The Many Faces of State Authenticity
Case Western Reserve University. October 27, 2023.
Can you recall a time when you felt completely genuine, natural, and true to yourself? What about a time that you felt fake, contrived, or phony, like you were putting on an act? In psychological terms, feeling like one’s true self in the moment is called state authenticity, whereas feeling out of line with one’s real nature is state inauthenticity (Sedikides et al., 2017). The concept of a psychological “state” reflects a rather momentary or potentially short-lived way of being, lasting from seconds and minutes to hours or potentially a day or so (Fleeson, 2001). It is used in contrast to “trait,” which indicates a more stable and enduring way of being that typically does not change much over weeks, months, or years.
State authenticity is relevant to some of the most important existential tasks we face. When we talk about understanding ourselves and the roles we play, feeling authentic means that we feel genuine and true to ourselves. Our freedom to make choices comes with the responsibility to make decisions that align with our core values, and when we feel authentic, it often means we're making choices that matter to us. Building deep and meaningful relationships involves being open, honest, and real with others in the present moment. So, it's no wonder that people strive for authenticity and want to avoid feeling inauthentic (Lenton et al., 2013)—it's closely tied to their journey of self-discovery and living a meaningful life.
Over the last 15 years or so, researchers including myself and colleagues have become increasingly interested in state authenticity. Collectively, we want to figure out answers to fundamental questions: Are there different ways to be authentic? How often do people feel authentic versus inauthentic? When and under what conditions do people feel most like themselves? And does being authentic come with certain benefits or advantages?
How many ways are there to be your real self?
Counter-clockwise from top left: Piper Kerman, her 2010 memoir Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, and the Netflix hit based on her story.
It might seem like there should only be one way for each person to be authentic. But think about your behavior, thoughts, and feelings over time. They change over the course of a day, who you’re with, and what you’re doing. And it’s likely that you don’t feel drastic shifts in authenticity across many of these changes. So, what feels authentic in one moment might be different from what feels true in another. You may feel authentic being lively and sociable with friends, but those same behaviors could feel inauthentic in a more formal setting. Most of the time, state authenticity might be associated with pleasant feelings, but people may also feel authentic in adverse circumstances, such as standing up to criticism.
These kinds of ideas motivated a study aimed at figuring out the potentially diverse expressions of state authenticity and inauthenticity (Lenton et al., 2014). In one condition, participants recalled an event when feeling “most like your true or real self,” and in the other condition, participants described an event in which they felt “least like your true or real self.” In the "true self" condition, participants’ open-ended responses conveyed two types of state authenticity. One was "everyday authenticity," involving positive emotions, alignment with one’s perceived ideal self, psychological needs being met, and high self-esteem, as well as low-to-moderate levels of negative emotions and concern about others’ perceptions (i.e., public self-consciousness). These narratives often focused on routine tasks, like managing finances. The second type, "extraordinary authenticity," resembled "everyday authenticity" in terms of psychological experience but with even lower levels negative emotions and public self-consciousness. Events were more exceptional, such as being able to embrace life more fully after recovering from severe burns. Participants' recalled experiences with extraordinary authenticity conveyed a poignant theme of personal struggle that we also see portrayed in fiction. For example, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, the memoir turned into hit Netflix show, includes many characters who went through harrowing journeys to extraordinary authenticity while incarcerated in a women’s prison.
Counter-clockwise from top left: Cheryl Stayed, her 2012 memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Reese Witherspoon film based on her story.
Three state inauthenticity types emerged in the study. "Self-conscious inauthenticity" involved heightened self-awareness and concern about others' perceptions, often stemming from public failures. "Deflated authenticity" featured subdued experiences, low levels of both positive and negative emotions, as well as low levels of self-esteem and self-consciousness, often tied to disappointments. "Extraordinary inauthenticity" related to intensely negative emotions, very low self-esteem, and high public self-consciousness. Narratives about extraordinary inauthenticity included moral lapses and disconnection from oneself. Such narratives can be compelling, especially when they include a redemptive arc. In the memoir turned into a movie, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed writes powerfully about devastating experiences of extraordinary inauthenticity, feeling completely alienated when coping with her mother’s death, divorcing her husband, and falling into heroin use. She was able to transcend these difficulties on a journey of self-discovery while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.
