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Twice-Told Tales: Self-Repetition Decreases Observer Assessments of Performer Authenticity
Abstract
People often engage in self-repetition — repeating the same story, joke, or presentation across different audiences. While behaving consistently has generally been found to enhance perceptions of authenticity, ten studies demonstrate that performers who are revealed to be self-repeating are perceived as less authentic. We find convergent evidence that this effect is driven by observers’ implicit assumption that social interactions are unique. Self-repetitions violate this assumption, leading observers to judge performers as inauthentic because they are thought to be falsely presenting their performance as unique when it is not. We demonstrate this effect across multiple contexts (politics, entrepreneurship, tour guiding, and comedy), finding that observer awareness of self-repetition decreases perceived authenticity even in situations in which it is normative to repeat a performance and in which performers are required to repeat. The decrease in authenticity is eliminated only when performers overtly acknowledge that they are self-repeating, as performers are no longer viewed as falsely presenting themselves. We further show that performers who fail to acknowledge their self-repetition are penalized similarly to those who explicitly lie that the performance is unique — an unacknowledged self-repetition is thus seen as a lie by omission. Finally, we recorded repeated job interview responses and found that observers who were unaware of the self-repetition could not discern tangible differences between un-repeated and repeated responses. However, when observers believed that they were viewing a self-repetition, they judged the interviewees as less authentic. Together, our findings provide insight into how people assess the authenticity of self-presentational behaviors and the implicit assumptions that influence social judgments.
... The immediacy dimension refers to the construction of authenticity as a direct translation of the inner self to others (Enli 2015;Fordahl 2018;Salisbury and Pooley 2017). In a temporal sense, immediacy in political communication is associated with realtime communication reflecting spontaneous thoughts from a politician's mind without revision or reflection (Gershon and Smith 2020;Shane 2018;Valverde 2018). While over-preparation hinders constructions of authenticity (Gershon and Smith 2020), immediacy of communication is preferred to carefully planned actions, which are often seen as inauthentic. ...
... In a temporal sense, immediacy in political communication is associated with realtime communication reflecting spontaneous thoughts from a politician's mind without revision or reflection (Gershon and Smith 2020;Shane 2018;Valverde 2018). While over-preparation hinders constructions of authenticity (Gershon and Smith 2020), immediacy of communication is preferred to carefully planned actions, which are often seen as inauthentic. The construction of immediacy is mostly associated with the ability to instantly share information or reply to others when using online communication. ...
... human" (Seifert 2012: 15). As a result, politicians are perceived as less authentic if their performances appear very controlled and unemotional (Gershon and Smith 2020). ...
Authenticity is a prominent concept in current political discourse. Its popularity in political communication has also inspired a growing but still fragmented body of research in communication science. Since this field lacks an integrative conceptualization, this article aims to clarify political authenticity for academic discourse and as a research object for communication science. The article provides a narrative review of research on authenticity in political communication and proposes an understanding of political authenticity as a social construction which is created and negotiated in complex communication processes among politicians, the media, and the audience. I propose performed, mediated, and perceived political authenticity as three analytic perspectives to deconstruct these complex processes and to link political authenticity with media and communication literature. Finally, I derive four dimensions of political authenticity (consistency, intimacy, ordinariness, and immediacy) and corresponding indicators that will help to operationalize it as a strategy by politicians, a product from mediation processes, and as an audience perception.
... Furthermore, the data presented in this paper has shown a strong dominance of females over self-repetitions that function to confirm the speaker's intention to carry out the promised affair immediately. Such a type of repetitions is generally found to promote perceptions of authenticity (Gershon and Smith (2020). For example, ...
The study aims at examining and analysing speech act of promise used by male and female Moroccan high school students. Research studies conducted on speech acts in different languages and cultures serve to provide an insightful understanding of intercultural communication. They substantially help in reaching over communicative differences among speakers of divergent languages, and accordingly lay the ground for addressing and handling issues that arise from intercultural miscommunication. This article is a research endeavour that seeks to fill the void that has been mentioned above. The core of this study is on a pragmatic-based analysis of the speech act of promising in Moroccan Arabic. More precisely, it targets identifying and investigating the widely utilized techniques of promise among male and female Moroccan high school students. The data has been collected from questionnaires composed of 19 hypothetical real-life situations in Morocco. The respondents of the research have been Moroccan-Arabic native speaking students studying in three public high schools in Casablanca, Morocco. The sample consists of 60 male students and 60 female students belonging to the three high school levels: common core, first year, and second year of Baccalaureate. The analysis of the data has revealed that Moroccan high school students embark on six strategies while constructing promise utterances, namely, self-repetition, conditional promises that incorporate Al Istithna (exception) promises and if promises, swearing tactic, assurance-based expressions, self-praising attributions, and preferred adjacency pairs technique. Furthermore, the findings of this study have exhibited that there are significant differences in the use of those strategies among male and female Moroccan high school students as they perform the speech act of promising. It has been proven through the distinct use of promising strategies that both genders speak different languages. Unlike male respondents whose language seems to be assertive, adversarial, and strong, female respondents speak a language of support, politeness, cooperation, and social affiliation.
