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Don't Worry About Being You: Relations Between Perceived Authenticity and Mental Health are Due to Self-Esteem and Executive Functioning
Abstract
Numerous studies show that perceived authenticity is a reliable predictor of mental health outcomes. To expand on these studies, we examined whether such relations could be due to perceived authenticity’s confounding with both self-esteem and executive functioning. A representative sample of US participants ( N = 446; M age = 46.10; 51.1% female; 78.0% White) completed measures of perceived authenticity, self-esteem, executive functioning, and various indicators of mental health (e.g., subjective wellbeing, depression). At the bivariate level, perceived authenticity had a positive, large correlation with a mental health composite. However, after controlling for self-esteem and executive functioning, this relationship became nonsignificant and trivial in size. The findings extend basic understanding of how self-relevant constructs contribute to mental health and suggest advice for individuals looking to capitalize on evidence linking perceived authenticity to mental health benefits: Build a strong base of self-worth and exercise agency.
... Note the final sample size is acceptable vis-à-vis the power analyses. Some analyses which used this data set have been published (Lambert et al., in press;Hart, Garrison et al., 2024;Hart, Lambert, Cease, & Castagna, IPIP-Extroversion facet (Maples-Keller et al., 2019), but the cheerfulness facet, in particular, accounts for why Extroversion relates to indicators of happiness (Schimmack et al., 2004). Responses were averaged to index cheerfulness. ...
Liberals tend to indicate being less happy than conservatives; although one perspective suggests this happiness gap reflects liberals’ enhanced concern over the systemic maltreatment of others, the “maladjustment perspective” suggests it reflects, in part, liberals’ tendencies to reject aspects of conservatism that support agency and produce some life benefits. Some evidence seems to favor the maladjustment perspective; but, here, we sought to build on this perspective by examining its predictions in the context of Left-wing Authoritarianism (LWA). LWA is positively associated with liberalism, but, relative to liberalism, it encompasses aspects more rejecting of conservatism. US adults (N = 446) completed measures of LWA, happiness, agency, life impairment, and antagonistic personality constructs (e.g., sadism). The data supported the maladjustment perspective in the context of LWA: After accounting for liberalism (and demographics inclusive of age and sex), LWA was negatively related to happiness and positively related to agency deficiencies and life impairments; the latter two characteristics (reflective of maladjustment) completely accounted for LWA’s negative relation to happiness. These findings were generally consistent across LWA’s three facets. LWA also had a positive relationship to antagonistic personality constructs; hence, LWA is probably not conducive to enhanced concern over the systemic maltreatment of others. Additional analyses revealed that the anti-conventional facet of LWA completely accounted for relationships between liberalism and happiness, agency deficiencies, and life impairments. The results offer some novel insight into the ideological happiness gap.
Neuroticism predicts behaviors symptomatic of behavior dysregulation. One idea is that Neuroticism encompasses deficits in executive functioning; despite this link being empirically substantiated, it remains poorly understood. If Neuroticism is associated with executive functioning deficits due to it activating impulsivity in response to negative emotion, and if Negative Urgency (NU) is the specific aspect of emotional impulsivity that amplifies impulsivity in response to negative emotion, then Neuroticism’s link to executive functioning deficits should be enhanced in individuals higher in NU. A large representative sample of US adults ( N = 446; M age = 46.10; 51.1% female; 78.0% White) completed validated measures of Neuroticism, NU and Positive Urgency (PU), and executive functioning deficits. As predicted, we found that Neuroticism’s link to executive functioning deficits was moderated by NU (after controlling for PU) but not PU (after controlling for NU); specifically, Neuroticism’s relation to executive functioning deficits was over twice as large for people with elevated (+1 SD) versus de-elevated (−1 SD) levels of NU. Furthermore, NU moderated relations between each Neuroticism facet (e.g., Anxiety, Anger) and executive functioning deficits. The findings extend understanding of how Neuroticism relates to executive functioning, suggesting utility in distinguishing between PU and NU and potentially studying Neuroticism and NU as interacting.
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.
Both self-control and self-authenticity are critical to individuals’ mental health and social adjustment, but their relationship has received little attention. Research demonstrates that exerting self-control could help individuals achieve true self and might be promoted by perceiving authenticity. Accordingly, this study utilized a longitudinal design and investigated the temporal relationship between self-control and self-authenticity in a large sample of 2,982 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 17.53, SD = 0.84). Correlation analysis showed that participants possessing higher self-control were associated with greater self-authenticity. Cross-lagged path analysis revealed a reciprocal relationship between self-control and self-authenticity over time. Moreover, bivariate latent change score model indicated that self-control predicted an increase in self-authenticity across time, and vice versa. Overall, this study advances our understanding and suggests that restraining temptation and impulse can promote adolescents’ authenticity, and that the experience of authenticity, in turn, facilitates their self-regulation.
Is self-control authentic? Across several hypothetical scenarios, participants perceived impulsive actions as more authentic for others (Study 1a) but self-control as more authentic for themselves (Study 1b). Study 2 partially replicated this asymmetry. Study 3 accounted for behavior positivity because self-control was typically the more positive action in the previous studies. Study 4 minimized the influence of positivity by framing the same behaviors as either impulsive or controlled; impulsive actions were deemed more authentic than self-control, but only for other people. An internal meta-analysis controlling for behavior positivity revealed that (a) more positive behaviors are more authentic, and (b) impulsive actions are more authentic than self-controlled actions, especially for others. This actor–observer asymmetry suggests that, even in the face of a strong tendency to perceive positive actions as authentic, there exists a competing tendency to view others’ impulsive actions as more authentic than self-control.
