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Social self orientation (% interdependent traits À % independent traits) for each of the country samples in Study 2, as measured by the twenty statements test. Error bars represent means AE 95% CIs.
Source publication
People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimisti...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... U.S. participants scored significantly lower (M = À0.06, SD = 0.49), that is, more independent, than each of the other countries: Colombia, M = 0.16, SD = 0.46, t(321) = 4.03, p < .001, g 2 p = .05; Singapore, M = 0.15, SD = 0.44, t(219) = 3.36, p = .001, g 2 p = .05; and Russia, M = 0.41, SD = 0.47, t(243) = 7.70, p < .001, g 2 p = .20 (see Fig. 3). Furthermore, Sidak-corrected post hoc comparisons indicated that Russian participants showed a significantly greater degree of interdependence than partici- pants from Colombia, z = 4.79, p < .001, and Singapore, z = 4.19, p < .001, whereas the samples from Colombia and Singapore did not significantly differ from each other, z = ...
Citations
... Initial research by Newman et al. (2014) found that people were reluctant to attribute behaviors they considered immoral to a person's true self (e.g., politically conservative participants tended to deny that same-sex attraction was expressive of a target character's true self). Subsequent research has replicated these findings (Newman et al., 2015;De Freitas, Tobia, et al., 2017; see also Christy et al., 2016), and the tendency to see individuals' true selves as morally good seems to hold up even among otherwise misanthropic individuals and in relatively interdependent cultural contexts (De Freitas et al., 2018). ...
... On the other hand, mediation by self-esteem is consistent with research suggesting that people tend to conceive of all kinds of essences in normatively positive terms (De Freitas, Tobia, et al., 2017). To the extent that true selves represent the personal essence, it is perhaps unsurprising that people tend to view both their own (Bench et al., 2015) and others' true selves in positively-valenced terms (De Freitas et al., 2018;Newman et al., 2014;Strohminger et al., 2017). Whether this phenomenon results from cognitive processes, self-serving motivations, or a combination thereof, the positivity of self-essences implies that people high in SEBs will be particularly likely to perceive themselves as fundamentally good, thus enhancing self-esteem (Cast & Burke, 2002). ...
... The importance of understanding the consequences of thinking about identity in essentialist terms becomes clear when considering just how common such beliefs are. A growing body of evidence reveals that people in various cultural contexts endorse the existence and importance of true selves (e.g., De Freitas et al., 2018;Kim et al., 2022;Schlegel et al., 2012), and that true-self beliefs are involved in moral judgment (e.g., Kim et al., 2018;Newman et al., 2014Newman et al., , 2015, decision-making (e.g., Kim et al., 2021;Schlegel et al., 2011), perceptions of self and others (e.g., Bench et al., 2015;Christy et al., 2016, and experiences of well-being (e.g., Schlegel et al., 2009Schlegel et al., , 2011. This literature suggests that true-self beliefs are a commonplace and consequential element of folk psychology. ...
... Such findings support what has become known as the "good true self bias" ( De Freitas et al. 2017 ) and indicate that moral qualities may be particularly important for the experience of authenticity. Indeed, the attribution of virtuous attributes to true selves exists in diverse cultural settings ( De Freitas et al. 2018 ), among people who have generally negative views of others (i.e., misanthropes; De Freitas et al. 2018 ), and among people who show deficits in moral reasoning and action (e.g., people relatively high in psychopathy; Mafy-Kipp et al. 2023a ). ...
... Such findings support what has become known as the "good true self bias" ( De Freitas et al. 2017 ) and indicate that moral qualities may be particularly important for the experience of authenticity. Indeed, the attribution of virtuous attributes to true selves exists in diverse cultural settings ( De Freitas et al. 2018 ), among people who have generally negative views of others (i.e., misanthropes; De Freitas et al. 2018 ), and among people who show deficits in moral reasoning and action (e.g., people relatively high in psychopathy; Mafy-Kipp et al. 2023a ). ...
