Article Title: When will I be me? Why a sense of authenticity takes its time

Article Summary

The article starts with the idea that we have a is a commonly insisted upon statement: live authentically. But what does authenticity actually mean? Then the author who is psychologist, explains that as a psychological concept, authenticity simply means embracing who you really are, at your very core, and acting in accordance to your own values and beliefs. The author emphasises that authenticity is a subjective judgment because only we ourselves are witness to when we are behaving authentically or not. The main idea explained in the article is that people believe they are becoming more of their true self as time passes. After all, most of us would like to think that we are growing and changing in positive ways.

The author then talks about the research and experiment he has done along with his colleague Rebecca Schlegel. The purpose of the research was to test whether people believe their sense of authenticity changes over the course of their lives and the different forms that changes in authenticity might take. The article highlights two studies. In the first one, participants from a large university were asked to think about how their true selves relate to three temporal self-concepts: past self, current self, and future self. The second research was related to whether people perceive increasing feelings of authenticity across the entire life span.

The results of these experiments show us that our perceived sense of authenticity is continually changing. We do not think of ourselves as stagnant beings. Moreover, people hold positive expectations that they are constantly moving towards becoming their true self, and they place immense value on knowing and expressing who they really are, so much so that they believe their future selves will be a more authentic version of their current selves. Finally the author concludes that authenticity will continue to be a buzzword for centuries to come, and people will never stop promoting the importance of being one’s true, authentic self.