Debates about the benefits of self-esteem have persisted for decades, both in the scientific literature and in the popular press. Although many researchers and lay people have argued that high self-esteem helps individuals adapt to and succeed in a variety of life domains, there is widespread skepticism about this claim. The present article takes a new look at the voluminous body of research (including several meta-analyses) examining the consequences of self-esteem for several important life domains: relationships, school, work, mental health, physical health, and antisocial behavior. Overall, the findings suggest that self-esteem is beneficial in all these domains, and that these benefits hold across age, gender, and race/ethnicity, and controlling for prior levels of the predicted outcomes and potential third variable confounds. The meta-analytic estimates of self-esteem effects (which average .10 across domains) are comparable in size to estimates for other hypothesized causal factors such as self-efficacy, positive emotionality, attachment security, and growth mindset, and larger than some generally accepted pharmaceutical interventions. Discussion focuses on several issues that are critical for evaluating the findings, including the strength of the evidence for making causal inferences, the magnitude of the effects, the importance of distinguishing between self-esteem and narcissism, and the generalizability of the results. In summary, the present findings support theoretical conceptions of self-esteem as an adaptive trait that has wide-ranging influences on healthy adjustment and adaptation, and suggest that interventions aimed at boosting self-esteem might, if properly designed and implemented, benefit individuals and society as a whole.
Junzi personality refers to the composite of traits of ideal persons from the viewpoint of Confucian philosophy and is a key to East-Asian indigenous personality studies.Confucius said, “Junzi is free from worries and fears” and that in such a personality, “to return to the observance of the rites through overcoming the self constitutes benevolence.” Mencius said, “there is no greater delight than to be conscious of authenticity on self-examination” while according to Chengzi, “one who returns to the observance of the rites through overcoming the self for long is authentic.” Based on these classic Confucian propositions and related empirical studies, this paper proposes the hypothesis that a Junzi personality has a positive effect on mental health, inwhich self-control and authenticity play serial mediating roles. To examine the above hypothesis, four studies were conducted. In Study 1 (N = 207), the self-rated questionnaires of Junzi personality, self-control, authenticity, and mental health were used. Study 2 (N = 425) involved manipulating self-control using the scenario simulation method and looking into its effects on mental health and authenticity. In Study 3 (N = 317), authenticity, which was manipulated using the method of recall priming, was investigated for its effects on mental health. Participants were also asked to recall real-life instances involving a decision that may or may not have involved self-control to support the external validity. In Study 4 (N = 220), participants were subjected to four different tests with 2-month intervals for each that measured Junzi personality, self-control, and authenticity, with the final test measuring self-esteem, core
self-evaluation, affect balance, and mental symptoms as overall indicators of mental health. Results showed that when measured simultaneously, Junzi personality positively predicted mental health. When measured after 6 months, Junzi personality also positively predicted self-esteem, core self-evaluation, and affect balance but negatively predicted mental symptoms. Junzi personality positively predicted the trait of self-control and decisions involving self-control, whether in situations provided in the experiment or as were recalled by the participants. Manipulated self-control positively affected both mental health and authenticity while manipulated authenticity positively affected mental health. Results also provided evidence to the serial mediating effect of self-control and authenticity in the positive effect of Junzi personality on mental health through simultaneous measurement and cross-temporal measurement. In addition, results of experimental manipulation also provided indirect evidence for this. This research sought to explore the positive relationship between Junzi personality and mental health and to
help in the understanding of the internal mechanism of this relationship. The results are consistent with previous studies on the relationship between personality and mental health, self-control and mental health, and authenticity and mental health. In addition, this paper also discusses the practical value of Junzi personality and Confucianism in today’s China.
Key words：Junzi personality, Confucianism cultural psychology, mental health, self-control, authenticity
Research on self-reported executive functioning (EF) and personality has largely focused on normative personality traits. While previous research has demonstrated that maladaptive personality traits are associated with performance-based EF, the literature examining the relationship between these traits and self-reported EF is limited. The current study examined the relationship between multiple domains of self-reported EF (Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale) and both normative (The International Personality Item Pool–NEO–120 Item [IPIP-120]) and maladaptive (Personality Inventory for DSM-5–Short Form [PID-5-SF]) personality traits in an undergraduate student sample (n = 354). Similar to past research, relationships were largest across EF domains for both measures related to neuroticism (i.e., IPIP-120 neuroticism and PID-5-SF negative affectivity) and conscientiousness (i.e., IPIP-120 conscientiousness and PID-5-SF disinhibition). Normative personality traits generally accounted for greater variance in EF when examined alone and were also generally associated with greater incremental validity when compared with maladaptive personality traits. However, multiple regression analyses indicated that maladaptive personality traits added unique predictive variance above and beyond normative personality traits in their association with multiple domains of EF. These results highlight the utility of assessing both normative and maladaptive personality traits as well as multiple domains of EF to more fully understand the relationship between personality and EF.
Are Autism Quotient (AQ) scores related to executive functioning (EF)? We sampled 200 students of normal intelligence and examined the relationship between AQ scores and: (a) 5 self-ratings of EF, (b) 5 performance-based measures of EF, and (c) 5 types of activities or experiences that are assumed to recruit EF and sometimes enhance EF. Our findings reveal that as AQ scores increase, self-rated EF ability decreases. AQ scores and self-reported EF measures do not correlate with objective EF task performance. Furthermore, AQ scores were shown to be negatively associated with many specific types of physical activity. As AQ scores increase, individuals report fewer positive reasons for exercise and more rationalizations for not engaging in more exercise.
