true self and false self essay

Who Am I Really? True Self vs False Self

• March 6, 2018
• Anxiety , couples , Depression , false self , Self-Help , stressful family , Therapy , Unconscious

While the true self is represented by our real feelings and desires, while the false self is a side of us that has changed its behaviour, repressed feelings and pushed needs aside in order to survive. We introduced the idea of the onion – the true self at the centre protected by outer layers of false self.

According to developmental psychologists like  John Bowlby  and  D. W. Winnicott , children are very attuned to their parents’ feelings and needs. They unconsciously recognize that they need their parents’ approval in order to survive, so strive to meet their needs as much as possible.

The true self – the child’s real feelings, needs, desires and thoughts – is pushed further and further inside the onion. Of course, we still have all of these feelings, needs, desires and thoughts, it’s just that the adapted false self dominates: it has to.

Although this striving is necessary in our younger years, it changes us. The false-self thought and behaviour patterns we develop during childhood stay with us as adults. While they used to be helpful, they often become a hindrance as we get older and gain more independence.

While some psychologists view the true self as black and white (true self is good, false self is bad), others maintain there are two types of false self: a healthy false self and an unhealthy false self.

The Healthy False Self

The healthy false self is described as one which allows someone to be functional in society.  It enables politeness and social courtesy, even when we may not feel like it.

There are times in our day-to-day lives when it would be harmful for us to let our true selves dominate. For instance, we don’t bare our deepest feelings and thoughts while at work. That kind of vulnerability would not only demonstrate a lack of boundaries but would also open us up to potential attack from others who might not treat our feelings with acceptance.

Instead, we use our healthy false self: one that functions perfectly and allows us to live our lives, but protects the true self, keeping it safe until a time when we are around people we know we can trust.

Put simply, a major component of the healthy false self is an awareness of personal boundaries.

A healthy false self is one that works with and stays committed to the true self. It is a form of useful self-protection, in that it shields us at times when vulnerability would not be appropriate, or might even be harmful.

The Unhealthy False Self

The unhealthy false self comes from the same origins as the healthy false self. However, for our long-term well-being, the effects of the unhealthy false self are quite different to those of its counterpart.

This false-self is the one behind many dysfunctional behaviours, including narcissism and addiction. D. W. Winnicott defines the unhealthy false self as one that fits into society through forced compliance rather than a desire to adapt.

Real-life examples of the false self are based around certain beliefs that we take on in order to fit into our worlds better.

If I am pretty, I will be more likeable.

If I have a lot of money, I am successful.

If I work hard/achieve more, I will have more value.

One more glass of wine, and I’ll start feeling better.

In our society, there is a huge emphasis on altruism and being selfless. We are taught to put others before ourselves, that it is good to ‘be there’ for other people and that self-sacrifice is a virtue.

All these beliefs are false self beliefs.

Our real feelings and desires matter .

They are what they are, and they are part of who we are. The ‘shoulds’, ‘ought tos’ and ‘have tos’ are learned ideas, not part of our true selves. When we think about how many activities we may carry out in our daily lives through a sense of obligation, it might be useful to trace these ‘shoulds’ back to their origin.

The only obligation we have to anyone is to  ourselves .

Reach out to us to learn more.

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True or false: Winnicott’s notions of self

What is a ‘true’ and ‘false’ self?

It’s often said that to be truly happy we should align to our ‘authentic’ self, and be ‘true to ourselves’. It sounds like good advice – but how do we know who or what is our true self? And how do we connect to that genuine version of ourselves?

The theory of a true self and a false self was advanced by British psychoanalyst Dr Donald Winnicott in a series of papers in the 1960s. Winnicott contends that everyone is divided into these two selves, and that people develop a false self to protect their inner, more vulnerable true self.

The true self refers to a sense of self based on authentic experience, and the feeling of being truly present and alive. The false self is a defensive façade, behind which the person can feel empty, it’s behaviours being learnt and controlled rather than spontaneous and genuine.

The process of developing a false self begins at a very young age. As babies, we are at our truest. We cry, laugh and react in a way that is wholly authentic to our needs; we are simply being. For Winnicott, healthy development requires us to fully experience this time when we have no concern for the feelings and opinions of those looking after us.

However, if as babies we are denied this opportunity to be ourselves, we learn to modify our impulses in a bid to receive the love we crave, and start constructing a false self. This manifests in various dysfunctional behaviours in adults, from feeling unanchored and lacking in spontaneity to suffering extreme psychological disorders such as schizophrenia.

Good enough parenting

For Winnicott, the mother is the infant’s universe, and the mother-baby relationship forms the basis of the child’s subsequent development. The ideal parenting model for Winnicott is the ‘good enough mother’, one who provides a ‘facilitating environment’, in which the child’s inner potential to develop a ‘true self’ can unfold.

It is the mother’s role – and biological impulse – to enter a state of ‘primary maternal preoccupation’ in which she has complete oneness with her baby and mirrors back to the infant the sense that it is held and that its needs are being anticipated. This symbiotic relationship is what makes it possible for the infant to think – we learn to think by being thought about.

The ‘good enough mother’ doesn’t need to be perfect, but she doesn’t neglect the baby, nor does she overprotect him. Winnicott’s term for an excessively attached caregiver is the ‘ordinary devoted mother’, who hampers the infant’s emerging capacity to embody a secure ‘true’ self by not adequately responding to its spontaneous needs.

The ‘good enough mother’ is both there for the infant whenever needed, and capable of separating herself sufficiently so the infant can develop into his or her own self.

Rise of the false self

If ‘good enough’ parenting is not in place – maybe because the mother is anxious or depressed – the infant’s spontaneity is in danger of being suppressed by the need for compliance with the parent’s wishes.

In this instance, the stress of the external world is indirectly brought to the child. As a strategy for dealing with this anxiety, the child tries to win back the mother’s attention and love by falling into line with her needs, and thus suppressing his or her own desires.

The infant begins to create a false self, where ‘other people’s expectations can become of overriding importance, overlaying or contradicting the original sense of self, the one connected to the very roots of one’s being’.

This false self is inauthentic because its spontaneous desires are hidden away. He or she has learnt to comply far too early, and become obedient at the expense of his or her ability to feel authentically.

When the interaction between mother and baby fails, the ‘experiences of existential continuity’ occur, according to Winnicott. This means there has been a radical interruption of the baby’s spontaneous development. This is what gives rise to the false self: the baby learns to show only what his mother wants to see; he becomes something that he isn’t.

The false-self continuum

Different degrees of responsive mothering determine true and false self-development, and there are varying levels of ‘falseness’, from healthy to unhealthy. A healthy false self enables us to be polite and comply with rules and regulations, even when we don’t want to. Indeed, Winnicott asserts that a healthy false self is necessary and desirable for us to exist in the world.

A healthy false self allows us to live our lives, but protects the true self. According to Growth Through Change , ‘A major component of the healthy false self is an awareness of personal boundaries. A healthy false self is one that works with and stays committed to the true self. It is a form of useful self-protection, in that it shields us at times when vulnerability would not be appropriate, or might even be harmful.’

Those further down the false-self scale, however, are disconnected from their true self. They tend to intellectualise reality and are largely devoid of authentic emotions and creativity. They struggle to feel valued as they feel it is their false self who has achieved any successes they may have had. This creates a breakdown with themselves and with the world.

For Winnicott, a false sense of self underpins all serious dysfunctional behaviours, including narcissism, addiction and schizophrenia – where the person is separated from himself to the point that his real self virtually disappears. In these cases, the person uses all the resources available to them to build and maintain their false self so that they can face a world that is perceived as unpredictable or unreliable.

Reconnecting to the true self

When a false self has come to be dominant, well-being is only achievable through a reclaiming of the true self, and psychotherapy is a great way regain confidence in our honest expressions. It can help us untangle our false self from our true self by regressing to that time before we learnt to be false.