... Critically, the definition of "good" depends on the perceiver, suggesting that people attribute what they themselves believe to be good to the true self (Newman et al., 2014). Remarkably, this good true self bias has been observed in multiple cultures and among self-identified misanthropes who otherwise have a rather negative view of other people (De Freitas, Sarkissian, et al., 2018). Importantly, all the previous work in this area had been conducted using hypothetical vignettes that almost always involves two pieces of conflicting information. ...
We conducted three studies involving small group interactions ( N = 622) that examined whether Big Five personality states, affect, and/or liking predict judgments of others’ authenticity. Study 1 ( n = 119) revealed that neither self-rated personality states nor affect predicted other-rated authenticity. Instead, other-rated liking was the only predictor of other-rated authenticity. Study 2 ( n = 281) revealed that other-rated personality states and affect were significant predictors of other-rated authenticity, but other-rated liking was a more important factor in predicting other-rated authenticity than specific behaviors or affect. Based on these results, Study 3 ( n = 222) examined whether experimental manipulation of likability had a causal effect on other-ratings of authenticity. Likable actors were indeed judged as more authentic. Together, this suggests that we judge people we like as more authentic and that likability may be more important than the “objective” content of behavior.
... First, according to the definition of authenticity, authentic people usually prefer to behave in accordance with their true self, 15,17 which inherently decreases their tendency of exhibiting "faking good" cheating behavior that directly hinders their pursuit of an authentic self. Second, according to the essential moral self-hypothesis, authentic people generally tend to view their true selves as morally virtuous and are motivated to behave in ways aligned with ethical standards, [25][26][27] indicating a lower likelihood of engaging in unethical and immoral cheating behaviors in a learning context. ...
Purpose
Prior studies revealed several beneficial aspects of being authentic, such as higher subjective well-being, more harmonious interpersonal relationships, and better workplace performance. However, how authenticity relates to unethical cheating behaviors in the academic context remains to be seen. Based on the literature review, the present study hypothesized that authenticity may be negatively linked to academic cheating through the mediating path of mastery approach goals.
Methods
In Study 1, 250 college students self-reported their demographics and academic performance, and completed the scales of authenticity, academic cheating, mastery approach goals, and social desirability. In Study 2, 111 college students completed the same measures as in Study 1 at two different time points (5 months in between).
Results
In Study 1, the results indicated that authenticity was positively associated with mastery approach goals, and both were negatively associated with academic cheating. After controlling for the confounding effect of gender, age, academic performance, and social desirability, mastery approach goals were identified as a mediator in the authenticity–academic cheating relationship. In Study 2, the correlation result confirmed the association patterns found in Study 1. Moreover, cross-lagged analysis supported the directionality proposed in the mediation model.
Conclusion
The findings identified the mediating role of mastery approach goals in the link between authenticity and academic cheating, supporting the motivated cognition perspective of personality, the motivational model of academic cheating, and the self-determination theory. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research were provided.
... In other words, personal transformations are most likely to be described as reflecting the true self when they are aligned with perceivers' own values. These tendencies persist across several cultures and are found even in misanthropes (De Freitas et al., 2018). On the basis of this evidence, it has been concluded that ''there is a consistent propensity to believe that each and every one of us possesses a good true self'' (De Freitas et al., 2017, p. 636). ...