Trait self-control is often defined as the ability to inhibit dominant responses including thoughts, emotions, and behavioral impulses. Despite the pivotal role of inhibition for trait self-control, a growing body of evidence found small-to-zero correlations between self-report measures of trait self-control and behavioral inhibition tasks. These observations seem puzzling considering that both types of measures are often seen as operationalizations of the same or at least closely related theoretical constructs. Previous explanations for this non-correspondence focused on psychometric properties of the measures. Here, we discuss three further factors that may explain the empirical non-correspondence between trait self-control scales and behavioral inhibition tasks: (1) the distinction between typical and maximum performance, (2) the measurement of single versus repeated performance, and (3) differences between impulses in different domains. Specifically, we argue that a) self-report measures of trait self-control are designed to assess typical performance, and relative to these, behavioral inhibition tasks are designed to assess maximum performance; b) self-report measures of trait self-control capture central tendencies of aggregates of many different instances of behavior, whereas behavioral inhibition tasks are momentary, one-time state measures; and c) most self-report measures of trait self-control are designed to measure general, cross-domain inhibition, whereas behavioral inhibition tasks also measure narrower, domain-specific inhibition to a substantial degree. In conclusion, we argue that it is implausible to hypothesize more than a low correlation between self-report measures of trait self-control and behavioral inhibition tasks as they genuinely focus on different aspects of the theoretical construct of self-control. We also discuss the broader implications of these issues for self-control as a theoretical construct and its appropriate measurement.
The ‘good life’ is described by philosophers and psychologists as consisting of authentic expression of self, a sense of well-being, and active engagement in life and work. Well-being and employee engagement are outcomes of value in themselves to work organisations, but also improve performance and reduce turnover. This meta-analysis tests the relationships between authenticity and well-being, and authenticity and engagement, investigating the impact of several moderators: age, gender, sample type, conceptual measure and individualism-collectivism. Systematic searches identified 75 studies (well-being = 65, engagement = 10) with a total N == 36,533. Analysis revealed a positive relationship between authenticity and well-being (r == 0.40) and between authenticity and engagement (r == 0.37). Individualism and type of measure were significant moderators, but age, gender and sample type were not. Specific recommendations are made for researchers choosing measures of authenticity, well-being and engagement. The study also highlights the need for further research on the interaction of culture and authenticity, as the majority of studies rely on Western / individualist conceptualisations and measures. Overall, the meta-analysis demonstrates that authenticity has positive implications for individual well-being and work engagement and could provide an important path to building healthy work organisations.
Despite the importance of daily life executive functioning (EF) for college students’ success, few measures exist that have been validated in college students specifically. This study examined the factor structure of the Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale (BDEFS) in college students. Participants were 1,311 students (ages 18-28 years, 65% female) from five universities in the United States. Additionally, the study examined invariance across sex, age, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms. Exploratory structural equation modeling provided strong support for the BDEFS five-factor structure though some items had high cross-loadings on multiple factors. Findings generally supported invariance across sex and age; however, loadings, thresholds, and factor means differed based on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms. Stronger support for invariance across sex emerged for a reduced item version that eliminated cross-loading items. Overall, findings provide support for the validity and utility of the BDEFS in college students.
Are people more satisfied with decisions to resist or to indulge temptation? We propose that the effect of restraint versus indulgence on decision satisfaction depends on individual differences in lay rationalism, that is, reliance on reason versus feelings to guide decisions. Across 2 pilot studies and 9 main studies (N = 3,264) with different methodologies and various self-control domains, we found consistent evidence that individuals experience higher satisfaction with restraint the more they rely on reason than on feelings. The proposed effect uniquely concerns individual differences in lay rationalism and is independent from individual differences in trait self-control. We also show that authenticity (feeling true to oneself) is the mechanism underlying this effect and rule out self-typicality (acting in ways typical of oneself) as an alternative account. Additionally, we examined downstream consequences of this effect for compensatory authenticity seeking. These findings advance a more nuanced view of self-control based on identity and suggest that the subjective utility of restraint is contingent upon individual differences in reliance on reason versus feelings in decision making. Our research contributes to the understudied topic of the phenomenology of self-control and provides novel insights into its potential downsides for some individuals. We discuss theoretical implications for research on self-control, lay rationalism and authenticity.
Exploring determinants of human happiness has been increasingly prevalent in studies over the last few decades. Aim of this study was primarily to explore age differences in life satisfaction in Croatian adults ranging in age from early 20s to 40s. Additionally, we aimed to predict life satisfaction based on gender, basic psychological needs satisfaction, and self-esteem. Data was collected on 393 participants (54.6% female, Mage = 31.23) from two planned subsamples, emerging adults (N = 206, 53.2% female, Mage = 23.29) and middle-aged adults (N = 187, 56.1% female, Mage = 39.97). Participants completed Basic Psychological Needs Scale, Self-esteem scale, and Satisfaction with Life Scale. Results were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Significant latent means differences were found for autonomy and relatedness, with middle-aged adults scoring 0.27 and 0.26 units lower than emerging adults. As for life satisfaction prediction, results showed that women, people with higher self-esteem, and people with higher psychological need satisfaction had higher life satisfaction. Findings also suggested that psychological need satisfaction and self-esteem are equally important predictors of life satisfaction at different stages of life. These results suggest that increasing the satisfaction of basic psychological needs and self-esteem could serve as a possible intervention path to desirable changes in person’s life satisfaction.
Motivation derived from a sense of truly valuing or enjoying one’s pursuits (“wanting to do it”)—as opposed to motivation born of external demands or other people’s expectations (“having to do it”)—is associated with goal-pursuit success and overall well-being. But what determines the quality of motivation in the first place? Many theoretical perspectives identify features of the task or situation as determinants, but have largely ignored the potential contribution of individual self-regulatory tendencies. We ask here whether individual differences in self-control may be associated with an individual’s likelihood of “wanting to” pursue current goals, operationalized as the momentary experience of autonomous motivation. We first describe an exploratory experience-sampling study that documented the association (Study 1) and prompted subsequent development of the hypothesis that trait self-control and autonomous motivation are related. A second experience sampling study replicated the effect (Study 1R) and 2 cross-sectional studies helped hone its interpretation (Studies 2 and 3). We then employed an experimental paradigm to test whether the association between trait self-control and autonomous motivation is goal-dependent. Consistent with an instrumental, self-regulatory account of the association, we found that trait self-control was related to autonomous motivation for a novel task only when an individual expected to continue working on that task (Study 4). Employing an integrative perspective, this work expands our understanding of trait self-control by identifying it as a candidate contributor to motivation quality, and, more generally, helps to integrate otherwise disparate approaches to understanding motivation.