As The Book of Life says: ‘In the therapist’s office, safely contained by their maturity and care, we can learn – once more – to be real; we can be intemperate, difficult, unconcerned with anyone but ourselves, selfish, unimpressive, aggressive and shocking. And the therapist will take it – and thereby help us to experience a new sense of aliveness which should have been there from the start.’

In a safe therapeutic environment we can explore our true feelings and desires openly while being listened to and understood. As we are regularly encouraged to be our true self, the urge to be false lessens.

With help, the notion of being ‘true to ourselves’ becomes much clearer and more meaningful, and we can move towards a healthy understanding of who we are, while finding the contentment and genuine connection to reality that have been missing from our lives.

Sources and further reading:  

• A Brief Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory, Stephen Frosh
• The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, DW Winnicott
• https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/the-true-and-the-false-self/
• https://exploringyourmind.com/donald-winnicott-and-his-theory-about-the-false-self/
• https://www.growththruchange.com/2018/03/06/really-true-self-vs-false-self/
• https://depthcounseling.org/blog/winnicott-true-false-self

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HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

The true self. critique, nature, and method.

• 1 Department of Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Germany
• 2 Department of Psychology, Integrated Curriculum for Anthroposophic Psychology (ICURAP), University of Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Germany
• 3 Department of Medicine, Integrated Curriculum for Anthroposophic Medicine (ICURAM), Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany
• 4 Department of Medicine, Institute of Integrative Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany

The history of philosophy gives us many different accounts of a true self, connecting it to the essence of what a person is, the notion of conscience, and the ideal human being. Some proponents of the true self can also be found within psychology, but its existence is mostly rejected. Many psychological studies, however, have shown that people commonly believe in the existence of a true self. Although folk psychology often includes a belief in a true self, its existence is disputed by psychological science. Here, we consider the critique raised by Strohminger et al., stating that the true self is (1) radically subjective and (2) not observable, hence cannot be studied scientifically ( Strohminger et al., 2017 ). Upon closer investigation, the argument that the self is radically subjective is not convincing. Furthermore, rather than accepting that the true self cannot be studied scientifically, we ask: What would a science have to look like to be able to study the true self? In order to answer this question, we outline the conceptual nature of the true self, which involves phenomenological and narrative aspects in addition to psychological dimensions. These aspects together suggest a method through which this concept can be investigated from the first-person perspective. On a whole, we propose an integrative approach to understanding and investigating the true self.

Introduction

Let us start with a quote: “Many people like to think they have an inner “true” self. Most social scientists are skeptical of such notions. If the inner self is different from the way the person acts all the time, why is the inner one the “true” self?” ( Baumeister and Bushman, 2013 , p. 75). This is how the notion of a true self is introduced in a recent textbook on social science. It is suggested that there is a conflict between folk psychology and science, where the true self is a notion that does not hold up to closer scrutiny. This view has recently been reinforced by a number of studies conducted by Strohminger and Nichols (2014) and Strohminger et al. (2017) , showing that belief in a true self is indeed common while questioning its actual existence. Is the view we have of our “true self” merely a reflection of the socio-cultural environment in which we exist? And can someone have a “true self” that is good, even if they continually act in ways that are harmful?

Positing a chimera of an inherently good “true self,” existing so deeply within the structure of someone’s psyche that it may never make an appearance in reality may seem completely unwarranted. Not only does this put the true self beyond scientific observation, it also makes it seem like a hopelessly optimistic dream. Hence, although it is empirically clear that people make use of the concept of a true self – in the sense of that which cannot change without someone becoming less of what they really are – there are weighty reasons to doubt whether the true self exists beyond the widespread belief in it. Since this belief is so common, could it be that it is in fact grounded in reality?

This is the question that we will explore in the following, outlining not only a suggestion for what the structure of the true self might be but also sketching out a method for investigating it. In doing this, we will also provide counter-arguments to the critique of the aforementioned true self. In our view, the true self can be viewed as having a kind of spiritual existence. It can appear in time but also exists beyond time. It may even be absent at different moments in time without ceasing to exist. Complete absence of the true self would, however, make it impossible to investigate. We take it that we are dealing with an essence of the Hegelian kind, i.e. an essence, the essence of which is to appear (and indeed, can there be an essence that never appears?). In other words, the true self cannot be so chimeric as to never enter the stage of actual life. However, such an object of study cannot be investigated adequately using conventional philosophical or psychological methods alone. We propose that the true self may be approached through a first-person method combining both philosophical reflection and introspective observation, as we will outline in section “Outline of a Comprehensive First-Person Method for Studying the True Self.” Before introducing this method, we will look into the history and nature of the self and the true self in philosophy and psychology (section “Introduction”). This will follow with a response to critiques of the true self (section “The Problem of Radical Subjectivity and Observability of the True Self”).

A Short Historical Account of the Self and the True Self

The self, one of the most central as well as critically discussed concepts in philosophy and psychology, has a long history. The idea that one has an underlying self in addition to a surface personality can be traced back to the notion that one has a soul that is potentially immortal. In the Egyptian culture, only the Pharaoh possessed an immortal, divine soul (akh) while alive. Only at the moment of death could other Egyptians gain such a soul ( Waage, 2008 ). In Ancient Greek culture, Socrates was known for having heard an inner voice that indicated to him what he should ( Memorabilia 1.1.4, 4.3.12, 4.8.1, Apology 12) and should not do ( Apology 31c-d, 40a-b, Euthydemus 272e-273a). This was part of what lead to his demise, as he was accused of following other gods. The inner voice was a daimonion , a divine being (particular) to Socrates and not one of the gods condoned by the Athenian city-state. Such a private divine being is now commonly understood to refer to conscience in the Christian tradition ( Schinkel, 2007 , p. 97), which is connected to the moral essence – the true self – of an individual. The idea of a person’s moral essence was developed further in Greek thought. For example, it was connected to the performance of specific virtues by Aristotle. Aristotle also suggested that “the true self of each” is the divine intellect or nous (NE, 1178, a2).

However, when answering the question “who are you?”, it was for a long time customary to name one’s ancestors. In ancient Rome, the firstborn son was the property of the pater familias until the death of the father. During the funeral procession, the son wore the father’s death mask ( Salemonsen, 2005 ). It may be noted that the word “mask” ( lat. persona) is related to the word “person,” suggesting that we can take on different identities but also that there is an underlying essence. Augustus is known for writing the first autobiography, inaugurating a genre defined by the idea that certain events and thoughts are more important than others when seeking to understand who someone is. Arguably, the Judeo-Christian religions also contributed to the view that all human beings have a divine core, regardless of background: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). In the Renaissance, Pico della Mirandola emphasized the notion of agency in his “Oration on human dignity”, making God exclaim that it is a matter of will whether the human being shall become animal or divine, mortal or immortal:

I have placed you at the very center of the world, so that from that vantage point you may with greater ease glance round about you on all that the world contains. We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine ( della Mirandola, 1996 , p. 7).

For Kant, the self is that which provides transcendental unity to our thoughts and perceptions, in short, to all our experiences ( Kant, 1904 ). Although the self cannot be known as it is in itself, in Kantian ethics, the individual is fully autonomous, free, when it acts according to rational principles ( Kant, 1968 ). The individual manifests the kingdom of heaven on earth to the extent that ethical principles are adhered to as if they were natural laws. As a reaction to this, some philosophers, such as Sartre, point out that this view disregards the communal and social aspects of the self as well as its individuality and authenticity ( Sartre, 2014 ). Rejecting Sartre’s notion of authenticity, Foucault denied that there is any self that is given to us; claiming that we should rather view the self as a work of art:

I think that from the theoretical point of view, Sartre avoids the idea of the self as something that is given to us, but through the moral notion of authenticity, he turns back to the idea that we have to be ourselves – to be truly our true self. I think that the only acceptable practical consequence of what Sartre has said is to link his theoretical insight to the practice of creativity – and not that of authenticity. From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think that there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art ( Focault, 1997 , p. 262).

