Alison P. Lenton

How does “being real” feel? The experience of state authenticity

OBJECTIVE We propose that the experience of state authenticity-the subjective sense of being ones true self-ought to be considered separately from trait authenticity as well as from prescriptions regarding what should make people feel authentic. METHODS In Study 1 (N = 104), online participants rated the frequency of and motivation for experiences of authenticity and inauthenticity. Studies 2 (N = 268) and 3 (N = 93) asked (local or online, respectively) participants to describe their experiences of authenticity or inauthenticity. Participants in Studies 1 and 2 also completed measures of trait authenticity, and participants in Study 3 rated their experience with respect to several phenomenological dimensions. RESULTS Study 1 demonstrated that people are motivated to experience state authenticity and avoid inauthenticity and that such experiences are common, regardless of ones degree of trait authenticity. Coding of Study 2s narratives identified the emotions accompanying and needs fulfilled in each state. Trait authenticity generally did not qualify the nature of (in)authentic experiences. Study 3 corroborated the results of Study 2 and further revealed positive mood and nostalgia as consequences of reflecting on experiences of authenticity. CONCLUSIONS We discuss implications of these findings for conceptualizations of authenticity and the self.

A meta-analysis on the malleability of automatic gender stereotypes.

This meta-analytic review examined the efficacy of interventions aimed at reducing automatic gender stereotypes. Such interventions included attentional distraction, salience of within-category heterogeneity, and stereotype suppression. A small but significant main effect (g = .32) suggests that these interventions are successful but that their scope is limited. The intervention main effect was moderated by publication status, sample nationality, and intervention type. The meta-analytic findings suggest several issues worthy of further investigation, such as whether (a) other categories of intervention not yet identified or tested could be more effective, (b) suppression necessarily produces ironic effects in automatic stereotyping, (c) various indirect measures are differentially sensitive to stereotype change, and (d) automatic stereotypes about men differ in their malleability from those about women.

“Shopping” for a Mate: Expected versus Experienced Preferences in Online Mate Choice

Modern communication technology has greatly increased the number of options we can choose among in a variety of evolutionarily important domains, from housing to food to mates. But is this greater choice beneficial? To find out, we ran two experimental studies to examine the effects of increasing option set-size on anticipated and experienced choice perceptions in the modern context of online mate choice. While participants expected greater enjoyment, increased satisfaction, and less regret when choosing from larger (versus smaller) sets of prospective partners (at least up to a point; Study 1), participants presented with a supposedly ideal number of options experienced no improvement in affect and showed more memory confusions regarding their choice than did those participants presented with fewer options (Study 2). Participants correctly anticipated that greater choice would yield increasing costs, but they overestimated the point at which this would occur. We offer an evolutionary-cognitive framework within which to understand this misperception, discuss factors that may make it difficult for decision-makers to correct for it, and suggest ways in which dating websites could be designed to help users choose from large option sets.

I feel good, therefore I am real: testing the causal influence of mood on state authenticity.

Although the literature has focused on individual differences in authenticity, recent findings suggest that authenticity is sensitive to context; that is, it is also a state. We extended this perspective by examining whether incidental affect influences authenticity. In three experiments, participants felt more authentic when in a relatively positive than negative mood. The causal role of affect in authenticity was consistent across a diverse set of mood inductions, including explicit (Experiments 1 and 3) and implicit (Experiment 2) methods. The link between incidental affect and state authenticity was not moderated by ability to down-regulate negative affect (Experiments 1 and 3) nor was it explained by negative mood increasing private self-consciousness or decreasing access to the self system (Experiment 3). The results indicate that mood is used as information to assess ones sense of authenticity.

The relationship between number of potential mates and mating skew in humans

In nonhuman animal mate choice, a small number of (usually male) options typically leads to an unequal distribution of selections (usually by females) across the options, indicating adaptive choice; conversely, an increasing number of mate options typically yields less inequality of choices across the options. We examined mating skew, a measure of this inequality in mating choices, among humans by considering the offers made by participants in 118 speed-dating sessions of various sizes. Overall, the relationship between a number of indices of mating skew and option set size (the number of opposite-sex participants in the speed-dating session) was positive, with larger sessions producing more mate choice inequality. This result contrasts with the negative relationship between skew and option set size found in nonhuman animals. We interpret these results as the outcome of similar choice mechanisms but different cues used by humans versus other species when making a choice from an abundance of mates.