The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the key considerations that lie at the intersection of cultural diversity and mental health. Mental health providers and professionals across the world have to work with clients that are often from cultures other than their own. The differences in cultures have a range of implications for mental health practice, ranging from the ways that people view health and illness, to treatment seeking patterns, the nature of the therapeutic relationship and issues of racism and discrimination. This paper will excavate some of these considerations with a view to raising possible ways in which mental health systems and professionals can engage across cultures more equitably and sustainably.
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.
This study examined the psychometric properties of the Adult Executive Functioning Inventory (ADEXI). This new executive functioning (EF) rating instrument has the advantage of being brief (14 items) and focusing specifically on working memory and inhibitory control. Results showed that scores on the ADEXI had high internal consistency and adequate test-retest reliability, but low concurrence between self-ratings and other ratings. High and statistically significant correlations were found between ADEXI scores and scores from another EF rating instrument, whereas the correlations between ADEXI scores and neuropsychological test scores were weak and often non-significant. Furthermore, with regard to discriminant validity, individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) had significantly higher scores on both the inhibition and working memory subscales compared to clinical as well as non-clinical controls. The results showed high specificity, but relatively low sensitivity, when discriminating between adults with ADHD and non-clinical controls. Conclusively, the ADEXI can be a valuable screening instrument for assessing deficits in working memory and inhibitory control. However, similarly to other EF ratings, the ADEXI should be used as a complement rather than as a replacement for neuropsychological tests, and the low interrater reliability suggests that ratings from multiple sources is preferable compared to relying solely on self-ratings.
Adolescents have a strong desire to “be themselves.” How does experiencing authenticity—the sense of being one’s true self—influence subjective well-being? What allows adolescents to experience authenticity? This research tests a working model of how authenticity is implicated in adolescents’ well-being. Using survey, diary, and experimental methodologies, four studies (total N=759, age-range=12-17) supported the main tenets of the model. Authenticity (1) enhances well-being, (2) co-varies with satisfaction of psychological needs for relatedness and competence, and is caused by satisfaction of the need for autonomy, and (3) mediates the link between need satisfaction and well-being. Authenticity is more than a powerful motive: It has robust, replicable effects on well-being, and may thus be a pervasive force in positive youth development.
Executive function (EF) has come to be an umbrella term used for a diversity of hypothesized cognitive processes, including planning, working memory, attention, inhibition, self-monitoring, self-regulation, and initiation carried out by prefrontal areas of the frontal lobes.
Self-regulation has been conceptualized as the interplay between controlled and impulsive processes; however, most research has focused on the controlled side (i.e., effortful self-control). The present studies focus on the effects of motivation on impulsive processes, including automatic preferences for goal-disruptive stimuli and subjective reports of temptations and obstacles, contrasting them with effects on controlled processes. This is done by examining people's implicit affective reactions in the face of goal-disruptive "temptations" (Studies 1 and 2), subjective reports of obstacles (Studies 2 and 3) and expended effort (Study 3), as well as experiences of desires and self-control in real-time using experience sampling (Study 4). Across these multiple methods, results show that want-to motivation results in decreased impulsive attraction to goal-disruptive temptations and is related to encountering fewer obstacles in the process of goal pursuit. This, in turn, explains why want-to goals are more likely to be attained. Have-to motivation, on the other hand, was unrelated to people's automatic reactions to temptation cues but related to greater subjective perceptions of obstacles and tempting desires. The discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for self-regulation and motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record
(c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
We examined the life-span development of self-esteem and tested whether self-esteem influences the development of important life outcomes, including relationship satisfaction, job satisfaction, occupational status, salary, positive and negative affect, depression, and physical health. Data came from the Longitudinal Study of Generations. Analyses were based on 5 assessments across a 12-year period of a sample of 1,824 individuals ages 16 to 97 years. First, growth curve analyses indicated that self-esteem increases from adolescence to middle adulthood, reaches a peak at about age 50 years, and then decreases in old age. Second, cross-lagged regression analyses indicated that self-esteem is best modeled as a cause rather than a consequence of life outcomes. Third, growth curve analyses, with self-esteem as a time-varying covariate, suggested that self-esteem has medium-sized effects on life-span trajectories of affect and depression, small to medium-sized effects on trajectories of relationship and job satisfaction, a very small effect on the trajectory of health, and no effect on the trajectory of occupational status. These findings replicated across 4 generations of participants—children, parents, grandparents, and their great-grandparents. Together, the results suggest that self-esteem has a significant prospective impact on real-world life experiences and that high and low self-esteem are not mere epiphenomena of success and failure in important life domains.