Foucault points out that Sartre’s notion of authenticity reintroduces a given measure for someone’s true self. Foucault thinks we should be more radical in our rejection of any given content or measure of what constitutes the true self. Any such content or measure we must create ourselves. One may remark that even creative acts contain an element of or at least relate to something given, for example an inspiration or a framework of understanding. The idea of creating a self does not need to be thought of as a pure/arbitrary invention of something incomprehensible. Creative acts may be understood instead as the encounter between something given and subjective energy. In part, the subject identifies with the given, subjects itself to it, and in part, the subject recognizes the given as itself.

If we pause and summarize here, we can see that there is a whole host of ideas connected to the self in the Western canon (for a discussion of self, no-self and true self accounts in Asian traditions, see Siderits et al., 2010 ):

1. The self is a kind of essence, substance, or a soul that may or may not survive death

2. The self is the voice of conscience, the source of moral or authentic action

3. The self is divine, possibly created by God

4. The self is related to the past, to ancestry, and outward identity such as one’s work

5. The self has a story connected to it that can be represented in a biography

6. The self provides unity to cognition and experience

7. The self is a free, autonomous agent

8. The self is essentially connected to other human beings and culture

9. The self has to be created

As we can see from this short and non-exhaustive list, the self is complex and may be conceived in conflicting ways. For example: Is the self-created by God or the individual? Is the self completely autonomous or is it thoroughly culturally determined? Is the self an essence or is it a story? None of these are necessarily contradictory, but much work is required to flesh out a comprehensive conception of the self. Do all these characteristics have something in common? This question is not easy to answer. If we cannot find a common characteristic in all the different definitions, we may have to concede that the self is simply a name for a host of unrelated ideas or aspects of human existence. On a closer look, each item on the list can potentially be said to be the true self. Even one’s outward identity could arguably be seen to constitute a true self. Imagine a puer aeternus , a Peter Pan-like existence: someone who is reluctant about identifying with anything at all, preferring to stay adolescent indefinitely. For such a person, actually identifying with something could be said to be a realization of their true self (their true self would not necessarily be the specific outward identity but could be manifested by taking on a concrete and not fantastical identity). There is one way of conceiving what the nature of the true self is, which we will elaborate in the following, that does not imply that we have to make a choice about which specific self represents the true one. This is the conception of the true self as a whole that unifies the different selves. Moreover, the true self can not only be viewed as a whole but also as the manifestation of a specific moral self that has grown out of the past. The true self, on this conception, has both distanced itself from the past and integrated it, moving toward an ideal that is in one sense given, internally and from the past, but in another sense must also be created, or is only just coming into existence from the future.

The True Self in Philosophy and Psychology

Although the existence of the self is controversial in philosophy ( Metzinger, 2003 ; Siderits et al., 2010 ; Ganeri, 2012 ), there are a number of influential philosophers who claim that there at least a minimal or core self exists. Such a view can be found both among traditional thinkers, such as Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, etc., and contemporary ones ( MacIntyre, 1981 ; Taylor, 2012 ; Zahavi, 2017 ). Charles Taylor has specifically addressed the notion of a true self in the context of a discussion of negative and positive freedom ( Taylor, 1985 ; Sparby, 2014 ). Negative freedom is the idea that one can realize one’s true self insofar as there are no external restrictions on the self (and perhaps no internal restrictions such as fear). But where does the understanding of what actually counts as being the true self come from? If it comes, for instance, from a totalitarian state, then the “true self” may indeed be a false self since someone other than the self determines it. Hence it would follow that actualizing a true self is typically seen to include self-determination. It could of course be that content of a state prescribed true self accords by coincidence with the true self recognized by a person. This would not stop the person from actualizing the true self as long as the recognition is internally constituted through reflection and moral deliberation. However, if someone can determine themselves radically, does this not mean that the content of the true self is arbitrary? We believe that such problems can be solved with ideas as such “being-with-oneself in otherness” ( Sparby, 2016 ). For example, acting according to one’s true self does not exclude acting according to principles as long as these principles are recognized as stemming from the true self. Finding one’s true self may involve finding oneself in another person, community, culture, etc. This does not mean that the true self is simply something given. Even creative processes can involve something approaching the self “from the outside”, such as an inspiration. Again, the true self can be viewed as a whole, as something transcending the subject-object dichotomy, allowing for such events where something comes to the self seemingly from an external source (e.g. the voice of conscience), a source which is, however, more adequately conceived of as belonging to the self in a deeper, higher or more inclusive sense. It is of course possible that the voice of conscience might be an expression of an internalized dogmatic morality. However, this does not make it unreliable in principle. It means that what it dictates has to be viewed in light of an investigation of what its source might be, considering cultural factors specifically.

Is a person always acting in accordance with their true self if they act according to their self? The problem here is that the self is not only multifaceted but also contradictory given that different aspects are in conflict with each other. For example, the human being can act out of principle or according to their desires. Both may be viewed or at least experienced as essential parts of one’s identity, although these parts do not always harmonize. If one acts according to one’s desire, another desire may not be fulfilled. If one acts morally, desires may fail to be satisfied at all. If one acts in a case where there is a moral dilemma, the true self seems to be constituted by that act. But what if I act based on wrong information, inherited cultural views, or delusion? Indeed, as we shall see, one of the main critiques of the true self is its radical subjectivity. The beliefs and actions that we ascribe to the true self depend on our worldview that is ultimately a reflection of the culture we belong to.

The field of psychology has contributed to our understanding of the self by gathering empirical support for the view that we are indeed ruled by external forces, such as unconscious desires, bias, and social conditioning. It has been shown that the experience of living a meaningful life is associated with having cognitive access to one’s true self, and yet psychological research remains either skeptical or agnostic about the existence of it ( Schlegel et al., 2013 ) despite the belief in a true self seems to be independent of personality type and culture ( De Freitas et al., 2018 ). However, one can indeed find representatives of notions of a true self also in psychology. The true self is sometimes referred to as the I-self or self-as-process as opposed to the me-self or self-as-object ( Ryan and Rigby, 2015 ). The former “concerns the conceptions, images, roles, statuses, and attributes associated with an identity,” while the latter “concerns the inherent integrative tendencies of people to understand, grow, and create coherence in their experiences” ( Ryan and Rigby, 2015 , p. 246). The psychoanalyst Winnicott made explicit use of the concept of a true self, contrasting it with the false self ( Winnicott, 1965 ). His view of the true self can be summarized as the self that is spontaneous, alive, and creative – the false self would then be a persona that lacks those characteristics ( Rubin, 1998 , p. 102). Numerous other terms are used for the true self such as the real self, the ideal self, the authentic self, the intrinsic self, the essential self, and the deep self [see overview of sources in Strohminger et al. (2017) ]. Strohminger et al. have shown that people on average understand moral traits to be most fundamental to a person in addition to personality, memories, and desires, while characteristics related to perceptual abilities (e.g. near-sightedness) and psychical traits are perceived as having the least impact on who someone essentially is ( Strohminger and Nichols, 2014 ). The essential differences between the self and the true self according to Strohminger et al. are that the self (1) encompasses the entire range of personal features, (2) is valence independent (it is inherently neither good nor bad) but (3) is perspective (first- or third-person) dependent, and (4) is cross-culturally variable, while the true self has an emphasis on (1) moral features, is (2) valence-dependent or positive by default, (3) perspective independent, and (4) cross-culturally stable ( Strohminger et al., 2017 , p. 3).

