Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has announced a three-year, $3.67 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation for research into the nature of character.

The grant will be used by philosophy professor Christian Miller and psychology professors William F. Fleeson and Michael R. Furr to advance the Character Project, which will include a summer seminar, research projects and two research conferences, funding for scholars conducting research on character, and an essay competition with nine prizes of $3,000 each. The project will be directed by Miller and overseen by Templeton Foundation vice president for philosophy and theology Michael J. Murray.

The project will build on research by Fleeson and Furr into the existence and nature of character and the relationship between character traits and beliefs, desires, identities, emotions, situations, and behavior. Fleeson and Furr also will administer the New Frontiers in the Psychology of Character initiative, which will make $1.5 million in funding available to psychology scholars, especially those who have earned their doctorates within the last decade.

Similar initiatives will be launched to fund research on the philosophy and theology of character, with Angela Knobel, an assistant professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of America, directing the theology study.

"When we think about how to understand human behavior, one of the first things we tend to mention is someone's character and character traits such as honesty, courage, or laziness," said Miller. "We are very excited about using the complementary perspectives of psychology, philosophy, and theology to better understand what our characters are like and how we can improve ourselves as persons."