Privately self-conscious people may resist social pressures because (a) they tune out the social matrix and express their beliefs irrespective of how they make them appear to an audience (the social obliviousness hypothesis) or (b) they prefer to create an identity of being autonomous and will monitor and control their self-presentations to construct this image for audiences (the autonomous identity hypothesis). The results of three studies supported the latter. The self-identifications of privately self-conscious subjects emphasized autonomy and personal identity, whereas those of publicly self-conscious subjects emphasized conformity, social identity, and social trepidations. An experiment found that privately self-conscious subjects publicly changed their attitudes if by so doing they protected the appearance of autonomy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
On the basis of the terror management theory proposition that self-esteem provides protection against concerns about mortality, it was hypothesized that self-esteem would reduce the worldview defense produced by mortality salience (MS). The results of Exps 1 (49 undergraduates) and 2 (50 undergraduates) confirmed this hypothesis by showing that individuals with high self-esteem (manipulated in Exp 1; dispositional in Exp 2) did not respond to MS with increased worldview defense, whereas individuals with moderate self-esteem did. The results of Exp 3 (48 undergraduates) suggested that the effects of the 1st 2 experiments may have occurred because high self-esteem facilitates the suppression of death constructs following MS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Four studies examined the construct validity of two global self-esteem measures. In Studies 1 through 3, the Single-Item Self-Esteem Scale (SISE) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) showed strong convergent validity for men and women, for different ethnic groups, and for both college students and community members. The SISE and the RSE had nearly identical correlations with a wide range of criterion measures, including domain-specific self-evaluations, self-evaluative biases, social desirability, personality, psychological and physical health, peer ratings of group behavior, academic outcomes, and demographic variables. Study 4 showed that the SISE had only moderate convergent validity in a sample of children. Overall, the findings support the reliability and validity of the SISE and suggest it can provide a practical alternative to the RSE in adult samples. More generally, the findings contribute to the research literature by further elaborating the nomological network of global self-esteem.
We present new measures of well-being to assess the following concepts: 1. Psychological Well-Being (PWB); 2. Positive Feelings,
Negative Feelings, and the balance between the two (SPANE-P, N, B); and 3. Positive Thinking. The PWB scale is a short 8–item
summary survey of the person’s self-perceived functioning in important areas such as relationships, self-esteem, purpose and
meaning, and optimism. The scale is substantially correlated with other psychological well-being scales, but is briefer. The
scale provides a single overall psychological well-being score and does not yield scores for various components of well-being.
The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) yields a score for positive experience and feelings (6 items), a score
for negative experience and feelings (6 items), and the two can be combined to create an experience balance score. This 12-item
brief scale has a number of desirable features compared to earlier measures of positive and negative feelings. In particular,
the scale assesses with a few items a broad range of negative and positive experiences and feelings, not just those of a certain
type, and is based on the frequency of feelings during the past month. A scale to measure Positive Thinking is also presented.
Basic psychometric statistics are presented for the scales based on 573 college students at five universities.
And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am, oh take me to the slaughterhouse I will wait there with the lamb. —Leonard CohenWhatever satisfies the soul is truth. —Walt WhitmanI prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. —Frederick DouglassIn this chapter, we present research and theory pertaining to our multicomponent perspective on authentic functioning. We begin with a historical account of various philosophical perspectives on authentic functioning and briefly review several past and contemporary psychological perspectives on authenticity. We then define and discuss our multicomponent conceptualization of authenticity and describe each of its components and their relationships to other constructs in the psychology literature. Next, we present an individual differences measure we have developed to assess dispositional authenticity and each of its components, and we report findings attesting to the adequacy of its psychometric properties. In addition, we present findings from a variety of studies we have conducted to examine how authenticity relates to diverse aspects of healthy psychological and interpersonal functioning. These studies pertain to a wide range of phenomena, including the following: verbal defensiveness, mindfulness, coping styles, self‐concept structure, social‐role functioning, goal pursuits, general well‐being, romantic relationships, parenting styles, and self‐esteem. Following this, we discuss potential downsides or costs for authentic functioning and describe some future directions for research on authenticity.
Self-regulation is a core aspect of adaptive human behavior that has been studied, largely in parallel, through the lenses of social and personality psychology as well as cognitive psychology. Here, we argue for more communication between these disciplines and highlight recent research that speaks to their connection. We outline how basic facets of executive functioning (working memory operations, behavioral inhibition, and task-switching) may subserve successful self-regulation. We also argue that temporary reductions in executive functions underlie many of the situational risk factors identified in the social psychological research on self-regulation and review recent evidence that the training of executive functions holds significant potential for improving poor self-regulation in problem populations.
The development of a 21-item self-report inventory for measuring the severity of anxiety in psychiatric populations is described. The initial item pool of 86 items was drawn from three preexisting scales: the Anxiety Checklist, the Physician’s Desk Reference Checklist, and the Situational Anxiety Checklist. A series of analyses was used to reduce the item pool. The resulting Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) is a 21-item scale that showed high internal consistency (α = .92) and test—retest reliability over 1 week, r (81) = .75. The BAI discriminated anxious diagnostic groups (panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, etc.) from nonanxious diagnostic groups (major depression, dysthymic disorder, etc). In addition, the BAI was moderately correlated with the revised Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, r (150) = .51, and was only mildly correlated with the revised Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, r (153) = .25.
This chapter describes self-esteem and provides an overview of existing perspectives on self-esteem. Self-esteem is a sociometer, essentially an internal monitor of the degree to which one is valued or devalued as a relational partner. The chapter evaluates a series of specific, testable hypotheses about self-esteem and examines laboratory and other findings in relevance to the sociometer theory and its specific hypotheses. This sociometer theory also reinterprets several interpersonal phenomena that have been explained previously in terms of the self-esteem motive. In specific, self-esteem refers to a person's appraisal of his or her value. Global self-esteem denotes a global value judgment about the self, whereas domain-specific self-esteem involves appraisals of one's value in a particular area. Self-esteem is an affectively laden self-evaluation. Self-evaluations are in turn assessments of one's behavior or attributes along evaluative dimensions. Some self-evaluations are dispassionate. whereas others are affectively laden. Self-esteem focuses primarily on individual differences in dispositional or trait self-esteem.
Some theorizing in clinical and social psychology suggests authentic people lack a self-presentational agenda; however, a small amount of evidence has challenged this idea and suggested authentic people have an agenda to appear authentic. The present study tested this suggestion directly. We assessed whether people higher in authenticity ascribe higher functionality to authenticity identities and report intentions to self-present these identities to audiences. In this preregistered study, participants (N = 364) self-reported their levels of different authenticity facets, intentions to self-present authenticity identities that embody these facets, and the functionality of these authenticity identities, which included beliefs that the identities were desirable, were normative, and can be easily claimed. Participants who reported higher levels of an authenticity facet reported enhanced intentions to self-present an identity most relevant to that facet and rated that identity as more functional. Findings challenge conventional ideas about authenticity but support the idea that authenticity is partly a self-presentational construct.
