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Klinička psihologija 10 (2017), 1-2, 23-34
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DOI: 10.21465/2017-KP-1-2-0002
AUTHENTICITY AS A PREDICTOR OF MENTAL HEALTH
Djurdja Grijak
University of Novi Sad,
Technical faculty “Mihajlo Pupin” Zrenjanin
Djure Djakovića bb, 23000 Zrenjanin
gdjurdja@gmail.com
Abstract
The aim of this research was to evaluate the relationship between authenticity and
mental health on a sample of 706 students. Results showed that all subscales of the
Authenticity scale (authentic living, accepting external inuence and self-alienation)
were correlated with all general scales and subscales of the MHI-38 (psychological
distress – anxiety, depression, loss of behavioural/emotional control; psychological
well-being – overall positive aect, emotional ties and satisfaction with life and ove-
rall mental health index). Hierarchical regression showed that authenticity composed
of all three dimensions together is a statistically signicant predictor of psychological
distress, psychological well-being and overall mental health index. The conrmation
that authenticity is closely connected to mental health and signicantly contributes to
it is a good example of how classic perspectives in psychological counselling can set
further directions of research within personality psychology.
Key words: authenticity, mental health, students
INTRODUCTION
Human strengths and virtues, mental health and well-being have long been
neglected as a subject of psychological research which dealt with symptoms and
disorders (Seligman, 2002). Positive psychologists believe that the reason for this
can be found in the fact that the researchers misunderstood the positive aspects of
psychological functioning in their attempt to reach a better understanding of people.
Only in recent years have psychologists started to focus on positive concepts such
as authenticity and mental health.
Carl Rogers, a humanistic psychologist, in trying to understand the human being
came to view every individual as a unique being (Schmid, 2004). To be a person,
Grijak, D., Authenticity as a Predictor of Mental Health, Klinička psihologija 10 (2017), 1-2, 23-34
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according to Rogers, means to live authentically and develop personal po-
tentials in a constructive way. And to live authentically means to be able to
keep the balance between the substantial and the relational tasks of living in
the process of realizing one’s own values and needs, individuality and uniqu-
eness, while at the same time living together with others and meeting the
needs and challenges of these relations in interdependence and solidarity. An
authentic person is a functional person, claimed Rogers. Therefore, a person
who lives authentically is healthy or normal. Within the concept of unique-
ness of each person it means that each person is authentic in a dierent way.
According to Rogers, a person’s authenticity implies a process, never a state
or an end product (Schmid, 2001). Authenticity is a dynamic process whereby
one’s potentials, characteristics, emotions, values and motivation are discovered
and explored, accepted, imbued with meaning or purpose, and actualized (Rogers,
1961).
With the development of positive psychology grew the interest into researching
authenticity. In the eld of positive psychology, authenticity is dened as owning
one’s personal experiences, be they thoughts, emotions, needs, preferences, or be-
liefs, processes captured by the injunction to know oneself and behaving in accor-
dance with the true self (Seligman, 2002). Positive psychologists focused on six
overarching human virtues underpinned by 24 character strengths, and represented
authenticity together with honesty as character strengths existing within the virtue
of courage (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).
At the same time, numerous attempts were made to dene authenticity. These
denitions ranged from an individual’s ability to understand and own his or her
thoughts, emotions, needs, wants, beliefs, and preferences, while behaving consi-
stently with his or her inner thoughts and feelings (Harter, 2002) in accordance
between how someone presents himself/herself and what he/she actually is (Snyder
& Lopez, 2009).
Wood, Linley, Maltby, Baliousis and Joseph (2008) relied on the huma-
nistic concept (Barrett-Lennard, 1998) and dened authenticity through se-
lf-alienation, accepting external inuence and authentic living. People who
accept external inuence are more prone to self-alienation, and those who
accept only certain external inuences lead an authentic life. The same aut-
hors have constructed an authenticity scale in order to operationalize the tri-
partite model of authenticity comprising dierent denitions of authenticity.
The factor of self-alienation measures an individual’s subjective experience
of not knowing oneself and lacking the feeling of integrity. The factor of
accepting external inuence measures the extent to which an individual be-
lieves that they need to adjust their behaviour to the expectations of others.