My colleagues and I complemented the previous study by qualitatively examining the written text of scenes in a person’s life that were deemed as either authentic or inauthentic (Wilt et al., 2019). Themes that defined authenticity scenes included (a) being open, honest, and empathetic in relationships, (b) expressing one’s true thoughts and feelings, (c) comfort and enjoyment, (d) taking responsibility for one’s actions, and (e) resisting external pressures. Inauthenticity scenes were characterized by (a) feeling fake or putting on an act, (b) going along with the crowd and conforming to others, (c) suppressing one’s true thoughts and feelings, and (d) derogatory thoughts and disgust.
Themes observed in Wilt et al., 2019’s qualitative research study, in which participants were asked to write about scenes from their lives that made them feel most, and least, like their true self.
These studies in tandem suggest that, though one can say they’re being either authentic or inauthentic, in a broad sense, it might be more precise to think about the different ways that authenticity and inauthenticity states manifest in different scenarios. You might be able to be yourself in some ways, perhaps experiencing everyday authenticity when expressing yourself honestly in a supportive relationship. Yet you may have a harder time reaching extraordinary authenticity by resisting others’ judgments. Likewise, in the case of feeling inauthentic, while you may be familiar with instances of self-conscious inauthenticity when adhering to others' expectations, experiencing profound inauthenticity marked by self-reproach due to perceived transgressions is likely to be less frequent.
How often are you really yourself?
If you said, “all the time,” in a very literal sense you’re probably right. But here we are concerned with the subjective evaluation of whether you’re feeling, acting, and thinking like your real self. And, in contrast to the previous section where we distinguished between different types of authenticity, here and for the remainder of the article we discuss research that treated state authenticity as unitary, or “one thing.”
When I was a Master’s student at Wake Forest University, I worked on a project with my advisor (Fleeson & Wilt, 2010) to characterize state authenticity in a series of experience sampling studies, which involve collecting real-time data on individuals' experiences, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Bolger et al., 2003). In two studies, participants interacted with others in several tasks (e.g., playing Twister, debating medical ethics) in a laboratory setting during an academic semester. In another study, participants rated their state authenticity in natural environments. We used self-report items such as the following to assess state authenticity with reference to relatively short time periods (e.g., 20 minutes): “I was my true self,” “I felt authentic in the way I acted,” and “I was putting on an act” (scored to indicate low authenticity).
“On average, people felt highly authentic... [but] some consistently reported higher or lower levels of authenticity than others, while the typical person’s sense of authenticity varied considerably from one assessment to the next.”
Regardless of the study or measure, we found that, on average, people felt highly authentic (around 5.6 on a 7-point scale and 4.8 on a 6-point scale). Other studies using similar methods have shown that state authenticity is generally high in social interactions (Landa & English, 2022) and in reference to an entire day (Lenton et al., 2016). These results mean that if you were to ask someone how authentic they feel in the moment or over a day when engaging in everyday activities, it's likely that they would say something along the lines of, "pretty authentic."
However, this is just part of the story. People's psychological states can vary (Fleeson et al., 2001). They can vary between people, such that some people have higher averages than others. And they can change over time within one person. For instance, someone might start their day feeling inauthentic when faced with a mandatory work task, but their sense of authenticity may increase when they socialize with colleagues during lunch. In the studies mentioned, some individuals consistently reported higher or lower levels of authenticity than others, while the typical person's sense of authenticity varied considerably from one assessment to the next. In fact, variation in authenticity between people was often lower than the variability within the typical person; this means that the typical person ranges between acting like an introvert and extravert over relatively short time frames.
Think about the movie Mean Girls. Lindsay Lohan’s character, Cady Heron, vacillates across the spectrum of state authenticity, feeling connected to herself in her family life and with supportive friends but inauthentic when trying to fit in with the popular clique, The Plastics. This example hints at an idea that we’ll explore next: Conditions, some internal and some external, may underlie variation in state authenticity.
Under what conditions are you most likely to be authentic?
