State authenticity in everyday life

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