The last factor of authentic living measures the extent of coherence between
an individual’s behaviour and their values and beliefs.
Grijak, D., Authenticity as a Predictor of Mental Health, Klinička psihologija 10 (2017), 1-2, 23-34
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In many mainstream counselling psychology perspectives, authenticity is seen
as the most fundamental aspect of well-being (Rogers, 1961). These researchers see
authenticity not simply as an aspect or precursor to well-being but rather the very
essence of well-being and healthy functioning. As such, departures from authenti-
city are seen as involving increasing psychopathology, i.e. damaging one’s mental
health. However, many of these approaches have not been subjected to empirical
verication, and the empirical evidence that does exist regarding the relationship
between authenticity and well-being is mostly indirect and focuses primarily on one
or another of the three factors of authenticity.
Numerous philosophical theories have dealt with the positive aspects in
life (Deci & Ryan, 2008; Ryan & Deci, 2001). Ancient Greek theorists analysed
factors of the good life and produced two main theories on well-being which are
still central in positive psychology. One of them is hedonism, according to which
well-being is the strengthening of positive and weakening of negative feelings.
The other one is eudemonism which denes well-being as optimal human func-
tioning and self-realization. Both theories assess well-being based on subjective
experience.
According to one model of mental health (Veit & Ware, 1983), there are two
components of mental health – psychological well-being and psychological distress.
Well-being is a broad, diverse and diusive idea, and psychological well-being is
dened as a broad construct with numerous cognitive and emotional components
such as satisfaction with life, positive and negative emotions, accordance between
the expected and actualized life goals. Well-being is dened through three basic
components (Myers & Diener, 1995) – satisfaction with life which measures satis-
faction with work and relationships with others, relative existence of positive emo-
tions which measures the existence of pleasant emotions and a positive assessment
of the environment, relative absence of negative emotions which implies absence
of emotions such as anxiety, depression and anger. Psychological distress describes
the negative state of one’s mental health. Psychological distress is dened as experi-
encing lack of interest, sleep problems, feeling of disappointment, sadness, anxiety,
desperation and boredom, diculties in relationships with others (Wineeld, Gill,
Taylor & Pilkington, 2012).
In this paper, the author presents a research aimed to evaluate the relationship
between dimensions of authenticity – authentic living, accepting external inuence
and self-alienation and mental health measured through dimensions of psycholo-
gical distress (Anxiety, Depression, Loss of Behavioural/Emotional Control) and
psychological well-being (General Positive Aect, Emotional Ties, Life Satisfac-
tion). Based on previous theoretical and empirical discussions, it is expected that
results would show that high authentic living, low acceptance of external inuence
and low self-alienation (authentic person) is positively correlated with psychologi-
cal well-being and negatively correlated with psychological distress.
Grijak, D., Authenticity as a Predictor of Mental Health, Klinička psihologija 10 (2017), 1-2, 23-34
26 DOI: 10.21465/2017-KP-1-2-0002
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METHOD
Participants and procedure
The study was conducted on 706 students (76.5% females) from the University
in Novi Sad, Business Academy in Novi Sad and State University in Novi Pazar.
The average age of participants was 22.58 (SD = 5.19, age span 18-39).
Instruments
Authenticity. The study used the Authenticity Scale constructed by Wood and
associates (Wood et al., 2008) from the humanistic model on tripartite authenticity
and psychometrically validated in Serbian by Grijak (2017). The scale consists of
three subscales – authentic living (4 items), accepting external inuence (4 items)
and self-alienation (4 items). Participants were asked to give a subjective assess-
ment of the extent to which each claim on each subscale describes them – from 1
(does not describe me at all) to 7 (describes me very well). The results on each sub-
scale theoretically range from min 4 to max. 28. All subscales are scored so higher
scores indicate more of the construct named by the subscale label. The authentic
person has high scores on subscale Authentic living and low scores on the other
two subscales – Accepting external inuence and Self-alienation. The subscale Au-
thentic living questions to what extent a person adjusts their behaviour and emo-
tions to their beliefs, values and actual psychological states. The subscale Accepting
external inuence shows the participant’s belief that they have to conform to the
expectations of others. The subscale Self-alienation tests how well the participants
know themselves, their values and beliefs. In this research, Authentic living had
internal consistency α = 0.68 (M = 23.02, SD = 3.99), Accepting external inuence
α = 0.71 (M = 11.46, SD = 4.81) and Self-alienation α = 0.76 (M = 10.75, SD =
5.18). Original subscales Authentic living, Accepting external inuence and Self-
alienation showed internal consistency as follows: 0.62, 0.67 and 0.79 (Wood et
al., 2008), in the Iranian adaptation 0.82, 0.81 and 0.77 (Shamsi et al., 2012), in the
French adaptation between 0.77 and 0.82 (Grégoire et al., 2014), and in the Turkish
adaptation 0.62, 0.67 and 0.79 (Ilhan & Özdemir, 2013).