... The goal of Study 8 was to test whether realness could be reliably coded in actual behavior by observers. Part of the logic of this study is that traits can be inferred from the observation of multiple contextualized states (Lenton et al., 2013), and that observations of individuals across multiple interactions produces more valid estimates of realness than those from a single social situation (Gershon & Smith, 2020). Thus, we had trained research assistants observe targets across 12 interactions with different people, and then use the RS scale items to estimate how real the person was in their interactions, in general. ...
We established realness as the relatively stable tendency to act on the outside the way one feels on the inside, without regard for proximal personal or social consequences. In nine studies, we showed that realness is a) a core feature of individual differences in authenticity, b) generally adaptive but largely unrelated to agreeableness, c) highly stable, d) reliably observable in dyadic behavior, and e) predictive of responses to situations with potential for personal or social costs. Informants both perceive agreeable motives in real behavior and recognize that being real can be disagreeable. We concluded that realness represents an important individual difference construct that is foundational for authentic social behavior, and that being real comes with both costs and benefits.
... In such settings, a brand or individual might seem inauthentic relative to expectations derived from their previous actions or from context. For example, consumers tend to see as inauthentic brands and individuals that behave inconsistently through time (e.g., Aaker & Keller, 1990;Fritz et al., 2017;Napoli et al., 2014;Schallehn et al., 2014; but see, Gershon & Smith, 2020). ...
Theories of authenticity usually try to explain what leads consumers to see something as authentic. Here, we address the inverse question instead: What makes a brand, individual, or product seem inauthentic? This shift in focus reveals a distinct psychology that is more than just the absence or inverse of responses to authenticity. Whereas authenticity typically confers meaning and value, invoking inauthenticity typically implies the detection of a moral violation. Specifically, consumers judge an entity to be inauthentic if they perceive a mismatch between what that entity claims to be (e.g., a socially responsible apparel brand, 100% orange juice) and what it really is upon closer scrutiny. Such judgments give rise to a powerful, non‐compensatory reactance we term inauthenticity aversion. We segment inauthenticity violations into three principle types: deceptions, ulterior motives, and adulterations. This conceptualization allows us to capture a wide variety of inauthenticity cases and outline psychological commonalities across them. It also helps to explain the powerful outrage consumers display at perceived inauthenticity and illuminates potential hazards in common marketing approaches.
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how perceptions of employee authenticity and customer–employee rapport influence customers’ interactional justice assessments and related service evaluations, and how customers’ need for uniqueness impacts these relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
A multi-method, three-study design is used to test the research model. Specifically, structural equation modeling provides tests of the main hypotheses, and two supplemental experimental studies tease out conditional effects providing insightful managerial contributions.
Findings
Results indicate that customers’ perceptions of employee authenticity affect customers’ interactional justice evaluations, particularly when customers identify high levels of customer–employee rapport. Additionally, the aforementioned relationships are contingent upon customers’ need for uniqueness, such that customers with higher levels of need for uniqueness experience lower levels of customer–employee rapport and, consequently, provide poorer interactional justice assessments. Finally, conditional effects are found given the type of provider and frequency of visit.
Originality/value
This research extends prior efforts to understand how customer–employee dynamics influence customers’ service encounter evaluations. In particular, it furthers understanding of authentic FLE–customer encounters, explores drivers of interactional justice and explicates how consumers’ varying levels of need for uniqueness have differential effects on service outcomes.
Whether watching a movie, sports game, or musical performance, consumers often seek entertainment experiences that are produced by one or more individuals. And although consumers often witness producers acting spontaneously, little is known about the preference for spontaneity in entertainment. Six studies, including real consumer-relevant decisions and a Facebook field experiment, reveal that consumers prefer spontaneity (vs. planned behavior) across several entertainment contexts, as spontaneous producers seem more authentic than planned producers. At the same time, however, spontaneous actions are also believed to beget lower-quality outcomes, suggesting that consumers generally prefer spontaneity even despite the possibility of reduced quality. Subsequent experiments examine characteristics of the entertainment context and producer to provide further insight into how consumers manage the authenticity-quality trade-off: By shaping when and why spontaneity is associated with increased authenticity and decreased quality expectations, as well as the relative importance of these dimensions, higher-stakes contexts (e.g., when consumers’ outcomes are enmeshed with the producer’s), negative inferences about spontaneity (e.g., laziness, lack of concern), and low-competence producers attenuate the effects. Together, this research advances knowledge about spontaneity and authenticity and has implications for those seeking to produce appealing entertainment experiences.
