The Authentic Self Is the Self-Enhancing Self: A Self-Enhancement Framework of Authenticity.

Authenticity refers to behaving in a manner that aligns with one's true self. The true self, though, is positive. From a self-enhancement standpoint, people exaggerate their strengths and overlook their shortcomings, forming positively-distorted views of themselves. We propose a self-enhancement framework of authenticity, advocating a reciprocal relation between the two constructs. Trait self-enhancement was associated with higher trait authenticity (Study 1), and day-to-day fluctuations in self-enhancement predicted corresponding variations in state authenticity (Study 2). Furthermore, manipulating self-enhancement elevated state authenticity (Studies 3-4), which was associated with meaning in life (Study 4), and manipulating authenticity augmented self-enhancement, which was associated with meaning in life and thriving (Study 5). The authentic self is largely the self-enhancing self.

Home alone yet optimistic: social identity management amidst comparative pessimism.

In three studies (N = 553) we found that despite reporting that others enjoy a more active social life than they do, participants believed that they possessed more social traits than their peers (Study 1), that their level of social activity exceeds the necessary standards for living a satisfying social life (Study 2), and that their social lives would improve significantly in the future (Study 3). Additionally, people were not comparatively pessimistic about the number of close friends they have (Studies 1 and 3), and their pessimism about their social engagement was associated with lowered perceived importance of the social activities in question (Study 3). Taken together, these findings suggest that people's outlook on their social lives is not as grim as others have suggested, but rather, self-enhancing beliefs reside comfortably alongside individuals' acknowledgments of their social deficits.

The Motivated Self: Self-Affirmation and the Better-Than-Average Effect.

Research has shown that individuals routinely espouse "better-than-average" beliefs across a host of traits, skills, and abilities. Although some theorists take this tendency as evidence of self-enhancement motives guiding the organization and understanding of self-knowledge, others argue that better-than-average perceptions can be fully explained by nonmotivational processes. The present studies inform this controversy by exploring whether self-affirmation attenuates the magnitude of this comparative bias. Consistent with a motivational account, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that the better-than-average effect is reliably reduced following the affirmation of an important self-aspect. Moreover, Study 2 shows this attenuation to be primarily the product of self-ratings becoming more modest following an affirmation. Discussion focuses on potential avenues for future research as well as on the current findings' implications for understanding the role of self-enhancement in judgment and behavior.

Deconstructing the better-than-average effect.

The tendency for people to evaluate themselves more favorably than an average-peer--the better-than-average effect (BTAE)--is among the most well-documented effects in the social-psychological literature. The BTAE has been demonstrated in many populations with various methodologies, and several explanations have been advanced for it. Two essential questions remain conspicuously unanswered in the BTAE literature. The first concerns the extent to which the BTAE can be represented as a social-comparative phenomenon, and the second concerns the role that strategic motivational processes play in self versus average-peer judgments. With regard to the first question, Study 1 provides direct experimental evidence that self versus average-peer judgments are made relationally rather than independently and, further, that self-ratings anchor these relational judgments. Moreover, Study 1 demonstrates that the consequence of this comparison is for judgments of average to be assimilated toward, not contrasted from, self-ratings. Studies 2-4 provide evidence that self-enhancement motives play a moderating role in the outcome of self versus average-peer judgments. We show that for dimensions on which the self is positively evaluated, enhancement motives restrict the extent to which average-peer assimilation occurs (Study 2). But for dimensions on which the self is negatively evaluated, enhancement motives amplify average-peer assimilation (Studies 3 and 4). Discussion focuses on the function of such differential assimilation, the relation of the current findings to extant perspectives, and directions for future research.

Psychological momentum: intuitive physics and naive beliefs.

The present research examines psychological momentum (PM), a perceived force that lay intuition suggests influences performance. PM theory is proposed to account for how momentum perceptions arise, and four studies demonstrate the influence of lay intuitions about PM on expectations regarding performance outcomes. Study 1 establishes that individuals share intuitions about the types of events that precipitate PM, and Study 2 finds that defeating a rival increases momentum perceptions. Study 3 provides evidence for the lay belief that as more PM accumulates during a prior task, there should be more residual momentum left to carry over to a subsequent task, and Study 4 finds that an individual whose PM is interrupted is expected to have greater difficulty completing a task than is an individual whose steady progress is interrupted. Discussion focuses on linkages between PM and related constructs.