Are You for Real? Perceptions of Authenticity Are Systematically Biased and Not Accurate

Bailey, Erica R.; Levy, Aharon

doi:10.1177/09567976211056623

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(52 reference statements)

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“…Our perspective also helps explain questions raised by the recent empirical findings of Bailey and Levy (2022). Perhaps surprisingly, the authors found that there was a negligible correlation between self- and other-rated authenticity on randomly assigned teams.…”

Section: Authenticitymentioning

confidence: 51%

“…Past research has found that self- and other-rated authenticity tend to diverge from one another (Bailey & Levy, 2022). We find one reason why self- and other-rated authenticity diverge: While positivity is a sign of authenticity to the self, it is a sign of in authenticity to others.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…State authenticity was measured using a three-item face-valid measure based on past research (Bailey & Levy, 2022; Fleeson & Wilt, 2010). Participants were asked the extent to which they agreed with the following statements “described how you feel right now.” Items were: “I feel authentic,” “I feel like myself,” and “I feel fake*” (* = reverse-coded; α = .86).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The data for this study were made available on the Open Science Framework project page of a published article (Bailey & Levy, 2022; Study 3). This data set contained responses from 571 MBA students (average age = 27.94 years, SD = 2.51 years; 336 men, 233 women, two other; 49.21% White, 28.90% Asian, 10.16% Hispanic or Latino/a, 4.90% Black or African American, 6.48% other) who rated their own personality and authenticity.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Positive—More than unbiased—Self-perceptions increase subjective authenticity.

Bailey,

Iyengar

2023

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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Authenticity is often described using terms like “real,” “genuine,” and “true” suggesting that unbiased and objective self-perception is a core component of the construct. However, people tend to view themselves in an overly positive way. Therefore, we propose that experiencing a positive self—versus an unbiased self—will increase authenticity. We find support for this in seven studies (Ntotal = 1,795) with two operationalizations of self-rated authenticity: attributed and state authenticity. We find that authenticity emerges from positive self-beliefs (Study 1), positive personality assessments (Study 2), and positive self-expressions (Study 3a and b). Further, we find that these effects are not driven only by positivity, but positive selves (Study 4), and mediated by the identity centrality (Study 5). Finally, Study 6 finds that this positivity bias does not extend to other-rated authenticity: People who present an overly positive self seem less authentic to others relative to a mixed or negative self-presentation. Taken together, these findings suggest that being “unreal” through positive self-illusions can, paradoxically, make one feel more real.

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Section: Authenticitymentioning

confidence: 51%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Positive—More than unbiased—Self-perceptions increase subjective authenticity.

Bailey,

Iyengar

2023

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Self Cite

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“…Interestingly, both mechanisms mediated the effects for committed, embedded and moral attitudes. This integrates hypocrisy research with a broader literature on perceived authenticity (Bailey & Levy, 2022;Kernis & Goldman, 2006;Newman, 2019;Sutton, 2020) in which inaccurate self-knowledge prompts disliking (Garcia, 2019;Liu & Perrewe, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Hypocrisy judgements are affected by target attitude strength and attitude moralization

Vaughan‐Johnston

2023

Euro J Social Psych

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Researchers and philosophers have debated what leads people to judge others as being hypocritical. Some research has shown that perceivers consider targets to be more hypocritical when those targets contradict attitudes that are strongly (e.g., moralized and/or certain) rather than weakly held by the target. In the present work, I attempt to advance this research in several respects. First, I integrate these findings with research on the dimensions of attitude strength (i.e., commitment, embeddedness) to provide a more structured analysis of these claims. I show that characterizing a target's views as embedded and committed has many of the same hypocrisy‐related effects as labelling those views as moral, and affect (negative) evaluations of targets through similar mechanisms. However, in Experiment 3, I show that moral attitudes are, nonetheless, perceived as distinct from classic strength dimensions in one crucial respect: the presumption that the target would impose them on other people. Furthermore, whereas judgements of hypocrisy relating to embedded/committed attitudes can be mitigated when perceivers engage in situational attribution, perceivers rendering judgements of hypocrisy relating to moral attitudes resist situational counter‐explanations.

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