This research demonstrates how a media performer's self-disclosure in a parasocial interaction increases viewers' likelihood to agree with the performer's message. Two randomized experiments supported a serial multiple mediator model where a performer's self-disclosure positively affected viewers' message acceptance via increased perceptions of performer authenticity and feelings of interpersonal liking. In Study 1 (n = 415), participants were randomly assigned to watch a short video where the performer, a male college student, either engaged in self-disclosure or did not while presenting a prosocial, mental health-related message. Throughout both versions of the video (self-disclosure, no-disclosure), the performer gazed and spoke directly into the camera and addressed the viewer's presence, thereby engaging in parasocial interaction. Study 2 (n = 520) was a close conceptual replication of Study 1 and provided additional support for the serial multiple mediator model.
Research shows that perceived authenticity conveys value in many disparate domains. The analytical attention of this research focuses on producers of products and services, identifying which actions and structures the typical individual associates with authenticity. Far less is known about how individuals and audiences differ in their interest, receptiveness and response to potentially authentic entities and services. Even less is known about how regulators, certifiers, critics and other third parties play a role in the social construction of authenticity. Yet the perception and valuation of a product or service as authentic rests largely with heterogeneous audiences and interpretive third parties. Accordingly, in this chapter, we review and develop theory and empirical research about how targeted entities (producers, persons, products, services), audiences and third parties combine to produce authenticity. For targets, we examine the range of actions and structures of various entities that have been empirically associated with authenticity. For audiences, we explore variations in interests in authenticity based on domain engagement, cosmopolitanism, and cross-cultural differences. For third parties, we consider the roles of other audience members, certifiers and regulators. Finally, we conceptualize a co-evolutionary process whereby targets, audiences and third parties combine to generate social pockets where authenticity is recognized and highly valued.
In a correlational pilot study, we examine the association between perceived entry order (i.e., first mover or follower), motive inferences, and downstream brand evaluations in the context of a real cause‐marketing product. We presented participants with images and information about a real prosocial follower (BOBS) and investigated whether pre‐existing familiarity with its corresponding first mover (TOMS) predicted motive inferences and brand evaluations. We thus capitalized on variation in participants’ existing knowledge about entry order to provide an initial test of our predictions. We suspected that participants who believed BOBS to be a follower would see its buy‐one, give‐one program as less purely motivated and evaluate the brand more negatively.
Authenticity is a cornerstone of contemporary marketing. Yet how do firms develop brand positions based on authenticity when marketing, and in particular, advertising, is believed to be antithetical to such positioning? We examine how consumers assess the claims of Trappist and Abbey beer brands. We identify three forms of authenticity: pure (literal) authenticity, approximate authenticity, and moral authenticity. In each case, consumers draw on either indexical or iconic cues to form judgments of authenticity, although the type of cue and degree of abstraction differ across the three types. We also find that the informants are duped by careful advertisements, and explain this by proposing that the relationships between indexical and iconic cues are closer than previously thought.
Drawing from image-elicited depth interviews, we investigate whether consumers pursue the consumption of authentic objects with specific personal goals in mind. We find that consumers are motivated to focus on those particular cues in objects that for them convey authenticity (what is genuine, real, and/or true) and that this decision-making process is driven by a desire to draw different identity benefits (control, connection, virtue) from authentic objects. Our interpretive analysis elaborates contributions to theorizing related to consumer agency in seeking authentic consumption experience. We provide cultural explanations for the desire to assert the authentic self in these particular ways. (c) 2009 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
We outline a program of research in which we examined state authenticity, the sense of being one’s true self. In particular, we describe its phenomenology (what it feels like to be experience authenticity), its correlates (e.g., emotions, needs), its nomological network (e.g., real-ideal self overlap, public and private self-consciousness), its cultural parameters (Easter and Western culture), its precursors or determinants (congruency, positivity, and hedonism), and its psychological health implications. We conclude by arguing that state authenticity deserves its own conceptual status, distinct from trait authenticity, and by setting an agenda for future research.
Consumers and scholars show increasing interest in authenticity in products, services, performances, and places. As typically used, authenticity is an attribution that is socially constructed and appears in many domains of social life. The interest in authenticity presumes that its attribution conveys value and emerging evidence agrees. Authenticity, however, carries some very different meanings, including those about classification, morality, craftsmanship, and idiosyncrasy. Parsing these various interpretations requires attention to cultural and historical context.
