Authenticity, meaning in life, and life satisfaction: A multicomponent investigation of relationships at the trait and state levels

Abstract

Objective The present study sought to examine: (1) how the components of authenticity (i.e., authentic living, self‐alienation, accepting external influence) relate to one another at between‐ and within‐person levels of analysis; (2) how the authenticity facets relate to meaning in life (i.e., purpose, comprehension, mattering) and life satisfaction at these levels of analysis; and (3) whether these relationships persist when controlling for affect and self‐esteem. Method Canadian undergraduates (N = 203) completed a trait questionnaire and end‐of‐day reports on these constructs for two weeks (n = 2335). Results At between‐ and within‐person levels, authentic living was negatively associated with self‐alienation and accepting external influence, while the latter two facets were positively associated. Authentic living was positively related to well‐being and predicted greater well‐being the following day. Alternatively, self‐alienation and accepting external influence were negatively related to well‐being, and self‐alienation predicted lower well‐being the following day. Relationships involving authentic living and self‐alienation were more robust than those involving accepting external influence. Conclusion Extending research on authenticity beyond between‐person relationships, our findings show that daily states of authenticity predict well‐being in nuanced ways, depending on the facet of authenticity. This highlights the importance of distinguishing levels of analyses and facets of authenticity.

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

“…Indeed, Baumeister lamented the state of the field, noting that “authenticity research is plagued by ambiguous and conflicting concepts, slippery and unconvincing methods, and confounded findings” (Baumeister, 2019, p. 143). This is particularly troubling given the multitude of psychological benefits to experiencing authenticity, including greater well-being (Sutton, 2020), meaning in life (Lutz et al, 2023), and engagement with work (Bailey et al, 2022). In an effort to reap its beneficial outcomes, psychologists have called for greater scrutiny and generative theories about the antecedents of experienced authenticity (Beer & Brandler, 2021).…”

Can there be overly meaningful lives? Conflicts between meaning in life and other values

“…Several philosophical works have already focused on the relations between objective and/or subjective (henceforth just “objective or subjective”) meaning and a specific value such as morality ( Thomas, 2005 ), happiness ( Metz, 2009 ), creativity ( Matheson, 2016 ), love ( Kronqvist, 2017 ), wonder ( Schinkel, 2019 ), forgiveness ( Allais, 2022 ), or gratitude ( Manela, 2022 ). Likewise, several psychological works have already focused on the relation between (mostly subjective) meaning and a specific value such as happiness (subjective wellbeing) ( Baumeister et al, 2013 ), creativity ( Kaufman, 2018 ), optimism ( Yu and Chang, 2019 ), gratitude ( Kleiman et al, 2013 ), self-compassion ( Suh and Chong, 2022 ), empathy ( Komisar and McFarland, 2017 ), or authenticity ( Lutz et al, 2022 ). The aim of this paper, however, is to discuss the general structure of the relation between objective or subjective meaning and other values, underscoring the ways in which other values and objective or subjective meaning sometimes conflict with and diminish rather than enhance each other.…”

Eco-Anxiety in Daily Life: Relationships with Well-Being and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

“…Ratings were made on the same 7-point scale as the trait measure. The former two items have been used in a prior diary study (Lutz et al, 2022).…”

“…In the preregistration, I noted that I would first remove daily entries that were duplicates and then those that were completed after 1:00 am; however, there were no such entries. Next, following previous diary studies (e.g., Lutz et al, 2022; and our preregistration, we excluded data from participants who completed fewer than five daily entries. This left 1439 (99.34%) entries from 132 (97.78%) participants for analysis.…”

“…Removing items from this scale did not improve its reliability and as such I retained the original measure. Although this reliability is lower than desired, it is important to note that multilevel analyses compensate for this to some extent when the parameter estimates are calculated (e.g., Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) and that it is similar to the reliabilities of daily measures from past diary studies (e.g., Lutz et al, 2022).…”