Moral dilemmas are inescapable in daily life, and people must often choose between two desirable character traits, like being a diligent employee or being a devoted parent. These moral dilemmas arise because people hold competing moral values that sometimes conflict. Furthermore, people differ in which values they prioritize, so we do not always approve of how others resolve moral dilemmas. How are we to think of people who sacrifice one of our most cherished moral values for a value that we consider less important? The "Good True Self Hypothesis" predicts that we will reliably project our most strongly held moral values onto others, even after these people lapse. In other words, people who highly value generosity should consistently expect others to be generous, even after they act frugally in a particular instance. However, reasoning from an error-management perspective instead suggests the "Moral Stringency Hypothesis," which predicts that we should be especially prone to discredit the moral character of people who deviate from our most deeply cherished moral ideals, given the potential costs of affiliating with people who do not reliably adhere to our core moral values. In other words, people who most highly value generosity should be quickest to stop considering others to be generous if they act frugally in a particular instance. Across two studies conducted on Prolific (N = 966), we found consistent evidence that people weight moral lapses more heavily when rating others' membership in highly cherished moral categories, supporting the Moral Stringency Hypothesis. In Study 2, we examined a possible mechanism underlying this phenomenon. Although perceptions of hypocrisy played a role in moral updating, personal moral values and subsequent judgments of a person's potential as a good cooperative partner provided the clearest explanation for changes in moral character attributions. Overall, the robust tendency toward moral stringency carries significant practical and theoretical implications.
... The representativeness heuristic describes how the likelihood of an event is assessed by comparing it to an existing prototype in our mind (Kahneman & Tversky, 1972) No (Vives et al., 2021) The optimality bias The mind's tendency to hold moral agents accountable based on whether they make optimal decisions, even when the agent has no way of knowing which choice is the most optimal (De Freitas et al., 2018) No (Bodig et al., 2020) system 2 processing. Such reliance on controlled, slow, and rule-based thinking allows for more analytical, and hence more rational, decision-making. ...
This article compares risk tolerance of native Arabic speakers under two language contexts: their first language (L1 Arabic) and their foreign language (L2 English). We aim to evaluate whether thinking in a foreign language actually reduces the negative effects of cognitive biases, such as loss aversion and mental accounting, on financial decision-making. Toward this aim, we conducted two experiments in which the risk tolerance levels of 144 participants were evaluated across four different types of decision-making problems: the Asian disease problem, the financial crisis problem, the discount problem, and the ticket/money lost problem. In study 1, we adopted Keysar et al.’s (2012, Psychological Science, 23, 661–668) experiment to test the effect of L2 on framing effects associated with loss aversion, and in Study 2, we adopted Costa et al.’s (2014, Cognition, 130, 236–254) experiment to test the effect of L2 on framing effects associated with mental accounting biases. We found that individuals were risk-averse for gains and risk-seeking for losses when presented with choices in their L1, but were almost unaffected by framing manipulation under the L2 condition. When it came to mental accounting, however, framing effects were nearly absent in both L1 and L2 conditions. In our investigation, we examined various potential factors that could explain the foreign language effect on decision-making. The primary factor that appears to account for this linguistic phenomenon is the heightened cognitive and emotional distance experienced when using an L2.
... First, given that BC shares the characteristic of "originality" with general creativity (Harris & Reiter-Palmon, 2015), it seems reasonable to propose that, at least to some degree, the positive authenticity-creativity association may generalize to BC. Second, it is increasingly evident that authentic people are more likely to behave in morally good ways (Freitas et al., 2018;Trnka et al., 2020;Zhang et al., 2019), indicating a high probability that these people may utilize their creative potential for benevolent purposes. ...
... Two possible explanations may account for the nonsignificant correlation between authenticity and BC performance. First, although many studies indicate that authentic people are generally more prosocial (e.g., Freitas et al., 2018;Zhang et al., 2019), authenticity is not a synonym for prosociality. For example, being true to oneself may mean releasing the inner beast for those with a high level of Dark Triad personality traits (Womick et al., 2019). ...
... The research on the tendency to link moral characteristics to true selves also suggests that the tendency is robust and not moderated by seemingly relevant individual differences. For example, at least when thinking about others, the morally-good true self bias emerges in both Eastern and Western cultural contexts, and people who explicitly hold negative views of others (i.e., misanthropes) show the morally-good true self bias to the same degree as people who do not hold such views (De Freitas et al., 2018). No research to our knowledge has successfully identified individual differences that predict differences in the degree to which people consider moral (vs. ...