Strohminger et al. have also provided a particularly powerful formulation of the argument against the true self, which is quoted in full since it is the critique used as the background to our suggestion of what the nature of the true self is and how it can be studied:

Is the true self also a scientific concept, one that can be used to describe how the mind actually works? Is there, in other words, a true self? The evidence reviewed here points to two properties relevant to this question. One: the true self depends on the values of the observer. If someone thinks homosexual urges are wrong, she will say the desire to resist such urges represents the true self ( Newman et al., 2014 ). And if she scores high in psychopathy, she will assign less weight to moral features in her conceptualization of personal identity ( Strohminger and Nichols, 2014 ). What counts as part of the true self is subjective, and strongly tied to what each individual person herself most prizes.

Two: The true self is, shall we say, evidence-insensitive. Resplendent as the true self is, it is also a bashful thing. Yet people have little trouble imbuing it with a host of hidden properties. Indeed, claims made on its behalf may completely contradict all available data, as when the hopelessly miserable and knavish are nonetheless deemed good “deep down”. The true self is posited rather than observed. It is a hopeful phantasm.

These two features—radical subjectivity and unverifiability—prevent the true self from being a scientific concept. The notion that there are especially authentic parts of the self, and that these parts can remain cloaked from view indefinitely, borders on the superstitious. This is not to say that lay belief in a true self is dysfunctional. Perhaps it is a useful fiction, akin to certain phenomena in religious cognition and decision-making ( Gigerenzer and Todd, 1999 ; Boyer, 2001 ). But, in our view, it is a fiction nonetheless ( Strohminger et al., 2017 , p. 7).

To reiterate, the problem facing the true self-view is that it is a conception tied to the values of a person, which are determined subjectively according to the structure of their personality, and by the culture and social environment in which that person exists. What the authors mean by “radical subjectivity” is, however, not clear. Does it mean that the values that a person uses to measure whether they live up to their true self are arbitrary, that the true self is based on a radical existential choice not grounded in anything, or that it is determined by biological, cultural, or social factors that happen to affect the person? These are issues that need to be untangled and answered. Furthermore, a good response is needed when arguing that the true self is not observable and therefore fictional. In particular, does it make sense to speak of a true self if that self never manifests? Can a person be called inherently good if they commit heinous crimes and consistently act in ways that are harmful to others, taking pleasure in their suffering?

In order to argue in favor of the existence of the true self, one must address the critique that it is a radically subjective notion and that it is unverifiable. Since we take the view that the self is not a thing with clearly defined borders but rather an organizing principle of a continual process, speaking of “the existence” of a true self can be misleading. Nevertheless, one may claim that there is such an organizing principle and that the true self is neither radically subjective nor unverifiable. Before turning to that, we will provide a preliminary delineation of the true self that we will flesh out as we address the critique above.

A Thin and Thick Conception of the True Self and Their Unity

Two conceptions of the true self are implicit in what has been said above, which we will refer to as the thin and thick conception of the true self. One way to characterize them is to say that the thin conception is static: unchangeable, timeless, always the same. The thick conception is dynamic: developing, spread out over long changes of time, and continually emerging. The current objective in the following is to unite these two conceptions (in fact, to show how they are interdependent) and to investigate how such an account may be able to respond to the critique raised against the true self that we will focus on in section “The Problem of Radical Subjectivity and Observability of the True Self”.

The thin conception of the true self is the idea that the self has a deeper and more essential nature; the true self is identical to this essential part of the self. Some of the properties attached to the self are accidental while others are essential. Someone can change their job and although they may have identified with their job, they do not really cease to be who they truly are when they change jobs. The true self as the essential self can consist of either one essential property or a set of properties. Sometimes, this is also referred to as the minimal self, which can be defined as the simple quality of subjective experience; the most fundamental experience of what it is like to be this or that subject ( Zahavi, 2017 ). However, as pointed out by Fasching, the essential self’s nature may be exactly a bare existence ; not recognizable by any property. It simply is and we know it as something that can identify itself with potentially anything but can never be reduced to any specific property ( Fasching, 2016 ). A similar view is presented by Ramm, who, using first-person experiments, argues that the self in itself both lacks sensory qualities and is single ( Ramm, 2017 ).

If we conceive of the true self along these lines, the result would be rather indeterminate. There would be nothing more to it than what is common to all other selves: a simple and unique existence potentially aware of itself as such. Any identification of the self with a particular property, such as being a human, acting morally, or having been born in a certain place, would be fully irrelevant to the true self. But this seems wrong – or at least too indeterminate. Not only would it be at odds with typical conceptions of the true self, it would also conceptualize the true self in the form of a ghost with no bearing on its environment. This leads us to the thick conception of the true self [compare Galen Strawson’s conception of the self, which differentiates between the self as a distinct mental entity and a subject of experience and the self as an agent, personality and diachronic continuity ( Strawson, 1997 )]. The thick conception of the true self connects it to certain substantial and moral properties such as being able to form memories or making an existential choice. Hence the thick conception where the true self consists of more determinate characteristics than bare existence is in accordance with how the true self is typically conceived in folk psychology. Is there a specific property or set of properties the self can identify with to become a true self or at least a “truer” self? Can one make a choice or live in a way that does not represent the ideal version of that individual? This certainly seems to be the case. But what is the measure according to which an act or a way of life can be judged as being in accordance with one’s true self? Who or what decides what counts as a proper measure? What is it based on? Where does the true self come from? It will later be discussed how the true self is essentially related to both the past and the future. It will also be suggested that a certain conception of the true self can unite both the thin and thick version of it. Before turning to that, however, we turn to some discussions surrounding the true self in philosophy and psychology.

The Problem of Radical Subjectivity and Observability of the True Self

Here we will consider the two problems connected to the idea of the true self as identified by Nichols et al. above.

Radical Subjectivity

As we have seen, the problem of radical subjectivity relates to the notion that how someone conceives of their true self is dependent on what values they have. As we have stated earlier, there are more ways of interpreting what the claim that the true self is “radically subjective” means. It can mean that the true self is based on: (1) something completely arbitrary, (2) an ungrounded existential choice or (3) external factors, such as culture and biology. Although Strohminger et al. do not state explicitly which interpretation they have in mind, we think, based on the examples they give (sexual preference and psychopathy), that the third option is more likely. A person’s sexual preference is rarely considered to be a choice but is rather understood to be based on biology and culture; psychopathy is hardly conceivable as a choice, but, again, is widely believed to be contingent upon biological, cultural or other environmental factors.

This, however, may seem surprising: Does not “radical subjectivity” mean something that involves arbitrariness or some form of creative or spontaneous choice? Since Strohminger et al. speak of the “radical subjectivity” of the true self as tied to what someone prizes or values, there might be some merit to the interpretation of it as being indeterminate in some way (not based on factors external to the self). But then again, the examples they mention point in another direction. So is the critique of the “true self” as radically subjective based on (1) the idea that it is radically arbitrary, random or contingent (what someone happens to value) or (2) the idea that the external factors that a person has happened to be exposed to due to the geographical location of their life and their inheritance has determined what they value?

It is highly unlikely that someone would hold the view that what someone values is completely arbitrary, based on something akin to the random result of throwing dice. For example, we value food because of biological needs, friendship because of social needs, and certain ideas because we find them enlightening. However, when we are presented with a moral choice or dilemma or when we are challenged with coming up with a plan for our next steps in life, our choice might seem subjective in the sense that it is creative or ultimately relies on a decision. But if it is creative, this does not mean that it is arbitrary – as we argued above in relation to Foucault. And if it is ultimately based on a decision, this does not mean that we do not have good reasons for acting the way we do, although we might have reasons to act in other ways as well. So the choice itself might be spontaneous, but that does not mean that it is arbitrary in the sense of not being grounded in reasons. And insofar as it is not clear to us what reasons are the best when considering a moral dilemma or committing to a life path, we could regard the choice as creative – but again, such creativity does not have to be arbitrary. What we are left with is the notion that someone’s idea of their true self is radically subjective because it is based on what they happen to value, which in turn is based on the features of their personality. We will consider this in more depth.