Historical accounts presume that authentic people are true to the self and avoid self-presentation. However, recent evidence suggests that feelings of authenticity do not necessarily follow from acting in line with self-views, and people with high (self-reported) dispositional authenticity may distort self-relevant information to make a desired impression. The current preregistered study sought to extend previous findings suggestive of this distortion of self-relevant information. Participants (N = 529) self-reported their dispositional authenticity and then completed a (sham) perceptual task that could presumably diagnose the presence of a brain type that enables authentic behavior. Participants, in general, misreported their perceptual experiences on the task to seem as if they had a greater likelihood of possessing the brain type. This biased reporting was not significantly related to people's dispositional authenticity, but it was only present (to a statistically significant degree) for participants with relatively high dispositional authenticity. These data suggest that individuals with high dispositional authenticity are prone to distort their experiences in the context of learning about the self's authenticity; such findings question the general validity of the longstanding assumption that authenticity entails full acceptance of the self's experiences.
As subjective well-being is foundational to understanding people, researchers have sought to uncover its correlates. Some theorizing proposes that effects of broad personality traits on subjective well-being constructs are mediated by self-esteem; unfortunately, evidence pertaining to this idea has been limited to the study of “normal” broad personality traits and limited measures of subjective well-being. Here, we provided a more comprehensive test of this theory, and we examined the dominance of self-esteem over normal and pathological broad personality traits in predicting an array of subjective well-being constructs. In a primarily college sample (N = 272), we found that self-esteem generally mediated the effects of all Five-Factor Model (FFM) traits except Agreeableness and all pathological personality traits—represented in the Personality Inventory of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders traits (5th edition; PID-5)—except Antagonism on a set of subjective well-being measures; moreover, dominance analyses showed that self-esteem was generally more important than any FFM or PID-5 trait in predicting the subjective well-being measures. We discuss limitations of our study along with some of its basic and applied implications.
This book presents a thorough overview of a model of human functioning based on the idea that behavior is goal-directed and regulated by feedback control processes. It describes feedback processes and their application to behavior, considers goals and the idea that goals are organized hierarchically, examines affect as deriving from a different kind of feedback process, and analyzes how success expectancies influence whether people keep trying to attain goals or disengage. Later sections consider a series of emerging themes, including dynamic systems as a model for shifting among goals, catastrophe theory as a model for persistence, and the question of whether behavior is controlled or instead 'emerges'. Three chapters consider the implications of these various ideas for understanding maladaptive behavior, and the closing chapter asks whether goals are a necessity of life. Throughout, theory is presented in the context of diverse issues that link the theory to other literatures.
Self-presentation theory suggests that all people strategically self-present, so it struggles to account for self-proclaimed “authentic” people who are apparently unaware or unconcerned with the impressions they make. But, we addressed whether self-proclaimed authentic people create authentic identities via strategic displays that communicate authentic images but are inconsistent with the self's objective experiences. Participants (N = 240) completed a (bogus) color-gazing task under the presumption that authentic people see colors become more (more-intense condition) or less intense (less-intense condition) while gazing at them. Participants reported perceiving color as more intense in the more-intense condition, but this biased responding—consistent with appearing authentic—was enhanced by trait-authenticity indicators. This biased responding was not open to awareness. Also, participants higher in trait-authenticity indicators reported possessing more authentic characteristics, and mediation evidence traced these reports to their more biased responding on the task. Self-presentation is fundamental to human nature, and this includes “authentic” people.
Research on authenticity frequently invokes notions of true self, but is there such thing? The question must be answered twice, given frequent confusion and conflation of self with self-concept. Summarizing and integrating themes from authenticity research as evident in this special issue, I draw these conclusions. True self-concepts are more plausible than genuinely true selves, if the latter are independent entities distinct from actual behavior and experience. Yet rather than a single true self-concept, people have multiple nonfalse ones, none of which is entirely true. Among these, the pragmatically most important is the desired reputation, given the social-cultural orientation of humankind. Desired reputation is more a guide and goal than a reality, but successes and failures at achieving that reputation will produce welcome and unwelcome feelings that are likely reported as feeling authentic and inauthentic (respectively). Understanding authenticity in this way solves some of the perennial problems that beset research and theory on authenticity, especially positive distortion and external rather than internal orientation.
Objectives:
A growing body of research has investigated psychosocial predictors of subjective well-being (SWB), a key component of healthy ageing, which comprises life satisfaction and affective well-being. However, few studies have examined how executive function (EF)-a collection of adaptive, goal-directed control processes-could affect SWB in middle and late adulthood.
Methods:
By analyzing a nationally representative adult cohort ranging from early 30s to early 80s from the Midlife Development in the United States 2 study, we examined two potential mediators (i.e., sense of control versus positive reappraisal) that could underlie the relation between EF and SWB. Further, we assessed how these mediational pathways would differ across midlife and older adulthood.
Results:
Our results revealed that sense of control, but not positive reappraisal, significantly mediated the relation between EF and life satisfaction and affective well-being. Moreover, these mediation effects were significantly moderated by age, with more pronounced effects among older adults.
Discussion:
We found that EF in later adulthood facilitates a sense of control over obstacles that interfere with the attainment of goals, which in turn is associated with greater life satisfaction and positive affect. This underscores the role of EF as an increasingly valuable resource that buffers against declines in sense of control and SWB in late adulthood.
