The Authentic Self Is the Self-Enhancing Self: A Self-Enhancement Framework of Authenticity

Authenticity refers to behaving in a manner that aligns with one's true self. The true self, though, is positive. From a self-enhancement standpoint, people exaggerate their strengths and overlook their shortcomings, forming positively-distorted views of themselves. We propose a self-enhancement framework of authenticity, advocating a reciprocal relation between the two constructs. Trait self-enhancement was associated with higher trait authenticity (Study 1), and day-to-day fluctuations in self-enhancement predicted corresponding variations in state authenticity (Study 2). Furthermore, manipulating self-enhancement elevated state authenticity (Studies 3-4), which was associated with meaning in life (Study 4), and manipulating authenticity augmented self-enhancement, which was associated with meaning in life and thriving (Study 5). The authentic self is largely the self-enhancing self.

Developmental authenticity - underlying dynamics of inner work processes

An emerging body of research attends to grasp the concept of authenticity. Nonetheless, a view on the developmental part with its underlying facets of Inner Work processes, is rare. In this paper, we aim to take a deeper look into the dynamics of inner work processes, that define certain authenticity developmental stages. Building upon our recently proposed "4C-view" of authenticity, we approach this developmental perspective from two different angles: from a process characteristic angle and a developmental level angle. Using vignettes of authentic client personality coaching processes, we propose that the interwoven dynamic between those two aspects yields several combinations of maturity levels within the individual. Continuity as an overarching concept thus contains various developmental authenticity stages that could be identified through different markers and vary in particular contexts.

The SAFE Model: State Authenticity as a Function of Three Types of Fit

The SAFE model asserts that state authenticity stems from three types of fit to the environment. Across two studies of university students, we validated instruments measuring self-concept, goal, and social fit as unique predictors of state authenticity. In Study 1 (N = 969), relationships between fit and state authenticity were robust to controlling for conceptually similar and distinct variables. Using experience sampling methodology, Study 2 (N = 269) provided evidence that fit and authenticity co-vary at the state (i.e., within-person) level, controlling for between-person effects. Momentary variation in each fit type predicted greater state authenticity, willingness to return to the situation, and state attachment to one's university. Each fit type was also predicted by distinct contextual features (e.g., location, activity, company). Supporting a theorized link to cognitive fluency, situations eliciting self-concept fit elicited higher working memory capacity and lower emotional burnout. We discuss the implications of fit in educational contexts.

Masquerading their way to authenticity: Does age stigma concealment benefit older women?

As women age they can be subject to both sexism and ageism, and consequently be stereotyped as low in competence and irrelevant despite having a relatively young subjective age. Drawing on theories of stigma, we conducted a survey study of older women (N = 184) with a strong interest in fashion and their visual image. We used template thematic analysis to understand their experiences in relation to their age-changed appearance. Two major themes were identified: unfavourable experiences of ageism and efforts to evade these experiences through attention to appearance. Our participants employed masquerade to conceal or reduce the visible evidence of their age-both to avoid ageism and to align their outward appearance more closely with their inner, felt, authentic selves. We interrogate the benefits and penalties of concealment for a group whose stigmatised condition is dynamic, changing as their appearance grows increasingly dissimilar to societally favoured youthfulness. Masquerade may for this group of women produce more positive than negative outcomes, via effects on felt authenticity.

Nostalgia as motivation

Nostalgia, an approach-oriented emotion, has motivational consequences. In particular, nostalgia raises optimism and inspiration, strengthens the pursuit of one's important goals, appears to encourage financial risk-taking activates the intrinsic or authentic self, and galvanizes the desire to change one's addictive behavior. Nostalgia, a past-oriented emotion, has strong implications for the future. We discuss boundaries of these effects, highlight lacunae in the literature, and point to promising research directions.

Authenticity, Meaning in Life, and Life Satisfaction: A Multicomponent Investigation of Relationships at the Trait and State Levels

OBJECTIVE

The present study sought to examine: (1) how the components of authenticity (i.e., authentic living, self-alienation, accepting external influence) relate to one another at between- and within-person levels of analysis; (2) how the authenticity facets relate to meaning in life (i.e., purpose, comprehension, mattering) and life satisfaction at these levels of analysis; and (3) whether these relationships persist when controlling for affect and self-esteem.

METHOD

Canadian undergraduates (N = 203) completed a trait questionnaire and end-of-day reports on these constructs for two weeks (n = 2335).