Depending on one’s sexual preference or whether one has a personality disorder such as psychopathy, one may conceive of the core of one’s personality differently. This boils down to a claim there are a variety of different conceptions of the self and that therefore how someone defines their true self is subjective. Such a view, however, fails to consider the possibility that one may be right or wrong about their true self. If there were a true self, it would indeed be possible to make such mistakes. We cannot take it for granted that there is no true self based simply on the fact that people value things differently and conceive of their true nature accordingly. Even if I value money and claim that I am affluent, I would be mistaken about this claim if I have no money. Even though people value things differently, and the specific values someone has influence how they conceive of their essential nature, it does not follow that one’s true self is merely an extension of what one happens to value.

However, it is still a significant point that one’s conception of oneself tends to co-vary with one’s cultural background. Could it not be the case that someone’s true self harmonizes with what a specific culture dictates, while someone else in that culture could have a completely different true self; one that runs counter to the common views and values? How would someone know if they were mistaken, i.e. simply influenced by their culture, when it comes to viewing what their true identity is? The true self may indeed be fully individual. How does one uncover it? Perhaps, this is possible exactly by making mistakes or taking on or trying out identities that are not in accordance with one’s true nature.

It seems strange or even wrong to say that by changing one’s identity or taking on a different role, one suddenly lives according to one’s true self. This indeed identifies the true self with the me-self – the true self would be a specific role, identity, job, etc. – which seems counterintuitive; should the true self not be a deep self, the self-as-process? If I change my identity and consider the new identity my true self, it implies that the former identity was a false self. But was it not the case that one aspect of the true self is exactly an underlying identity, one that cannot change simply by changing from one’s surface identity to another? Without such an underlying identity it would not make sense to say that the former identity was a false self, because there is nothing to connect the two identities.

Indeed, the true self may be conceived of as that which unifies different conceptions of the more concrete selves (the me-selves) through a narrative ( Polkinghorne, 1991 ; Gallagher, 2000 ; Schechtman, 2011 ), where the variations and mistakes are not necessarily plain errors, but rather essential parts of the process. By manifesting a unity within the different conceptions of the me-self, the true self is also manifested. This manifestation is not necessarily tied to a specific identify, a me-self, being right or wrong, true or false. The measure of the degree of manifestation is the degree of unity created by the processual self-conception. Since the self is also influenced and potentially challenged by different cultures, ethical norms, and worldviews, the unity increases to the extent the different cultures are encompassed, i.e. to the extent that difference is recognized and integrated in the true self.

This capacity of unity may manifest in different ways for different aspects of the true self. Take for example the ethical self, which as pointed out previously, is considered by many to be the true self. Even if one considers the true self to be the ethical self, it does not follow that the true self is radically subjective. What I value may be dependent on a whole range of factors, but that does not mean that the values cannot be judged objectively. There is a long tradition of discussion surrounding the question of whether ethics is objective. However, since there is no consensus on this issue, one cannot say with confidence that values are subjective. Does this mean that the true self is identical to a specific moral set of beliefs? Here, it is helpful to differentiate between different potential layers of the true (ethical) self: (1) the capacity of moral deliberation and action, (2) specific moral views, (3) individual moral or existential choices. At the most fundamental level, a moral self does not consist of a specific set of moral principles and beliefs, but rather of the capacity of ethics, i.e. the capacity of ethical deliberation. Even if one is mistaken about a specific ethical act, the capacity to deliberate offers continuity to the true self. Recognizing that a previous act is wrong is inherently a deepening of the capacity of morality. However, certain acts do not necessarily involve a universal ethical requirement; ethical individualism allows for certain acts being ethical measured only according to the individual ( Hegge, 1988 ). Depending on talent and interest for example might be right for one person to pursue a life as an artist, while wrong for someone else. Furthermore, there may be both general and individual patterns of ethical development that needs to be taken into account. The unity of such patterns, the connection between good and bad actions, failure and success – like the inner coherence of a drama – would be what the true self is.

Evidence-Insensitivity

Let us look at the argument against observability again:

The true self is, shall we say, evidence-insensitive. Resplendent as the true self is, it is also a bashful thing. Yet people have little trouble imbuing it with a host of hidden properties. Indeed, claims made on its behalf may completely contradict all available data, as when the hopelessly miserable and knavish are nonetheless deemed good ‘deep down’. The true self is posited rather than observed. It is a hopeful phantasm. […] The notion that there are especially authentic parts of the self, and that these parts can remain cloaked from view indefinitely, borders on the superstitious ( Strohminger et al., 2017 ).

There are two related but not identical claims that seem to be inherent in this argument: One is that the true self is in principle unobservable and hence it is an unscientific (superstitious) concept. The other is that what the true self cannot be revised based on evidence, removing it from the domain of science. Both claims will be addressed in the following.

The fact that some properties may be hidden does not in and of itself make the object connected to those properties in principle unavailable to science. Indeed, scientific activity consists of making what is hidden visible, for instance through inventions such as the microscope. However, basing the argument on a contrast hidden/visible implicitly limits the range of inquiry to what we can and cannot see , which is unwarranted. Some phenomena, specifically those that unfold in time, are indeed constitutively dependent on some related properties being unavailable (“hidden”) as the phenomenon manifests . When a phenomenon manifests, something in the previous stage must be removed for a new stage to replace it. In other words, for something to manifest, something that once was, now has to be “hidden.” For someone to say “the true self is not observable,” for example, requires the word “the” to not appear (sound) when “true” is said. In fact, all other words must be “hidden” as well. What is consistent throughout the sentence is the invoked meaning. The meaning is partially invoked by each word and only fully invoked by the whole sentence (which cannot be present as a single instance in time, though perhaps as the retained meaning, something that includes the words and their sequence in a kind of concrete universal, i.e., a concept that is a whole containing its parts in it). Studying time-phenomena such as the self hence requires different methods than those that try to find and measure it at a specific moment in time. The latter approach may find it but only parts of it. Only a narrative that takes the whole into account can be an adequate method for studying the diachronic aspects of the self.

The claim that someone is “good deep down” despite all the evidence to the contrary is harder to counter. A “good” friend who never supports their friends is not a true friend. But is there any point at which someone loses the capacity for acting morally or being a good friend? Losing this capacity would also imply a loss of agency and the eligibility to be blamed. The self would be gone or at least not manifest in a basic sense. How could someone therefore provide evidence that the capacity really is absent? If someone always acted in a morally blameworthy way, what we could say, scientifically, i.e. based on observation, is that this person’s true self is evil. However, a single good action would disprove that we have identified an essence. And a case of a person who consistently acts in a morally reprehensible way is hard to conceive. Is it someone who always acts so as to inflict the most pain possible? Is it someone not capable of any form of co-operation? Such a person would seem more like a machine than a human being. Even if we could conceive of such a person, we see no reason to reject the metaphysical possibility that such a person may change their ways. Maybe it would be possible to argue for the existence of evil true selves. Such an argument could very well be interesting but we suggest that for most persons it is possible to discover at least small acts of kindness, which would go to show the presence of a capacity for good. People who have indeed acted in reprehensible or in problematic ways and have changed provide a special area of study in relation to the true self. We take it for granted that such individuals exist. People who go through fundamental change toward good show that simple forms of observation and measurements at specific points in time are not adequate for studying the true self. An approach rather is required that takes long stretches of time into account. Given that there is a capacity for good or at least basic agency, a view that does not take this into account would be less truthful, i.e., less scientific, than a view that does take this into account.

It is still problematic that just as one can always correctly posit the capacity for good, one can also posit the capacity for evil. What is actually representative of one’s true self then would seem to depend on what tendency manifests the most. For this reason, it seems appropriate to have a more abstract conception of the true self, i.e., as something that provides unity to life, and considers the relationship between good and bad acts. Actual human beings will probably never be so bad as to exclusively manifest evil actions and probably never be so good as to never do anything blameworthy. Considering what is good and bad, in the long run, requires historical perspectives. The scientific view is therefore also a view that is continually evolving with time.

