Authenticity as self-enhancement

Abstract

The essence of authenticity has long been a topic of intellectual inquiry among both philosophers and psychologists, and authenticity is often promoted in contemporary culture as an aspirational pathway to happiness and well-being. According to traditional views, authenticity emerges from veridical self-discovery and self-congruent action—that is, knowing oneself without bias, escaping the pressure of external influence, and acting in accordance with the true self. In the current chapter, we propose an alternative, the self-enhancement view. Specifically, we argue that self-enhancement is a critical antecedent to authenticity and, in turn, authenticity begets further self-enhancement. We begin by reviewing the self-accuracy and self-consistency views. We next introduce the self-enhancement view, and present suggestive evidence for it including that both authenticity and self-enhancement are pancultural, both predict psychological health and well-being, and authenticity emerges from self-positivity more strongly than from self-congruent action. We end by reviewing recent findings that provide direct support for the self-enhancement view.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Constantine Sedikides: orcid.org/0000-0003-4036-889X

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