RESULTS

At between- and within-person levels, authentic living was negatively associated with self-alienation and accepting external influence, while the latter two facets were positively associated. Authentic living was positively related to well-being and predicted greater well-being the following day. Alternatively, self-alienation and accepting external influence were negatively related to well-being, and self-alienation predicted lower well-being the following day. Relationships involving authentic living and self-alienation were more robust than those involving accepting external influence.

CONCLUSION

Extending research on authenticity beyond between-person relationships, our findings show that daily states of authenticity predict well-being in nuanced ways, depending on the facet of authenticity. This highlights the importance of distinguishing levels of analyses and facets of authenticity.

Authenticity as Best-Self: The Experiences of Women in Law Enforcement

Law enforcement poses a difficult work environment. Employees’ wellbeing is uniquely taxed in coping with daily violent, aggressive and hostile encounters. These challenges are compounded for women, because law enforcement remains to be a male-dominated occupational context. Yet, many women in law enforcement display resilience and succeed in maintaining a satisfying career. This study explores the experience of being authentic from a best-self perspective, for women with successful careers in the South African police and traffic law enforcement services. Authenticity research substantiates a clear link between feeling authentic and experiencing psychological wellbeing. The theoretical assumption on which the study is based holds that being authentic relates to a sense of best-self and enables constructive coping and adjustment in a challenging work environment. A qualitative study was conducted on a purposive sample of 12 women, comprising 6 police officers and 6 traffic officers from the Western Cape province in South Africa. Data were gathered through narrative interviews focussing on experiences of best-self and were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. During the interviews, participants predominantly described feeling authentic in response to work-related events of a conflictual and challenging nature. Four themes were constructed from the data to describe authenticity from a best-self perspective for women in the study. These themes denote that the participating women in law enforcement, express feeling authentic when they present with a mature sense of self, feel spiritually congruent and grounded, experience self-actualisation in the work–role and realign to a positive way of being. Women should be empowered towards authenticity in their world of work, by helping them to acquire the best-self characteristics needed for developing authenticity.

A Short Version of the Kernis-Goldmanauthenticity Inventory: Adaptation in Russia

Aim. The first psychometric verification of the Kernis-Goldman Authenticity Inventory, which includes 45 statements and four scales in the initial version, such as Awareness, Unbiased processing, authentic Behavior, and Relational orientation, was carried out in Russia. The questionnaire was developed within the framework of the existential paradigm of personality psychology. Procedure and method. The study involved 704 respondents (144 male, 559 female, aged 17 to 32 years). To check the convergent validity, the Authenticity scale (subscales: Authentic living, Acceptance of external influence, and Self-Alienation) and the single-scale Moscow authenticity scale were used. Confirmatory factor analysis, parametric and nonparametric statistical methods were used. Results and conclusion. During the adaptation, the Authenticity inventory was reduced to 32 points (per 8 in each of the scales), in order to keep the original factor structure. It was found that the Relational orientation score is higher in females, and Awareness is higher in males. It was also found that the indicators of the adapted questionnaire positively correlate with the scores of Authentic living and the Moscow authenticity scale, and negatively — with the scores of Acceptance of external influence and Self-alienation. The study showed the structural and convergent validity of the Russian-language version of the questionnaire. The new tool can be recommended for evaluating the effectiveness of various interventions and for research.

Why do followers feel inauthentic and withdraw? The joint effect of leader Machiavellianism and perceived collectivistic work climate

OBJECTIVE

Although past research has shown the negative consequences of state inauthenticity (i.e., the experience of inauthenticity), what triggers state inauthenticity remains to be better understood. We focus on leader Machiavellianism (Mach), defined as the extent to which leaders engage in unethical and manipulative behaviors to attain their goals, as a predictor of follower state inauthenticity. Drawing on the social misfit argument, we examined a model in which leader Mach, jointly with a perceived collectivistic work climate, determines follower state inauthenticity and subsequent work withdrawal.

METHOD

We used a vignette-based lab study (303 participants from the United States) and a daily diary field study (476 daily responses from 69 participants recruited from China).

RESULTS

Across two studies, we found that follower state inauthenticity mediated the relationship between leader Mach and follower work withdrawal. The positive relationship between leader Mach and follower state inauthenticity was strengthened by a perceived collectivistic work climate.

CONCLUSIONS

The present research underlines the importance of the social environment in influencing follower state inauthenticity at work and shifts research attention from the consequences of state inauthenticity to its predictors.