One further objection to Strohminger et al. is that reliable methods already exist that objectively measure issues relating to the true self. For example, the ease with which people describe their true self is correlated with life meaning ( Schlegel et al., 2009 ). However, such studies only assess the belief people have about the true self – not its existence. Strohminger et al.’s point is that the belief in the true self is evidence-insensitive in the sense that people are in principle unwilling to revise their view about what they believe their own or someone else’s true self to be. The belief can only be confirmed, not rejected; hence, the true self is a non-scientific concept.

Another response to Strohimger et al.’s skepticism would follow a similar line of argument as Zahavi’s response to Metzinger’s claim that the self is an illusion or a model created by the brain. Zahavi’s response is that the sense of self can be understood to constitute the self, or, in other words, the existence of the self is nothing above and beyond the phenomenal experience of the self ( Zahavi, 2005a ). We would argue similarly in relation to the true self when faced with reductive arguments. The sense that people have of the existence of a true self can indeed be taken as constitutive of the true self. However, we wish to extend the concept of the true self to include specific life moments or developmental trajectories that manifest the true self, i.e., situations or ways of acting where the true self is not just a sense, but rather something that comes into existence. One could formulate this as an actualization of the potential true self. As we will outline in the next section, the sense of the true self extends not only into the past but also into the future. The existence of the true self in this way transcends time, although it can also appear or manifest for instance during significant life events – such as during Socrates’ trial – where one’s moral character is put to the test.

Outline of a Comprehensive First-Person Method for Studying the True Self

Understanding the true self as an activity in evolution and a process in metamorphosis involves conceptualizing it in a format that is most likely difficult to be nailed down with conventional, outwardly observable research methods. It is per se a first-person phenomenon and hence also requires a first-person mode of enquiry, although it also potentially involves behavioral aspects. It may manifest in a specific behavioral and even biological instantiation. This is however only the outer signature or correlate of the qualia of the phenomenon. This signature can be studied with conventional (e.g., behavioral or even physiological) research methods; the true self in actu as a first-person phenomenon, however, cannot be studied in this way. It can only indirectly be inferred from this signature mode of appearance. The approach outlined below can be seen as an extension of first-person approaches to the self that focus on its minimal, synchronous experience as presented by Ramm ( 2017 ), who involves for example directing attention to the point from which one looks at the world and investigating this point phenomenologically. The investigation reveals that this point has no visual features, but rather is transparent, single, etc. Through further experiments, one is lead to an experience of a minimal synchronic subject. The focus here is on diachronic aspects of the self, which are essential to study in order to develop a thick account of the self.

One can suspect that the true self can be grasped more by what it can become (causa finalis) rather than by what it has become (causa efficiens). This has further implications for the way it is studied. As an analogy, take the example of climate change. A small minority of people (mostly climatologists) made the earliest indications while researching subtle and even ambiguous symptoms of complex weather phenomena. For them to persist in their claim and stick to their account, they needed a good sense of trust in their reading and interpretation of the data and early indications. Moreover, they needed a vision of a future that might unfold if things continue in the manner they have developed so far. This was highly unusual and anachronistic at a time where climate change was still outside the conventional thinking style.

In a sense, the challenge that we see in this admittedly far-fetched example is somewhat related to the case of researching the true self. We need to investigate subtle and elusive symptoms to begin with and envision how this true self might unfold if given a chance to manifest and materialize within the constellation of potentials and situational factors with which the individual is endowed. Firmness is needed in envisioning the potentiality of this true self and a sense of trust that it can metamorphose from potential to reality. The moment it manifests as a reality in which to be studied in one way or another will have already crystallized into a given form to be considered a product rather than a process in actu . This would be an indication of a sub-component of the true self, not the true self proper.

The method we outline below is an extension of first-person approaches we have developed elsewhere, consisting of small groups of researchers investigating their experience through a series of meetings, note taking, comparison of results and repeated refinement of the experimental tasks that are carried out by the researchers themselves ( Weger and Wagemann, 2015 ; Hackert et al., 2019 ). For more depth and precision of experiences involved in the descriptions of the events and tasks described below, micro-phenomenological interviews ( Petitmengin, 2006 ) or self-inquiry can be employed.

We propose that a first-person method for studying the true self would include five steps:

1. The first step is developing a conceptual understanding of different possible accounts of what the true self might be. This involves envisioning possible worlds and future realities. Can a sense of one’s true self be evoked through considering scenarios closer or further away from one’s current life and identity? The sphere of the true self is not necessarily only that which is already instantiated but that which is still to come into existence. Without such conceptual guides, we are likely to miss the more subtle traces of the true self as mere background noise.

2. The second step is to consider significant life events (e.g., decisions, moral choices, challenging situations, illnesses, accidents, etc.) where one has the sense of either living up to or failing to live up to one’s true self. Are there common markers of managing and failing to act in accordance with one’s true self? What does the exploration of the sense of living in accordance with the true self reveal about the possible nature of one’s own true self?

3. The third step is to consider the experience of the true self in the present moment. Which of my current properties and identities (gender, job, hair color, nationality, interests, philosophical outlook, etc.) relate to my true self? By employing a version of eidetic variation ( Giorgi, 2009 ), one can change any or all of these identities to see what can possibly be changed before the sense of who one is changes fundamentally. Furthermore, experiments such as described by Ramm ( 2017 ) can be employed to access the basic aspects of the synchronic subject. Is the sense of this subject similar to the sense of the true self one has developed to the present day? Additionally, different meditative techniques can be employed in order to heighten the awareness of the minimal self, for example by directing attention away from the awareness of specific thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, the sense of self, and channeling them toward an awareness of awareness itself. To what extent is the true self connected to the minimal self and pure awareness and to what is it connected to specific properties of the actual/personal self? Can the true self be understood as integrating the minimal and personal self?

4. The fourth step is observing instances during the course of several weeks where one feels more vs. less at one with oneself. How do the instances where one feels more at one with oneself differ from those in which one feels less like oneself? How do such moments relate to the significant life events connected to the true self that were explored in step two?

5. The fifth step is “trusting” the true self into becoming – or one could also say: acting it out. This acting out has both a productive and a receptive side. The unfolding of the activity and getting to know it from inside inherently involve participating in its activity as well as cultivating a sense of receptivity for the inner echo that this activity produces. This fifth step is perhaps the most unusual form of scientific enquiry. This is a reminder that any form of research ultimately strives toward insight and the capacity for action (e.g., in the form of reproducing an effect that nature has created in a scientific physicochemical experiment).

Each step also involves checking one’s understanding of the true self that was developed in the first step. Do any of the further steps lead to a deepening or change of one’s initial conception of the true self? As such, this method involves both philosophical aspects as well as first-person experiments and first-person data gathered from memory. One could refer to such a method as “comprehensive” in that it involves investigating large developmental trajectories, present moment experiences, as well as how they relate to each other. It draws on different first-person methodologies that seem to be adequate for investigating the true self in the way we have presented in the previous sections. It may be noted that the method itself not necessarily presupposes any specific conception of the true self. It is therefore part of the method to reflect continually on what the true self means conceptually. Though the nature of the true self that we have suggested served as a guideline for developing the steps of the method outlined above, it may be that the actual first-person investigations of the true self following this method outlined here will lead to refinements both of the method as well as the account of the true self that we have argued for.

