If you have found yourself here because you want to live a more meaningful life, chances are you are wanting to live a more authentic one too. Authenticity is tough though. We want to show off our individuality and stand out from the crowd, but also be accepted by our communal circles at the same time. In our last post, we talked about the necessity to define our personal core values as the lynchpin for setting a vision for ourselves. But core values also serve as a foundation to ground us in and align us to what we WANT to belong to, as well as what is NOT for us to be a part of.
Travis Hirschi's social bond theory asserts that "the more attached persons are to other members of [a] society, the more they believe in the values of [that] conventional society, and the more they invest in and are involved in [their] conventional lines of activity, the less likely they are to deviate", (Chriss, J.J., 2007). In other words, when we belong to a group that is aligned to our value systems, the less likely we are to act contrary to those values. The group positively reinforces behaviors associated with the common values as an inherent accountability factor.
If our values are not aligned to our social groups', we are more likely to deviate in our behavior from what is deemed "acceptable" by the collective. In doing so, we risk being ostracized by the group. Therefore, the acceptance of our authenticity by a group is still heavily reliant on the commonality between our core values and those of our social circle(s). When we choose social acceptance either by default of not defining our core values, or in lieu of our core values, we experience self-abandonment. Self-abandonment is when our identity becomes defined by external factors rather than our identity being a self-defining process. Self-abandonment is the converse of authenticity.
As a modern generalization, 'authenticity' referred to [here] relates to psychologically feeling/being unique, or expressing individualism. Self-abandonment is the sacrificing of our individualism. The societal push/pull we face asks us to reconcile our individual wants, needs, and desires with societal conformity, or more often referred to as 'fitting in'.
'Authenticity' as a construct dates back to Ancient Greece. It is addressed by Socrates in Nicomachean Ethics as being reliant on a person's ability to self-reflect and understand themselves at their deepest level. Through self-realization (of our core values) can we align our actions with our 'highest good' (i.e. purpose) (Kernis, M. H., & Goldman, B. M., 2006, p.284-285). Acting in accordance with a greater purpose is shown to improve overall personal well-being (Schippers MC and Ziegler N (2019).
In essence, functioning authentically requires two components:
We have to be willing to do the hard work of understanding who we are and what's important to us if we want to act in alignment with what we believe and what we want (meaning we have to define our core values).
We have to surround ourselves intentionally with people that align to what we believe and what we want (i.e. our core values) in order to feel socially accepted for who we authentically are.
The result of functioning authentically, is improved well-being through the investment of time spent on activities that manifest our core values with people that support our aims in doing so.
REFERENCES
Chriss, J. J. (2007). The functions of the social bond. Sociological Quarterly, 48(4), 689-712. doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.2007.00097.x
Kernis, M. H., & Goldman, B. M. (2006). A multicomponent conceptualization of authenticity: Theory and research. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 38, pp. 283–357). Elsevier Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38006-9
Schippers MC and Ziegler N (2019) Life Crafting as a Way to Find Purpose and Meaning in Life.
Front. Psychol. 10:2778. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02778
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