The finding that state authenticity changes over time naturally brings up questions about what conditions relate to those changes. One intuitive idea is that a person might feel most authentic when acting, feeling, and thinking in the ways that are typical for them. Another way of saying this is that people may feel most authentic when behaving in line with their personality traits. As noted earlier, a trait is a more stable way of acting, thinking, and feeling. Traits are individual differences variables, meaning that some people have higher or lower levels on a particular trait. Personality psychologists have come to a broad consensus regarding five basic traits (i.e., the Big Five) that are fundamental to human personality (John et al., 2008): extraversion (sociability, assertiveness, liveliness), agreeableness (compassion, kindness, politeness), conscientiousness (responsibility, orderliness, attention to detail), neuroticism (emotional variability, avoidance, anger), and openness to experience (open-mindedness, curiosity, intellectual interests).
Based on the reasoning that authenticity equals alignment with traits, an extraverted person should feel authentic when acting sociable, assertive, and lively, but an introverted person should feel authentic when being unsociable, passive, and inactive. And the same should go for other traits. However, we found that this idea is not supported. Instead, regardless of their trait levels, people felt more authentic when acting increasingly extraverted, agreeable, conscientious, and open, as well as less neurotic (Fleeson & Wilt, 2010). Therefore, these findings suggest that a quiet, shy introvert would feel most like themselves when being bold and talkative.
“If we don’t feel genuine when we’re aligning our actions with our personality traits, what are we striving to be true to?”
If we don't feel genuine when we're aligning our actions with our personality traits, what are we striving to be true to? One possibility is that authenticity is linked to our emotional states or affect. Humanistic theories have proposed that a person’s true self is intrinsically tied to positive psychological states (Maslow, 1968; Rogers, 1961), so is it possible that authenticity simply equates to feeling good? Some intriguing findings suggest that this may indeed be the case.
In a series of studies, my colleagues and I found that feeling positive plays a significant role in explaining the connections between personality states and authenticity (Wilt et al., 2021). People completed ratings of their Big Five states, positive affect, and state authenticity over the previous hour either 6 times per day for one week or 4 times per day for 15 days. As in the studies previously described, state authenticity related to higher levels of state extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, as well as lower neuroticism. But this was only true when participants also reported feeling more positive affect at the same time as when they enacted these personality states. Further reinforcing the idea that feeling good is related to state authenticity, Lenton, et al.’s (2013) work revealed that moments of authenticity often coincide with emotions like fun, excitement, pride, satisfaction, and relaxation. Conversely, feelings of anxiety, fear, sadness, and disappointment accompany inauthenticity. And experimental studies have shown that inducing positive affect can lead to feelings of authenticity, while negative affect can produce inauthentic states (Lenton, 2014).
Lindsey Lohan’s character, Cady Heron, feels authentic in her family life and with supportive friends but inauthentic when trying to fit in with The Plastics. In J. D. Salinger’s 1951 Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield experiences substantial angst about, and rebels against, the inauthenticity and alienation of “fitting in” to society.
Yet, the positive emotion explanation seems incomplete by itself. Maybe authenticity seems good, but don’t people perceive their true nature as more psychologically complex? Think back to the studies described at the beginning of the article, in which people talked about a variety of authentic and inauthentic experiences. Themes touched upon self-expression, meeting one’s psychological needs, enacting core values, and resisting external influences. And when Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of Catcher in the Rye, decries people for being phonies, he’s getting at something more nuanced than a lack of positivity.
Research has examined psychological conditions for authenticity beyond positivity. Self-determination theory proposed that authenticity flourishes when we meet our fundamental needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness – the pillars that support our sense of self and connection to others (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Some studies have shown that experiences of authenticity are often intertwined with perceptions of meeting these basic psychological needs (Heppner et al., 2008; Lenton et al., 2013). Another intriguing possibility is that state authenticity arises from acting consistently with higher values. Smallenbroek et al. (2017) found that memories of acting in accordance with values related to perceptions of authenticity, regardless of whether the memory was pleasant or unpleasant. Additionally, other studies showed that behaving morally associated with higher daily authenticity, and being reminded of moral acts increased authenticity, whereas being reminded of behaving immorally decreased authenticity (Christy et al., 2016). The relationship between upholding moral values and state authenticity also extends to workplace settings (H. Zhang et al., 2019).