MHI-38 (Mental Health Inventory-38; Veit & Ware, 1983). MHI-38 includes
38 items divided into six subscales, consisting of two general scales, Psychological
distress with 24 items (anxiety – 9 items, depression – 4 items, loss of behavioural/
emotional control – 9 items) and Psychological well-being with 14 items (overall
positive aect - 10 items, emotional ties – 2 items and satisfaction with life – 1
item). Possible answers included 1 – all of the time, 2 – most of the time, 3 – a
good bit of the time, 4 – some of the time, 5 – a little of the time, 6 – none of the
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time. The results theoretically range from min. 9 to max 54 on the subscale Anxi-
ety, from min. 4 to max. 23 on the subscale Depression, from min. 9 to max. 53 on
the subscale Loss of Behavioural/Emotional Control, from min. 10 to max. 60 on
the subscale General Positive Aect, from min. 2 to max. 12 on the subscale Emo-
tional Ties, from min. 1 to max. 6 on the subscale Life Satisfaction. All subscales
are scored so higher scores indicate more of the construct named by the subscale
label. Thus, higher scores on three subscales indicate positive states of mental he-
alth (General Positive Aect, Emotional Ties, Life Satisfaction) and higher scores
on the other three subscales indicate negative states of mental health (Anxiety, De-
pression, Loss of Behavioural/Emotional Control). In general scales, results on the
scale Psychological Distress range theoretically from min. 24 to max. 142 and on
the scale Psychological Well-being results theoretically range from min 14 to max.
84. Higher scores on Psychological Distress indicate negative states of mind, whi-
le higher scores on Psychological Well-being indicate positive states. The overall
mental health index covers all the items (results theoretically range from min. 38 to
max. 226) and high values imply high psychological well-being and relatively low
psychological distress. Also, high values on the general scale Psychological distress
imply a negative mental health status. In this research, the general scale Psycholo-
gical distress had an internal consistency α = 0.81 (M = 60.36, SD = 19.23), and the
subscale Psychological well-being α = 0.75 (M = 54.5511, SD = 11.26). In previo-
us research the estimates of internal consistency for the Mental Health scales were
high – for Psychological Distress items 0.94 and for Psychological Well-being items
0.92 (Heubeck & Neill, 2000).
RESULTS
In order to answer the question about the relationship between authenticity and
mental health a descriptive statistical analysis was conducted and Pearson correla-
tion coecients were calculated. As results showed that there were correlations, all
variables were included in the hierarchical regression analysis. A series of hierarchi-
cal regressions was conducted in which criterion variables were scores on the scales
Psychological distress and Psychological well-being and Mental health index, con-
trol variables were age and gender (Model 1), and predictive variables were all three
subscales on the Authenticity Scale – Authentic living (Model 2), Accepting exter-
nal inuence (Model 3) and Self-alienation (Model 4). Table 1 shows descriptive
indicators for all three factors on the Authenticity Scale and all factors on MHI-38.
Results of means on all subscales of the Authentic scale show high scores on the
subscale authentic living and moderate scores on Accepting external inuence and
Self-alienation (results theoretically range from min 4 to max 28 on each subscale).
This could indicate that participants as young adults know their motives, emotions
and thoughts, but still accept the inuence of others and have some feelings of self-
Grijak, D., Authenticity as a Predictor of Mental Health, Klinička psihologija 10 (2017), 1-2, 23-34
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alienation. According to the theoretical range of all subscales and general scales of
MHI-38, results could be interpreted as moderate psychological distress and high
psychological well-being of participants.