A central tenet of many prominent philosophical and psychological traditions is that personal authenticity facilitates psychological well-being. This idea, however, is at odds with numerous perspectives arguing that it is difficult, if not impossible, to really know one's self, or the true self may not even exist. Moreover, empirical findings suggest that reports of authenticity are often contaminated by positively valenced behavior, further potentially undermining the validity of authenticity measures. Despite these concerns, we argue that subjective feelings of authenticity do uniquely contribute to well-being. Specifically, we argue that the relationship between perceived authenticity and well-being may be understood from a social-cognitive lay theory perspective that we label “true-self-as-guide,” that suggests people use these feelings of authenticity as a cue to evaluate whether they are living up to a shared cultural value of what it means to live a good life. We end with a call for future research on the antecedents of perceived authenticity, boundary conditions for the consequences of personal authenticity, and discuss cultural differences in true-self-as-guide lay theories.
Authenticity entails autonomy, congruence, and genuineness. In this article, we use a self-determination theory framework to discuss a critical aspect of social environments that facilitates these aspects of authenticity, namely the experience of autonomy support. Although authenticity is often studied as a trait or individual difference, we review research demonstrating that authenticity varies within individuals and predicts variations in well-being. Next, we show that perceiving autonomy support within a relational context is associated with people feeling more authentic and more like their ideal selves and displaying constellations of Big 5 personality traits indicative of greater wellness in that context. To explore another important part of authenticity, being genuine in interactions with others, we review evidence linking autonomy support to situational variation in identity disclosure among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals. This research suggests that perceiving autonomy support within a context or relationship helps lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals be more open about their sexual orientation and identity, which in turn affords greater opportunities for the satisfaction of not only autonomy, but competence and relatedness needs as well, facilitating well-being. We conclude by highlighting future directions in the study of authenticity’s dynamic nature, and the importance of the situation in its expression and its relation to well-being.
Background:
Self-regulation (SR) is central to developmental psychopathology, but progress has been impeded by varying terminology and meanings across fields and literatures.
Methods:
The present review attempts to move that discussion forward by noting key sources of prior confusion such as measurement-concept confounding, and then arguing the following major points.
Results:
First, the field needs a domain-general construct of SR that encompasses SR of action, emotion, and cognition and involves both top-down and bottom-up regulatory processes. This does not assume a shared core process across emotion, action, and cognition, but is intended to provide clarity on the extent of various claims about kinds of SR. Second, top-down aspects of SR need to be integrated. These include (a) basic processes that develop early and address immediate conflict signals, such as cognitive control and effortful control (EC), and (b) complex cognition and strategies for addressing future conflict, represented by the regulatory application of complex aspects of executive functioning. Executive function (EF) and cognitive control are not identical to SR because they can be used for other activities, but account for top-down aspects of SR at the cognitive level. Third, impulsivity, risk-taking, and disinhibition are distinct although overlapping; a taxonomy of the kinds of breakdowns of SR associated with psychopathology requires their differentiation. Fourth, different aspects of the SR universe can be organized hierarchically in relation to granularity, development, and time. Low-level components assemble into high-level components. This hierarchical perspective is consistent across literatures.
Conclusions:
It is hoped that the framework outlined here will facilitate integration and cross-talk among investigators working from different perspectives, and facilitate individual differences research on how SR relates to developmental psychopathology.
The assessment of executive functioning (EF) has been plagued by several problems, not the least of which is the lack of any consensus definition for the term itself (Castellanos, Sonuga-Barke, Milham, & Tannock, 2006). Despite frequent use of the term in various research papers and books over the past 40 years since the term was first coined by Pribram in 1973, more than 30 definitions exist for the term (Barkley, 2012a) and at least as many different constructs have been placed under it, making it more akin to an “umbrella” term or meta-construct (Eslinger, 1996). Typically, reviews of the scientific findings on EF often sidestep the problem of definition and simply list those constructs thought to be included in the term, such as inhibition, working memory, planning, and problem-solving (Frazier, Demareem, & Youngstrom, 2004; Hervey, Epstein, & Curry, 2004; Willcutt, Doyle, Nigg, Faraone, & Pennington, 2005). The reviews then discuss findings with regard to measures of these constructs without further consideration for the rather glaring problem of specifying just what makes these constructs representative of EF while other neuropsychological functions are not so classified. What specific, operational criterion can be used to determine what mental functions are or are not EF? To my knowledge, none have previously existed. Declaring that EF is what the prefrontal cortex (PFC) does is unhelpful as this simply refers to a different level of analysis at the neurological level rather than defining the term properly at the neuropsychological one, thus conflating two distinct levels of scientific analysis (Denckla, 1996). It is also prone to circularity of argument, in that EF is stated to be what the PFC does and then declaring that what the PFC does is EF.
Two studies tested whether people are biased to infer that their positive actions are more authentic than their negative actions. In Study 1, participants identified a positive or negative personal characteristic and assessed the authenticity of past behavior that reflected that characteristic. In Study 2, people imagined themselves performing positive and negative behaviors that they authentically did or did not want to perform. Both studies showed that people’s judgments of the authenticity of their behavior were contaminated by their perceptions of the valence of their behavior even when the objective authenticity of the behavior was controlled. Future research must disentangle authenticity and positivity to determine the degree to which each contributes to positive outcomes that have been attributed to authenticity.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the current diagnostic label for individuals presenting with significant problems with attention and/or impulsiveness and hyperactivity. While the disorder has not always been called ADHD, the history of the clinical syndrome of inattention and overactivity dates back over 200 years. Across the last 200+ years, different aspects of the disorder (hyperkinesis, inattention, etc.) have been emphasized yet there has been an increasing recognition of the heterogeneity of the disorder. ADHD remains among the most common reasons that a child is referred for mental health treatment and is increasingly a common reason that adults are referred for treatment. Individuals with ADHD display considerable variation in the degree of symptoms, functional impairments from these symptoms, domains of impairment, age of diagnosis, response to treatment, and psychiatric comorbidity. While not currently a symptom of ADHD, there is evidence that executive functioning (EF) deficits may be a defining aspect of the disorder and even that its two symptom dimensions actually represent dimensions of EF. This chapter presents an overview of EF theory and ADHD.