Trait and State Authenticity Across Cultures

We examined the role of culture in both trait and state authenticity, asking whether the search for and experience of the “true self” is a uniquely Western phenomenon or is relevant cross-culturally. We tested participants from the United States, China, India, and Singapore. U.S. participants reported higher average levels of trait authenticity than those from Eastern cultures (i.e., China, India, Singapore), but this effect was partially explained by cultural differences in self-construal and thinking style. Importantly, the experience of state authenticity, and especially state inauthenticity, was more similar than different across cultures. In all, people from different cultures do experience authenticity, even if they do not endorse the (Western) value of “independence.” The findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of state authenticity.

State Authenticity in Everyday Life

We examined the components and situational correlates of state authenticity to clarify the constructs meaning and improve understanding of authenticitys attainment. In Study 1, we used the day reconstruction method (participants assessed real–life episodes from ‘yesterday’) and in Study 2 a smartphone app (participants assessed real–life moments taking place ‘just now’) to obtain situation–level ratings of participants’ sense of living authentically, self–alienation, acceptance of external influence, mood, anxiety, energy, ideal–self overlap, self–consciousness, self–esteem, flow, needs satisfaction, and motivation to be ‘real’. Both studies demonstrated that state authentic living does not require rejecting external influence and, further, accepting external influence is not necessarily associated with state self–alienation. In fact, situational acceptance of external influence was more often related to an increased, rather than decreased, sense of authenticity. Both studies also found state authentic living to be associated with greater, and state self–alienation with lesser: positive mood, energy, relaxation, ideal–self overlap, self–esteem, flow, and motivation for realness. Study 2 further revealed that situations prioritizing satisfaction of meaning/purpose in life were associated with increased authentic living and situations prioritizing pleasure/interest satisfaction were associated with decreased self–alienation. State authenticity is best characterized by two related yet independent components: authentic living and (absence of) self–alienation. Copyright

Who Is in Your Shopping Cart? Expected and Experienced Effects of Choice Abundance in the Online Dating Context

The advent of the Internet has led to a sizeable increase in the number of options from which humans can choose, in such evolutionarily important domains as housing, food and mates . The level of choice and the amount of information seen on the Internet are well beyond that which would have been found in our ancestral choice environment ; so how does it impact our decisions? We describe the results of two experiments in which we examine the influence of increasing online mate choice on expected and experienced choice-related affect and cognitions. In Study 1, participants merely expecting an increasing choice of mates believed they would enjoy choosing more from these sets and would have greater satisfaction and less regret with their chosen partner (vs. when they expected to face limited choice), but only up to a point. On the other hand, participants in Study 2 who experienced a supposedly ideal number of potential mates from whom to choose did not have enhanced feelings about the choice process and person selected than did participants experiencing a more limited number of options. Furthermore, the results indicated that having more choice may lead to memory confusion . Together, these studies suggest that while participants anticipate that increasing choice may ultimately yield more downsides than upsides, they underestimate how quickly increasing choice can become overwhelming. We propose that these results may be understood best within the context of an evolutionary–cognitive framework . The chapter concludes by discussing why the error in anticipation may be difficult to overcome and, further, how the design of dating Web sites could be improved, given people’s expectations.

Identifying differences in the experience of (in)authenticity: a latent class analysis approach

Generally, psychologists consider state authenticity – that is, the subjective sense of being one’s true self – to be a unitary and unidimensional construct, such that (a) the phenomenological experience of authenticity is thought to be similar no matter its trigger, and (b) inauthenticity is thought to be simply the opposing pole (on the same underlying construct) of authenticity. Using latent class analysis, we put this conceptualization to a test. In order to avoid over-reliance on a Western conceptualization of authenticity, we used a cross-cultural sample (N = 543), comprising participants from Western, South-Asian, East-Asian, and South-East Asian cultures. Participants provided either a narrative in which the described when they felt most like being themselves or one in which they described when they felt least like being themselves. The analysis identified six distinct classes of experiences: two authenticity classes (“everyday” and “extraordinary”), three inauthenticity classes (“self-conscious,” “deflated,” and “extraordinary”), and a class representing convergence between authenticity and inauthenticity. The classes were phenomenologically distinct, especially with respect to negative affect, private and public self-consciousness, and self-esteem. Furthermore, relatively more interdependent cultures were less likely to report experiences of extraordinary (in)authenticity than relatively more independent cultures. Understanding the many facets of (in)authenticity may enable researchers to connect different findings and explain why the attainment of authenticity can be difficult.