Values of Pearson correlation coecients between dimensions of authenticity
and dimensions of mental health are signicant. Results are shown in Table 2.
The results showed that the Authenticity Scale is in signicant correlation with
MHI-38 (p < 0.01). Subscale Authentic living is in signicant positive correlation
with psychological well-being (r = 0.21; p < 0.01) and signicant negative corre-
lation with psychological distress (r = -0.22; p < 0.01) and mental health index (r
= -0.23; p < 0.01). Subscale Accepting external inuence is in signicant positive
correlation with psychological distress (r = -0.35; p < 0.01) and mental health index
(r = -0.34; p < 0.01) and in signicant negative correlation with psychological well-
being (r = -0.25; p < 0.01). Subscale Self-Alienation is in signicant positive corre-
lation with psychological distress (r = 0.44; p < 0.01) and mental health index (r =
0.43; p < 0.01) and signicant negative correlation with psychological well-being
(r =-0.34; p < 0.01). Pearson correlation coecients imply negative correlations of
the subscale Authentic living to the subscales of Accepting external inuence and
Self-alienation (r = -0.278 and r = -0.214), and a positive correlation between the
second and third subscale (r = 0.652). All correlations are signicant at the level
of p < 0.01. These results could indicate that scale has two higher-order objects of
measurement. The one is Authentic living and the other is consisted of Accepting
external inuence and Self-alienation. Thus, the subscale Authentic living measures
adaptive authenticity and Accepting external inuence and the Self-alienation me-
Table 1. Descriptive statistics
N M SD Min Max
Authenticity
Scale
Authentic living 706 23.02 3.99 4 28
Accepting external inuence 706 11.46 4.81 4 28
Self-alienation 706 10.75 5.18 4 28
MHI-38
Psychological distress 706 60.36 19.23 24 137
Anxiety 706 22.81 7.05 8 48
Depression 706 8.81 3.47 4 23
Loss of behavioural/emotional
control 706 20.65 7.18 9 48
Psychological well-being 706 54.55 11.26 19 84
Overall positive aect 706 38.62 8.26 15 60
Emotional ties 706 7.99 2.62 2 12
Satisfaction with life 706 4.04 1.11 1 6
Mental health index 706 109.73 23.38 58 203
Note: M - Mean, SD - Standard deviation.
Grijak, D., Authenticity as a Predictor of Mental Health, Klinička psihologija 10 (2017), 1-2, 23-34
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Table 2. Pearson correlation coecients
AS
MHI – 38
Psychological distress Psychological well-being
MHI
123AD LC PD OPA ET SL PWB
1. AL 1 -0.27** -0.21** -0.19** -0.18** -0.24** -0.22** 0.19** 0.16** 0.14** 0.21** -0.23**
2. AEI -0.27** 1 0.65** 0.32** 0.32** 0.35** 0.35** -0.24** -0.12** -0.20** -0.25** 0.34**
3. SA -0.21** 0.65** 1 0.39** 0.38** 0.45** 0.44** -0.32** -0.23** -0.23** -0.34** 0.43**
Note: AL- Authentic living, AEI- Accepting external inuence, SA- Self-alienation, A- Anxiety, D – Depression, LC – Loss of control
over behaviour/emotional control, PD- Psychological distress, OPA – Overall positive aect, ET – Emotional ties, SL- Satisfaction with
life, PWB – Psychological well-being, MHI – Mental health index, ** p < 0.01
Grijak, D., Authenticity as a Predictor of Mental Health, Klinička psihologija 10 (2017), 1-2, 23-34
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asures maladaptive authenticity and this was their order in the analyses (Grijak,
2017).
Hierarchical regression analysis was used to check the assumption from previo-
us researches that authenticity is the most fundamental aspect of well-being (Wood
et al. 2008). A series of hierarchical regressions was conducted in which criterion
variables were scores on the scales Psychological distress and Psychological well-
being and Mental health index, control variables were age and gender (Model 1),
and all three subscales on the Authenticity Scale – Authentic living as adaptive
authenticity (Model 2), Accepting external inuence as maladaptive authenticity
(Model 3) and Self-alienation as maladaptive authenticity (Model 4) were the pre-
dictors. The results are shown in Table 3.