Previous research has demonstrated that people set and pursue more self-concordant goals in domains where they experience the satisfaction of psychological needs (Milyavskaya, Nadolny, & Koestner, 2014). However, the mechanism for this has not been investigated. The present study proposes that authenticity experienced in a domain mediates the relationship between domain need satisfaction and goal self-concordance. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, we investigate two components of authenticity and find that only authentic behaviour, but not authentic awareness, relates to goal self-concordance and acts as a mediator. We also test an alternative model, ruling out the possibility that need satisfaction is influenced by authenticity.
Sample correlations converge to the population value with increasing sample size, but the estimates are often inaccurate in small samples. In this report we use Monte-Carlo simulations to determine the critical sample size from which on the magnitude of a correlation can be expected to be stable. The necessary sample size to achieve stable estimates for correlations depends on the effect size, the width of the corridor of stability (i.e., a corridor around the true value where deviations are tolerated), and the requested confidence that the trajectory does not leave this corridor any more. Results indicate that in typical scenarios the sample size should approach 250 for stable estimates.
Background:
Both performance-based and rating measures are commonly used to index executive function in clinical and neuropsychological assessments. They are intended to index the same broad underlying mental construct of executive function. The association between these two types of measures was investigated in the current article.
Method and results:
We examined the association between performance-based and rating measures of executive function in 20 studies. These studies included 13 child and 7 adult samples, which were derived from 7 clinical, 2 nonclinical, and 11 combined clinical and nonclinical samples. Only 68 (24%) of the 286 relevant correlations reported in these studies were statistically significant, and the overall median correlation was only .19.
Conclusions:
It was concluded that performance-based and rating measures of executive function assess different underlying mental constructs. We discuss how these two types of measures appear to capture different levels of cognition, namely, the efficiency of cognitive abilities and success in goal pursuit. Clinical implications of using performance-based and rating measures of executive function are discussed, including the use of these measures in assessing ADHD.
We investigated individual differences in the processes of subjective well-being (SWB). There were considerable individual differences in the domain that was most strongly associated with global life satisfaction. Individuals also differed significantly in the types of activities that they found satisfying. Moreover, these individual differences in the patterns of SWB were systematically related to value orientations. A 23-day daily diary study revealed that intraindividual changes in satisfaction were strongly influenced by the degree of success in the domains that individuals value. The present findings highlight the meaningful individual differences in the qualitative aspects of subjective well-being.
Although attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is believed to impair EF, research using EF tests shows such deficits
exist in only a minority of those with ADHD. This study hypothesized that this disparity is largely due to the low ecological
validity of these EF tests. A 91-item rating scale of EF was constructed based on EF theories and found to represent 5 underlying
dimensions: Self-Management to Time, Self-Organization/Problem-Solving, Self-Discipline, Self-Motivation, and Self-Activation/Concentration.
Three groups were compared on these scales: Adults with ADHD (N = 146), Clinical control adults not diagnosed with ADHD (N = 97), and a Community control group (N = 109). The ADHD group had more severe EF ratings than did the Clinical group and Community control groups on all 5 scales
using both self and other-reported versions. Relationships between the EF scales and tests were low and mostly not significant.
Most ADHD adults were clinically impaired on the EF ratings but only a small minority were so on the tests. The EF ratings
were more highly associated with measures of deviant behavior (antisocial acts, crime diversity, negative driving outcomes)
than the EF tests, most of which were unrelated to such behavior. These results agree with previous research showing that
EF tests are largely unrelated to EF ratings and that EF ratings are more strongly associated with impairment in major life
activities, in this case deviant or antisocial behavior. Contrary to earlier conclusions based on EF tests, adult ADHD involves
substantial problems in EF in daily life.
KeywordsExecutive functioning–Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder–ADHD–Adults
Self-determination theory (SDT) maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We discuss the SDT concept of needs as it relates to previous need theories, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being. This concept of needs leads to the hypotheses that different regulatory processes underlying goal pursuits are differentially associated with effective functioning and well-being and also that different goal contents have different relations to the quality of behavior and mental health, specifically because different regulatory processes and different goal contents are associated with differing degrees of need satisfaction. Social contexts and individual differences that support satisfaction of the basic needs facilitate natural growth processes including intrinsically motivated behavior and integration of extrinsic motivations, whereas those that forestall autonomy, competence, or relatedness are associated with poorer motivation, performance, and well-being. We also discuss the relation of the psychological needs to cultural values, evolutionary processes, and other contemporary motivation theories.
The notion that self-control entails effortful inhibition of impulses dominates prevailing psychological models of self-control. This article describes some of the conceptual and empirical limitations of defining self-control as the effortful inhibition of impulses. The present article instead advocates for a dual-motive conceptualization, which describes self-control as the process of advancing distal rather than proximal motivations when the two compete. Effortful impulse inhibition in this model represents only one of many means by which people promote their self-control efforts. Adopting a dual-motive approach offers new insight and proposes several new research directions. This article discusses these implications and calls for psychologists to reconsider the way self-control is currently understood.
There is extraordinary diversity in how the construct of self-control is operationalized in research studies. We meta-analytically examined evidence of convergent validity among executive function, delay of gratification, and self- and informant-report questionnaire measures of self-control. Overall, measures demonstrated moderate convergence (r(random) = .27 [95% CI = .24, .30]; r(fixed) = .34 [.33, .35], k = 282 samples, N = 33,564 participants), although there was substantial heterogeneity in the observed correlations. Correlations within and across types of self-control measures were strongest for informant-report questionnaires and weakest for executive function tasks. Questionnaires assessing sensation seeking impulses could be distinguished from questionnaires assessing processes of impulse regulation. We conclude that self-control is a coherent but multidimensional construct best assessed using multiple methods.