We examined whether Dark Triad (DT) traits moderate people’s tendency to associate moral traits with their true self. We hypothesized that people high in DT traits would show a weaker tendency to view moral (vs. immoral) characteristics as central to their identity. Undergraduate participants (N = 345) rated the perceived identity centrality of positive/negative traits in domains of morality/competence, and completed measures of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. Positive moral (vs. immoral and positive competence) traits were seen as more identity central overall, but this effect was weaker among participants high in DT traits. Further, all DT traits negatively (positively) predicted the identity centrality of moral (immoral) traits. These findings extend work on true self-perceptions and moral identity in the Dark Triad.
... A third possibility combines aspects of both of the first two, namely: children may construe villains as overall more bad than good, yet nonetheless as retaining a bit of inner goodness. This possibility would be consistent with recent research showing that, across a wide variety of cultural contexts, adults possess a belief that people retain an inner "good" true self, regardless of their outward behaviors (e.g., De Freitas et al., 2017;Newman, Bloom, and Knobe, 2014;Strohminger, Knobe, and Newman, 2017). For example, adults view morally good individuals as happy when engaging in morally good behavior, but morally bad individuals engaging in morally bad behaviors are viewed as much less content (Newman, De Freitas, and Knobe, 2015). ...
... Even though adults attribute bad motives to people doing heinous acts, on average they believe that deep down, even such people are morally good. Such patterns in true self evaluations are robustthey have been found in a wide array of cultures across the globe (De Freitas et al., 2017). No previous study has assessed this phenomenon in children; therefore, it remains unknown whether and how children will evaluate the true selves of extremely antisocial individuals. ...
... Adults tend to believe that they and others possess a "true self," and moreover tend to think that this genuine inner self is morally good (Newman et al., 2014). This belief is held by people who live in a diverse range of cultures, and even by those who are explicitly pessimistic about others (De Freitas et al., 2017). This rose-colored view of the true self influences how adults assess the behaviors and experiences of other people (e.g., Newman et al., 2014;Newman et al., 2015;Newman, Lockhart, and Keil, 2010). ...
How do children make sense of antisocial acts committed by evil-doers? We addressed this question in three studies with 434 children (4-12 years) and 277 adults, focused on participants' judgments of both familiar and novel fictional villains and heroes. Study 1 established that children viewed villains' actions and emotions as overwhelmingly negative, suggesting that children's well-documented positivity bias does not prevent their appreciation of extreme forms of villainy. Studies 2 and 3 assessed children's and adults' beliefs regarding heroes' and villains' moral character and true selves, using an array of converging evidence, including: how a character felt inside, whether a character's actions reflected their true self, whether a character's true self could change over time, and how an omniscient machine would judge a character's true self. Across these measures, both children and adults consistently evaluated villains' true selves to be more negative than heroes'. Importantly, at the same time, we also detected an asymmetry in the judgments, wherein villains were more likely than heroes to have a true self that differed from their outward behavior. More specifically, across the ages studied participants more often reported that villains were inwardly good, than that heroes were inwardly bad. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed in light of our expanding understanding of the development of true self beliefs.
... Virtuous and moral behaviors are particularly important, perhaps due to the fact that people tend to view 'true' selves as inherently good and moral (Stichter, 2021;Strohminger et al., 2017). Studies show, for example, that people strongly associate virtuous qualities with an actor's true self, and that this bias emerges cross-culturally and among people who otherwise might hold negative general views of people (i.e., misanthropes;De Freitas et al., 2018). The link between perceptions of true selves and virtuous qualities also aligns with work specifically focused on subjective authenticity. ...
A robust literature indicates that when people feel that they are expressing and aware of their true selves, they show enhanced psychological health and well-being. This feeling, commonly referred to as authenticity, is therefore a consequential experience. In this paper, we review a program of research focused on the relevance of authenticity for civic engagement. We describe how a virtuous orientation to civic engagement might make civic actions feel more authentic and how the experience of authenticity might help sustain civic behavior. We then discuss the role that education might play in fostering a deeper connection between civic engagement and the subjective experience of authenticity.