The results of hierarchical regression analysis show that authenticity composed
of three dimensions (authentic living, accepting external inuence and self-alienati-
on) is a moderate predictor of psychological distress, psychological well-being and
mental health index (Model 4). Also, results showed that maladaptive authenticity
(Model 3 and Model 4 included measures of maladaptive authenticity – accepting
external inuence and self-alienation) is a better predictor than adaptive authenticity
(authentic living in Model 2) according to the explained variance of each.
Betas and semi-partial correlations for the regression analyses are shown in
Table 4.
Table 3. Hierarchical regression analysis
R2∆R2F∆F p βsr
PD
Model 1 0.010 - 1.06 - 0.349 - -
Model 2 0.018 0.007 1.207 1.49 0.223 0.086 0.086
Model 3 0.046 0.035 3.23 7.49 0.007 0.191 0.189
Model 4 0.143 0.133 11.22 31.23 0.000 0.364 0.366
PW
Model 1 0.009 - 0.894 - 0.411 - -
Model 2 0.018 0.009 1.21 1.84 0.177 0.095 0.095
Model 3 0.022 0.013 0.894 2.69 0.102 0.116 0.115
Model 4 0.112 0.103 8.51 23.53 0.000 0.322 0.323
MH
index
Model 1 0.004 - 0.42 - 0.657 - -
Model 2 0.013 0.009 0.907 1.877 0.172 0.096 0.096
Model 3 0.032 0.027 2.193 5.72 0.02 0.168 0.166
Model 4 0.138 0.134 10.76 31.301 0.00 0.366 0.366
Note: PD – psychological distress; PW – psychological well-being; MH index – Mental health in-
dex; Model 1 – age and gender; Model 2 – Authentic living; Model 3 – Accepting external inuen-
ce; Model 4 – Self-alienation; ΔR2 –change in the percent of the explained variance; ΔF - F test for
testing the signicance of the change in the percent of the explained variance.
Grijak, D., Authenticity as a Predictor of Mental Health, Klinička psihologija 10 (2017), 1-2, 23-34
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Results conrm the value of authenticity as a composite of three dimensions in
the prediction of psychological distress, psychological well-being and mental health
index (Model 4).
DISCUSSION
This research aimed to evaluate the relationship between dimensions of authen-
ticity – authentic living, accepting external inuence and self-alienation and mental
health measured through dimensions of psychological distress (Anxiety, Depressi-
on, Loss of Behavioural/Emotional Control) and psychology well-being (General
Positive Aect, Emotional Ties, Life Satisfaction) on a sample of students (N =
706). Based on previous theoretical and empirical discussions, it is expected that
results would show that high authentic living, low acceptance of external inuence
and low self-alienation (authentic person) is positively correlated with psychologi-
cal well-being and negatively correlated with psychological distress (high psycho-
logical well-being and low psychological distress characterize a mentally healthy
person). Overall results conrmed these expectations and conrmed that authenti-
city is closely connected to mental health.
Correlations between the Authenticity Scale and MHI-38 are in accordance with
the theoretical expectations (Wood et al., 2008). All subscales of the Authenticity
Scale are in correlation with psychological distress, psychological well-being and
mental health index (mental health index value indicates high scores on one gene-
ral scale and low scores on the other general scale – i.e., high value of MHI shows
Table 4. Betas and semi-partial correlations between authenticity factors and outcome
variables in full hierarchical regression model (Model 2, Model 3, Model 4)
β sr
PD
Model 2 0.086 0.086
Model 3 0.191* 0.189
Model 4 0.364** 0.366
PW
Model 2 0.095 0.095
Model 3 0.116 0.115
Model 4 0.322** 0.323
MH
index
Model 2 0.096 0.096
Model 3 0.168* 0.166
Model 4 0.366** 0.366
Model 2, Model 3 and Model 4 variables (see Table 3).
*β signicant at p < 0.05.