The basic function of the self is unity. It connects events in time and space into a single continuum of experience. To the extent that this unity is manifested, the true self is manifested. This can happen on different levels: (1) the core self – extending the continuity of the subjective sense of being – linking together orientation in space, time, and situation, and (2) the narrative self – creating unity throughout live events. Though we can say that there cannot be a narrative self without a core self, the converse is also true: The core self cannot actually exist – be aware of itself as a unity – without different moments in time being united within a time-structure. Hence, Zahavi is wrong, in part, in stating that:

[…]…it takes a self to experience one’s life as a story. In order to begin a self-narrative, the narrator must be able to differentiate between self and non-self, must be able to self-attribute actions and experience agency, and must be able to refer to him- or herself by means of the first-person pronoun. All of this presupposes that the narrator is in possession of a first-person perspective ( Zahavi, 2005b , p. 114).

Though this is half right, one can also say the opposite: There is no self without a minimal story, a beginning, middle, and end unfolding in time and united across time. However, it is also true that there needs to be an underlying self (unity) to the story. If no time has passed, it cannot be decided whether the self is indeed a self and hence the story/narrative and the minimal, phenomenological self are co-constitutive. In other words, the narrative and core self are co-constitutive and therefore inseparable. Although the latter may become ever more specified and deepened, this cannot happen without the core self. However, as the narrative self becomes more concrete in its various differentiations, the core self expands while not losing any of its being: It is that which is capable of being manifested as all the different concrete identities while not being fully identified with any single one of them. This self, a true self, can potentially be investigated following the methodical approach outlined above.

Author Contributions

TS has written most of the manuscript. FE has taken part in conceptual development of the manuscript and commented on it. UW has taken part in the conceptual development of the manuscript, commented on it, and written parts of it.

This study received funding from the Software AG Stiftung. The funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article, or the decision to submit it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: the true self, the self, first-person methods, consciousness, phenomenology

Citation: Sparby T, Edelhäuser F and Weger UW (2019) The True Self. Critique, Nature, and Method. Front. Psychol . 10:2250. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02250

Received: 13 May 2019; Accepted: 19 September 2019; Published: 22 October 2019.

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*Correspondence: Terje Sparby, [email protected]

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False Self-True Self: The Perils of Living a Lie to Fit In

Exploring the link between authenticity and mental health..

Posted March 26, 2021 | Reviewed by Devon Frye

• Some scholars have linked the development of a true (or authentic) self to better mental health.
• Barriers to the development of a true self include peer pressure, family preferences, social norms, and cultural expectations.
• This can lead to a discrepancy between internal desires and lived reality, contributing to the development of a "false self."
• A "false self"—and the dysfunctional choices that may arise as a result—have been linked in research to poorer mental health.

One of the defining characteristics of modern society is the extent of choice and opportunity available. In times past, choices were constrained by culture, tradition, and convention. But today, we have the opportunity to pick and choose from a vast array of lifestyle choices related to diverse domains including diet, fashion, sexual behavior, spiritual practices, consumer habits, cultural activities, fitness regimes, employment, and education .

The True Self and Mental Health

This growth in choice and opportunity has been praised by many psychologists. For example, Carl Rogers argues that this expansion of choice allows humans the scope to develop a "true" (or "authentic") self, unfettered by the manacles of tradition and convention.

The true self is achieved through the conscious creation of a lifestyle commensurate with individual goals and desires—previously unattainable in eras where choices were more constrained.

In a similar vein, psychologist Kenneth Gergen states that modern society allows people to develop what he calls a "pastiche personality ," allowing them to playfully pick and choose various lifestyle choices according to their own needs, desires, and appetites.

In short, these authors praise the freedom, autonomy, and opportunity offered in modern societies, linking this to the development of a true or authentic self, which they argue can lead to greater mental, spiritual and human well-being.

Social Context and the False Self

However, it is important to recognize that lifestyle choices do not occur in a social vacuum. The choices of individuals are still heavily influenced by peers, parents, or others in the community such as religious leaders. Choices are also shaped by cultural expectations and social norms, which may vary according to age, gender , and other socio-demographic variables.

Moreover, social media trends may also affect individual decisions, with some research indicating that young people sometimes make lifestyle choices based on " fear of missing out" (FOMO) or attempts to convince others that they are living a "my fun-filled life" version of reality.

In other words, evidence suggests that many people still make lifestyle choices based on social expectations and the desire for external validation, rather than internal desires and individual preferences. Can this mismatch between desires and reality negatively affect well-being?

Psychiatrists such as D. W. Winnicott have suggested that this can lead to the development of a "false self." This is not an official psychiatric diagnosis, but a reference to a common feeling among some individuals that they are "living a lie" or "wearing a mask" in their daily lives, mainly in an effort to meet socio-cultural norms and familial/peer expectations.

False Self and Mental Health

Indeed, some research shows that this false self is often encouraged by peers and family, who can make aspects of their love, friendship , or support contingent on certain choices being made. This can lead many people to sacrifice their own authentic desires in the service of people-pleasing. In their writings, psychiatrists such as D.W. Winnicott and R.D. Laing have linked a "false self" to poorer mental health.

In fact, research indicates that many people make choices that can damage their mental health in an effort to fit in. For example, evidence suggests that alcohol use and drug abuse in young people often arise from peer pressure and aspirations to be part of a cool and trendy "in-crowd," rather than deep desires to use these substances.

Similarly, other research suggests that individual eating habits and exercise patterns are heavily influenced by a variety of factors such as social norms, family preferences, and media messages regarding ideal body types.

This can lead to many dysfunctional choices—for example, pathological dieting or over-exercising, both of which have been linked to the rise of eating disorders and body dysmorphia in young people. Again, these choices may not reflect a "true self."

The Conflict Between True Self and False Self

To be sure, this era of untrammeled choice offers boundless opportunities to engage in a myriad of activities and build a "pastiche personality" which expresses a true (or authentic) self. Indeed, this is one of the joys of living in a free and open society.

However, this vision of free individuals making free choices in a free society is somewhat Panglossian, and fails to recognize the social and cultural constraints experienced by many, including "fear of missing out," people-pleasing, and other forms of "living a lie" to fit in. In his famous poem "The Hollow Men," T.S. Eliot wrote:

Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow

In sum, the discrepancy between internal desires and actual choices can create a reality that casts a shadow over the lives of many people, which can have ramifications for mental health. This may mean we should all ask ourselves the question: Am I living a lie to fit in?

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Rob Whitley, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at McGill University and a research scientist at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre.

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Dr. D.W. Winnicott: The True & False Self

Danielle trudeau, ma.

Think about the last time someone advised you, “Just be yourself!” Have you ever wondered, either philosophically or with some frustration, “What does that really mean?”

People have all kinds of different personas. We’re always making little adjustments to the way we present ourselves based on the people we’re around. Maybe you find you rely pretty heavily on adjusting yourself to the expectations of others—maybe to the point that “just be yourself” sounds vague or confusing, or even a little scary.

Dr. Donald Winnicott, an incredibly influential pediatrician and psychoanalyst who worked through the 1940’s into the 1970’s, explained his theory about the True Self and the False Self in a paper he wrote in 1960. Among other contributions you might have heard of, such as the ‘transitional object’ and the importance of play, Dr. Winnicott expounded on the idea that people may develop a False Self to protect their inner, more vulnerable True Self—and that they might even do it at a very young age, without even knowing it.

But how do we develop a False Self, especially if we aren’t even aware of doing it? Winnicott highlights the importance of the ‘mother’ (to be considered shorthand for the primary caretaker(s), regardless of gender). Parents’ relationships with their children are extremely formative, and to describe this highly-attuned but still human parent, Winnicott coined the term ‘the good-enough mother’.

Winnicott describes babies as ‘spontaneous’, meaning they don’t think about the way they act, they just do whatever they need to—which, if you’ve ever been around a baby, tends to be a lot of needing help and reassurance. Needing help and reassurance, Winnicott argues, is the essential stuff of our True Selves, which our good-enough mom does her best to make sense of and gratify. Nothing’s perfect, but as long as our parents are trying and are successful most of the time, that response strengthens our belief that if we cry out, then someone will hear us, understand us, and do their best to help us. This strengthens our trust that our most basic and honest needs and desires are okay —that we are relatable and our feelings are manageable. A person with this kind of reassurance grows up feeling confident enough to put their True Self out there in the real world, living openly, according to their heart.