Thus far, we’ve addressed how various psychological states might correspond to feeling authentic. This is putting the onus for authenticity on the person, irrespective of context, that is, where the person is, who they’re with, and what they’re doing. But situations might also play a role in being oneself. For instance, in one study, state authenticity was highest when with one’s partner, somewhat lower when with friends and parents, and lowest when with work colleagues (Robinson et al., 2014). Another study found that being with friends or one’s children related to higher levels of authenticity, whereas being online or watching TV related to lower levels (Lenton et al., 2016). And a recent theory emphasizes not only psychological states or situations, but the fit between who a person is and their current environment (Aday & Schmader, 2019; Schmader & Sedikides, 2018). According to this perspective, if the environment supports a person’s idea of who they are, affords the opportunity to achieve important goals, and includes social validation, a person should feel authentic. Some findings are consistent with these ideas, as situations that provide opportunities for meaning and purpose, as well as interest and pleasure, relate to higher levels of state authenticity (Lenton et al., 2016).
Does state authenticity relate to well-being?
Not only psychologists, but philosophers, theologians, and literary authors have praised the ideal of authenticity (Franzese, 2008; Vannini & Franzese, 2008). It is also a trope in popular culture to just be yourself, and there are too many self-help books to name that offer advice about finding one’s authentic nature. Do these ideas align with empirical findings? The answer from research is an unequivocal “yes,” as state authenticity seems to be a boon to well-being.
In addition to the work previously described relating authenticity to positive emotions, state authenticity is associated with subjective vitality and satisfaction with life (for a review, see Sedikides et al., 2017). State authenticity in particular roles (e.g., parent, worker, friend) also associated with satisfaction in that role (Sheldon et al., 1997). Role authenticity related to positive mental health (Sheldon et al., 1997), a finding that holds across different cultures such as the United States, England, and Russia (Robinson et al., 2012).
Going beyond pleasure and satisfaction, state authenticity related to higher self-esteem (Heppner et al., 2008) and self-compassion (J. W. Zhang et al., 2019). The more authentic one feels, the more a person values the self and treats oneself kindly. State authenticity, operationalized as being able to access characteristics of one's true self in the moment, also relates to higher perceptions of meaning in life (Schlegel et al., 2009). Other studies showed that people perceive the days in which they felt relatively more authentic as more personally meaningful (Lutz et al., 2023; Wilt et al., 2021). And one of our studies linked higher daily authenticity to perceiving ultimate meanings in life, that is, greater felt insights into the meanings of life and existence, and potentially spiritual revelations (Wilt et al., 2021).
State authenticity: It’s diverse, dynamic, and an indicator of existential discovery
Surprisingly, one emerging theme in research on state authenticity is one of diversity. While the concept of the true self might suggest a singular and unchanging identity, the reality is quite the opposite. Authenticity takes on various meanings and shades, and a person's experiences of authenticity can shift from one moment to the next and from one day to another. This intricate tapestry of authenticity encompasses a multitude of psychological experiences, ranging from the simple pleasure of feeling good to the exploration of different personality states. It includes fulfilling fundamental needs, aligning with personal values, and upholding moral principles.
These findings may offer a sense of liberation, granting individuals the freedom to explore multiple avenues of self-discovery and self-creation. And it's important to remember that losing oneself from time to time is a natural and adaptable aspect of life. However, the more one can reconnect with authenticity in the present moment, the more vibrant, complete, and meaningful life becomes. This evolving and diverse landscape of authenticity provides a rich and dynamic framework for understanding and embracing our ever-changing experience of state authenticity.
Joshua Wilt is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. His research interests intersect across two main areas. One line of research explores the structure of personality traits, personality processes that manifest in daily life, and the ways in which personality structure and process may be integrated. Much of his work in this area has examined how personality traits relate to eudaimonic and hedonic processes. A second line of work examines predictors and outcomes of existential challenges around religion/spirituality. His work in this area has focused on religious/spiritual struggles and supernatural attributions.