Alumni of the University of London Alumni of the University of Strathclyde Alumni of Wolfson College, Oxford Academics of the University of Oxford Academics of University College London University of Hong Kong faculty South African emigrants to the United Kingdom People associated with The Institute for Cultural Research