Authenticity and self-control: a social neuroscience approach

Abstract

This dissertation explores the essence of authenticity—the true, genuine self of an individual—from three distinct perspectives: self-accuracy, self-consistency, and self-enhancement. Additionally, it investigates the role of authenticity in the relationship between self-control and reward processing. In Chapter 1, I review the existing literature on the self and authenticity, systematically tracing their conceptual evolution across different historical periods and theoretical frameworks. I examine the three perspectives of authenticity along with their respective empirical evidence from psychological research, and contrast authenticity with another prominent form of self-representation—the presented self. I also discuss behavioural and neuroscientific methods used to study the self and authenticity. Furthermore, I investigate the role of trait authenticity in shaping self-control exertion over reward processing.
The empirical chapters present a series of studies designed to contribute to the current literature. In Chapter 2, I test the self-enhancement view of authenticity rigorously by comparing the authentic self with the presented self using the SR-valence task. Both behavioural and neuroscientific findings reveal that authenticity, albeit predominantly positive, allows room for negativity, providing support for the self-accuracy and self-consistency perspectives. In Chapter 3, I further examine the self-enhancement, self-accuracy, and self-consistency views by investigating the interference of negative information on self-evaluation through the self-referent emotional Stroop task. Both behavioural and neuroscience findings demonstrate that the presented self is more inclined toward positivity, whereas the authentic self exhibits greater tolerance for negativity. In Chapter 4, I first examine the neural basis of the reward responsivity hypothesis of self-control by a modified monetary incentive delay task (Part A), and then re-examine whether the reward responsivity following self-control exertion is potentially influenced by trait authenticity (Part B). The findings provide neurophysiological evidence supporting the reward responsivity hypothesis of self-control, although the enhancement of reward responsivity appears to be independent of trait authenticity.
Finally, in Chapter 5, I synthesize the key findings of the studies, discuss their theoretical and empirical implications, highlight the strengths and limitations of the research, and propose directions for future investigations.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Chengli Huang: orcid.org/0000-0001-5215-6734

ORCID for Nicholas Kelley: orcid.org/0000-0003-2256-0597

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

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