**β signicant at p < 0.01.
Grijak, D., Authenticity as a Predictor of Mental Health, Klinička psihologija 10 (2017), 1-2, 23-34
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high scores on the scale of psychological well-being, and low scores on the scale of
psychological distress). Authentic living as an aspect of authenticity is dened as
coordination between perceived experience and behaviour, i.e. coordination of be-
haviour and expressing emotions with actual psychological states, beliefs and tho-
ughts. Results show that overall positive aect, emotional ties and satisfaction with
life positively correlate with honesty to oneself and living in accordance with one’s
values and beliefs (authentic living). Also, with higher sorrow, disappointment, des-
pair, anxiety, diculties in relationships with others and lack of interest is expec-
ted lower authentic living. Accepting external inuence has a positive correlation
with psychological distress and mental health index and a negative correlation with
psychological well-being. This aspect of authenticity involves the belief that one
needs to conform to the expectations of others, and a reason for this result may be
found in the fact that the participants were young people who, developmentally spe-
aking, are more authentic when their self is being accepted by other people (Harter
et al., 1996; Ne & Harter, 2002). Self-alienation has a signicant positive correla-
tion with psychological distress and mental health index and a signicant negative
correlation with psychological well-being. The results are as expected, given that
this aspect of authenticity, self-alienation, is dened as a mismatch between the con-
scious awareness (experience represented in the cognitive sphere) and actual expe-
rience (the true self, including actual psychological states, emotions and beliefs).
The results of hierarchical regression analysis conrmed the values of the corre-
lations and showed that authenticity composed of three dimensions – authentic
living, accepting external inuence and self-alienation explain 14.3% of psycholo-
gical distress, 11.2% of psychological well-being and 13.8% of mental health index.
We can also very cautiously conclude from the results of hierarchical regression
analysis that authentic living, as adaptive authenticity had no predictive power of
mental health (included in Model 2), but dimensions of maladaptive authenticity –
Accepting external inuence (included in Model 2) and Self-alienation (included
in Model 4) were statistically signicant predictors of psychological distress and
mental health index. Finally, we can conclude that authenticity is only one of the
positive predictors of mental health.
Limitations of this research might relate to the sample of participants. Size of
the sample (N = 706) might have caused variations in results and also inuenced
the nal result on the predictive value of authenticity. Further, regarding the gender
structure of the sample, there were 76.5% females and this could have inuenced
the overall results.
Suggestions for further researches relate to the sample (size and gender
structure), whereby it would be signicant to evaluate the same relation between
authenticity and mental health in early age and in middle and older age groups. It
would also be signicant to evaluate the connection of additional variables with
mental health. As the results showed that authenticity explains only 11-14% of
variance of mental health, further research should include other variables as other
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personality traits into analysing what else, together with authenticity, predicts
mental health.
CONCLUSION
This research is important because until now, within the realm of psychological
counselling, it was only assumed that authenticity is the most fundamental aspect
of mental health, without having an empirical conrmation of that relation (Wood
et al., 2008).
The conrmation that authenticity is closely connected to mental health and
signicantly contributes to it is a good example of how classic perspectives in
psychological counselling can set further directions of research within personality
psychology.
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AUTENTIČNOST KAO PREDIKTOR MENTALNOG ZDRAVLJA
Sažetak
Cilj ovog istraživanja bio je procijeniti odnos između autentičnosti i mentalnog
zdravlja na uzorku od 706 studenata. Rezultati su pokazali da su sve subskale Skale
autentičnosti (autentični život, prihvaćanje vanjskog utjecaja i samootuđenje) kore-
lirane sa svim skalama i subskalama na MHI-38 (skala psihološki distres – subskale
tjeskoba, depresija, gubitak kontrole ponašanja/emocionalne kontrole; skala psihička
dobrobit - ukupni pozitivni afekt, emocionalne veze i zadovoljstvo životom; i ukupni
indeks mentalnog zdravlja). Hijerarhijska regresijska analiza je pokazala da su svi
čimbenici autentičnosti zajedno statistički značajni prediktori psihološkog distresa,
psihičke dobrobiti i ukupnog mentalnog zdravlja indeksa. Potvrda da je autentičnost
povezana s mentalnim zdravljem i da mu značajno doprinosi dobar je primjer kako
klasične perspektive u psihološkom savjetovanju mogu postaviti daljnje smjernice
istraživanja u okviru psihologije ličnosti.
Ključne riječi: autentičnost, mentalno zdravlje, studenti