We hypothesized participants would adopt diverging impression management strategies when interacting with lower- versus higher-status others, to disconfirm status-based stereotypes of their own respective coldness or incompetence. In Study 1, downward comparers downplayed their own competence to appear warmer, and upward comparers downplayed their own warmth to appear more competent. In status comparisons with counter-stereotypical targets, Studies 2a and 2b showed impression management strategies no longer diverge, but effects do not reverse, suggesting a combination of stereotype-disconfirming and target trait-matching goals. Study 3 replicates diverging strategies in downward and upward status comparisons and suggests diverging reasons for these strategies: Downward comparers perceive reason to disconfirm status-based stereotypes, while upward comparers perceive reason to match their comparison target. Together, these studies show mere status differences shift individuals' interaction goals in conveying two central dimensions of impression formation, warmth and competence.
It is tempting to draw a sharp line of demarcation between the private and public sides of the self. The private self has been afforded a prestigious status within psychology. It is usually regarded as both a structure, containing the organized, relatively stable contents of one’s personal experiences, and an active process that guides and regulates one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. It is the core of one’s inner being: basic, enduring, distinctive, genuine, and a worthy subject for examination by psychologists.
The study of tourism has made authenticity a scholarly issue but without even a hint of consensus about what the concept represents. Is it a property of toured objects and events, or a state of mind, or a mode of being toward tourism? Is it objective or experiential, universal or personal, in the eye of the beholder or defined by hosts or marketers? This paper explores all these questions by surveying tourism literature. It focuses on object authenticity, a term used for the genuineness of artifacts and events. It concludes that scholars should abandon the concept and the term because there is no common ground as to their existence, meaning, or importance.RésuméPour reconceptualiser l’authenticité des objets. L’étude du tourisme a fait de l’authenticité une question savante sans toutefois la moindre trace d’un consensus de ce que ce concept représente. Est-ce une qualité des objets et événements visités, un état d’esprit ou un mode d’être à l’égard du tourisme? Est-elle objective ou expérientielle, universelle ou personnelle, une perception de celui qui regarde ou une définition de la communauté d’accueil ou du marketing? Cet article étudie toutes ces questions en examinant la littérature du tourisme. Il se concentre sur l’authenticité des objets, une expression utilisée pour l’authenticité des artefacts et des événements. On conclut que les savants devraient abandonner le concept et l’expression, parce qu’il n’y a aucun terrain d’entente quant à leur existence, signification ou importance.
This Special Issue is the result of the inaugural summit hosted by the Gallup Leadership Institute at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2004 on Authentic Leadership Development (ALD). We describe in this introduction to the special issue current thinking in this emerging field of research as well as questions and concerns. We begin by considering some of the environmental and organizational forces that may have triggered interest in describing and studying authentic leadership and its development. We then provide an overview of its contents, including the diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives presented, followed by a discussion of alternative conceptual foundations and definitions for the constructs of authenticity, authentic leaders, authentic leadership, and authentic leadership development. A detailed description of the components of authentic leadership theory is provided next. The similarities and defining features of authentic leadership theory in comparison to transformational, charismatic, servant and spiritual leadership perspectives are subsequently examined. We conclude by discussing the status of authentic leadership theory with respect to its purpose, construct definitions, historical foundations, consideration of context, relational/processual focus, attention to levels of analysis and temporality, along with a discussion of promising directions for future research.
This chapter attempts to strengthen theoretical connections between interpretive cultural studies of authenticity and organizational studies. Adopting an unstructured qualitative approach, we use the domain of contemporary food and dining to develop a conceptual framework for assessing authenticity. We start by recognizing the two very different classical symbolic interpretations of authenticity: (1) type authenticity, where the question involves whether an entity is true to its associated type (or category or genre); and (2) moral authenticity, where the issue concerns whether the decisions behind the enactment and operation of an entity reflect sincere choices (i.e., choices true to one's self) rather than socially scripted responses. We next suggest that, in response to social change, these two interpretations have each spawned a unique but related different meaning of authenticity. From type authenticity came what we call craft authenticity, which involves whether something is made using the appropriate techniques and ingredients. Idiosyncratic authenticity emerged out of moral authenticity; here the question is whether there is a commonly recognized (usually historical) quirkiness to the product or place. Our analysis then proceeds to develop a general conjecture, namely, that communication and impact of authenticity comes through most forcefully when it is constructed organizationally—tightly and visibly integrated into the structure of an organization. Depending on which of the four meanings of authenticity is operative, the details of the most compelling organizational construction will vary.