Why don’t we know more about the minds of authentic people?

Abstract

AbstractBy definition, authentic people presumably do not fall prey to the self‐evaluation biases which pervade human social cognition yet a close look at the existing literature suggests this presumption is ill‐founded. For example, only a few studies have examined whether people feel more authentic when they make decisions which express their true selves in the face of social pressure. In contrast to theories of authenticity, studies find that feelings of authenticity are either unrelated or unexpectedly decreased in relation to decisions which draw on the true self. Furthermore, behavioral and neural research do not consistently find that feelings of authenticity arise in the absence of self‐serving biases. We propose that we know a lot less about the thoughts of an authentic person than is widely believed and some of the core assumptions may be wrong. We posit specific methodological considerations and research questions which need to be addressed before it will be possible to conclude whether core assumptions about social cognition and authenticity have robust empirical support (or need to be revised). A research program which illuminates the relation between social cognition and authenticity will be helpful for understanding the manner in which a person's thoughts contribute to the experience of authenticity and its benefits.