Memories of who we are: A preliminary identification of autobiographical memory functions in recall of authentic and inauthentic events

The story of who we are is central to our sense of authenticity and this story is constructed from our autobiographical memories. Yet we know surprisingly little about the functions that autobiographical memories of being authentic serve. This study provides a preliminary examination of the self, social and directive functions used in autobiographical memories of being authentic and inauthentic. Participants recalled times they felt they had been authentic or inauthentic at work. Analyses revealed that the self and directive functions were significantly more prevalent than the social function. In addition, authentic memories were most strongly associated with the self function while inauthentic memories were more likely to be used for the directive function. This may indicate that recall of an authentic experience serves to support one’s current self-identity, while recall of an inauthentic experience provides an opportunity to direct future behaviour towards a more authentic response. This study provides some of the first evidence for how autobiographical memories of being authentic or inauthentic may function in developing a coherent story of self that is needed for a sense of authenticity.

Objectification limits authenticity: Exploring the relations between objectification, perceived authenticity, and subjective well-being

Five studies (total valid N = 834) examined whether objectification (i.e., being treated as a tool or an object to achieve others' goals) reduces people's perceived authenticity and subjective well-being. Participants who experienced more objectification (Studies 1a and 1b), imagined being objectified (Study 2), or recalled a past objectification experience (Study 3) felt less authentic and reported lower levels of subjective well-being than their counterparts. Moreover, perceived authenticity mediated the link between objectification and subjective well-being (Studies 1a-3). In addition, offering objectified participants an opportunity to restore authenticity could enhance their well-being (Study 4). Taken together, our findings highlight the crucial role of authenticity in understanding when and why objectification decreases subjective well-being and how to ameliorate this relationship. Our findings also imply the effect of authenticity in understanding various psychological outcomes following objectification.

Authentic self-expression on social media is associated with greater subjective well-being

Social media users face a tension between presenting themselves in an idealized or authentic way. Here, we explore how prioritizing one over the other impacts users’ well-being. We estimate the degree of self-idealized vs. authentic self-expression as the proximity between a user’s self-reported personality and the automated personality judgements made on the basis Facebook Likes and status updates. Analyzing data of 10,560 Facebook users, we find that individuals who are more authentic in their self-expression also report greater Life Satisfaction. This effect appears consistent across different personality profiles, countering the proposition that individuals with socially desirable personalities benefit from authentic self-expression more than others. We extend this finding in a pre-registered, longitudinal experiment, demonstrating the causal relationship between authentic posting and positive affect and mood on a within-person level. Our findings suggest that the extent to which social media use is related to well-being depends on how individuals use it.

It is often tempting for social media users to present themselves in an idealized way. Here, based on analyses of a large set of Facebook profiles together with a longitudinal experiment, the authors find evidence that more authentic self-expression may be psychologically beneficial, as it is related to greater well-being.

Stalking the True Self Through the Jungles of Authenticity: Problems, Contradictions, Inconsistencies, Disturbing Findings—and a Possible Way Forward

Research on authenticity frequently invokes notions of true self, but is there such thing? The question must be answered twice, given frequent confusion and conflation of self with self-concept. Summarizing and integrating themes from authenticity research as evident in this special issue, I draw these conclusions. True self-concepts are more plausible than genuinely true selves, if the latter are independent entities distinct from actual behavior and experience. Yet rather than a single true self-concept, people have multiple nonfalse ones, none of which is entirely true. Among these, the pragmatically most important is the desired reputation, given the social-cultural orientation of humankind. Desired reputation is more a guide and goal than a reality, but successes and failures at achieving that reputation will produce welcome and unwelcome feelings that are likely reported as feeling authentic and inauthentic (respectively). Understanding authenticity in this way solves some of the perennial problems that beset research and theory on authenticity, especially positive distortion and external rather than internal orientation.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Authenticity: Novel Insights Into a Valued, Yet Elusive, Concept

Authenticity is generally believed to play an important role in our daily lives. Empirical research thus far has made progress in understanding the nature of this important construct. We identify four broad conclusions about authenticity based on this research: (a) People value authenticity in their own behavior and other domains (e.g., life experiences, consumer products), (b) Self-reports of personal authenticity are linked to psychological well-being, (c) People generally believe authentic, or “true,” selves are morally good, and (d) Authenticity judgments are guided by cognitive tendencies related to psychological essentialism. Despite this progress, many basic questions about authenticity remain unresolved including (a) What is the best way to define the construct? (b) Why do people care so much about whether something or someone is authentic? and (c) Why is personal authenticity so strongly related to psychological well-being? This special issue presents articles aimed to shed light on some of these basic questions. Although each of the articles offers a unique perspective to understanding authenticity, these collections of articles provide a generative framework to help researchers continue to explore this elusive construct.