An examination of the authenticity construct: issues of measurement invariance, interpersonal perception, and relationships with self-verification theory

Two studies examined the nature of the construct "authenticity" as measured by Wood et al.'s (2008) Authenticity Scale and attempted to link it to Self-Verification Theory (SVT). The first study distinguished authenticity from sincerity and integrity, and also established configural and metric invariance of the Authenticity Scale across perceptions of the self, close others, and acquaintances. Furthermore, this study expanded the nomological net of authenticity by linking it to numerous intrapersonal and interpersonal outcomes related to SVT. The second study utilized the Social Relations Model to investigate the sources of variance in perceptions and metaperceptions of authenticity and investigated issues of actual and perceived self-other agreement and meta-accuracy. Additionally, Study 2 sought to empirically link target and perceiver effects associated with said perceptions and metaperceptions to subjective feelings of self-verification as well as pragmatic and epistemic outcomes theoretically related to SVT. Results indicated that perceptions and metaperceptions of authenticity are largely attributable to perceiver effects, though a small significant proportion of the variance in perceptions of authenticity was due to the target effects. Furthermore, metaperception perceiver effects were correlated with the SVT variables but perception target effects were not, an unexpected finding.