But in some cases, children start out having spontaneous desires and needs, but their parent can’t respond sufficiently (maybe due to illness, or depression , or the demand of others’ needs). The child will start to feel like their basic and truest needs and desires are not acceptable or manageable. In a case like this, the child will become what Winnicott calls compliant —that is, the child will adjust their behavior, without even thinking consciously about it. This conformity to their environment is the child’s attempt to protect themselves from further inadequacy or disappointment—but it is a covering up of the original, true desire. This is the birth of the False Self.

For example, in a situation where a kiddo cries out, “I want attention, I want to be held!” and mom is more often unable to adequately respond, the kiddo will adjust what they’re saying to the world, crying out instead, “I don’t need anyone, I’m not lonely.” This, however, would be the False Self’s presentation, and underneath it, the True Self will still be longing for that hug. The False Self’s claim “I don’t need anyone” could even become so strong that the True Self’s initial desire (“I want to be held!”) might slip out of the person’s awareness, and get hidden away in their unconscious .

Maybe you’ve noticed something really important in this idea: Dr. Winnicott is suggesting that our most basic sense of self isn’t just fostered on its own, but within a relationship —namely, our earliest relationships with our parents and family. This continues into our adulthood, and our sense of self could keep adapting based on the relationships we make as we grow up, but where you start is a crucial step in how you move forward.

People with really active False Selves can, according to Winnicott, go on to live perfectly successful lives, but lives that deep down feel unsatisfying or “phony.” They can also be really accommodating to other people’s expectations of them in the hopes of connecting, but could possibly come across as performative or awkward, resulting in less authentic and less satisfying relationships. Winnicott points out that having a very strong False Self persona keeps people from acting according to their spontaneity and creative impulses, leaving the person feeling unoriginal and empty, sometimes with very little idea as to why they feel this way.

If relationships are what primarily form our sense of self, then equally they are what can help us change it. A great way to untangle your False Self from your True Self and regain confidence in your honest expressions is to visit with a psychotherapist. Therapy is a space in which you can go back to basics, explore your true feelings and desires openly, while being listened to and understood by a therapist who wants to help you feel free to be who you truly are. With help, “just be yourself” might not feel like such muddy advice—you might just have a better understanding of who you are and what you want, and have more faith in the world’s ability to accept you.

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It’s not just in the name – Depth Counseling is about moving beyond basic counseling techniques to understand deeper parts of your psyche.  Get more out of your treatment, and experience the healing power of Depth Counseling.

Vanquishing the False Self: Winnicott, Critical Theory, and the Restoration of the Spontaneous Gesture

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This chapter uses Winnicott’s theory and practice in juxtaposition with critical theory. While critical theorists consistently identify a disconcerting absence of meaningful subjectivity, and lament a host of sociopolitical problems stemming from that lacuna, they offer few clear answers as to how to positively answer this lack. In Winnicott, this paper locates not only essential mechanisms for supporting the transcendence of the False Self formation, but also the seeds of a politics of obdurate authenticity, which Buzby will develop by reading Winnicott through the lens of critical theory. By placing Winnicott’s work in juxtaposition with critical theory, therefore, both will be made productive in new ways that speak to important political questions inherent in contemporary society.

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Buzby, A. (2017). Vanquishing the False Self: Winnicott, Critical Theory, and the Restoration of the Spontaneous Gesture. In: Bowker, M., Buzby, A. (eds) D.W. Winnicott and Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57533-3_10

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Thine Own Self: True Self-Concept Accessibility and Meaning in Life

A number of philosophical and psychological theories suggest the true self is an important contributor to well-being. The present research examined whether the cognitive accessibility of the true self-concept would predict the experience of meaning in life. To ensure that any observed effects were due to the true self-concept rather than the self-concept more generally, we utilized actual self-concept accessibility as a control variable in all studies. True and actual self-concepts were defined as including those traits which are enacted around close others versus most others (Studies 1 through 3) or as traits that refer to “who you really are” vs. “who you are during most of your activities” (Studies 4 and 5), respectively. Studies 1 and 2 showed that individual differences in true self-concept accessibility, but not differences in actual self-concept accessibility, predicted meaning in life. Study 3 showed that priming traits related to the true self led to enhanced meaning in life. Studies 4 and 5 provided correlational and experimental support for the role of true self-concept accessibility in meaning in life, even when traits were defined without reference to social relationships and when state self-esteem and self-reported authenticity were controlled. Implications for the study of the true self-concept and authenticity are discussed.

“There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true Self.” William James

The notion that there is such a thing as a true self is common and familiar in Western society ( Anderson, 2004 ; Schneider, 1999 , 2004 ). Folk wisdom admonishes us to “just be yourself.” And sources as diverse as Shakespeare (“To thine own self be true”) and Janis Joplin (“Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got”) advise us to behave in accord with the impulses of a true self. People often speak of a need to “find themselves” or of the process of discovering who they “really are.” Similarly, discovering one’s true self is a prevalent theme in books, movies, and music. Inherent in the idea of a true self is that people see themselves as having both an outer layer and an inner core which is not necessarily reflected in that outer layer (see Johnson, Robinson, & Mitchell, 2004 ).

The idea of a true self has a long standing history in philosophical thought as well. Among the Ancient Greeks, to “know thyself” (inscribed on the temple of Apollo) was considered a central imperative ( Norton, 1976 ; Pojman, 2006 ). Aristotle’s (350 BCE/1998 CE) conception of eudaimonia refers to a life that is lived in truth with one’s “daimon” (essentially one’s spirit). This highest form of human excellence is experienced through the enactment of one’s “truest and best nature” ( Johnston, 1997 ). Similarly, Norton (1976 , p. xi) describes eudaimonia as “meaningful living conditioned upon self-truth.” Existential philosophers, such as Sartre, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Buber also stressed the importance of the authentic self in living a fulfilling life ( Macquarrie, 1972 ). As Kierkegaard once succinctly wrote, “to will to be that self which one truly is, is indeed the opposite of despair” ( 1849/1983 , p.3).

The present studies examine the connection between the true self and an opposite of despair, the experience of meaning in life. Drawing on diverse psychological theories as well as evidence from the social cognitive literature, we propose that the true self-concept (or a person’s avowed true self) serves as an important source of meaning in life. Thus, the more cognitively accessible this self-concept is to the individual, the more the individual should benefit from the perspective it fosters. While eudaimonic, humanistic, existential and psychodynamic perspectives on the role of the true self in psychological functioning provide a basis for hypotheses, social cognitive research and theory informed the methods we used to assess and manipulate the cognitive accessibility of the true self-concept. Before describing the studies, we provide a brief overview of theoretical conceptions of the true self and its role in human functioning.

The True Self in the Psychological Sciences

A variety of personality theorists have considered the role of an inner core or true self in psychological functioning. Freud (e.g., 1949 , 1961 ) took a somewhat ambivalent stance regarding the importance of the true self to psychological health. Although the goal of psychoanalysis was to bring unconscious conflicts into awareness, for Freud, the hidden truth of human nature was a potentially threatening box of amoral sexual drive. Thus, for Freud, if we were fully aware of the inner core of human nature, we might, like Oedipus, rip out our eyes. Yet, in various ways the notion that there is value in awareness of the true self has been explicitly included in many theoretical approaches to personality ( Horney, 1942 , 1950 ; Jung, 1953 ; Laing, 1960 ; Miller, 1979 ; Rogers, 1951 ; Winnicott, 1960 ). Though differing in many ways, these theories converge on a central theme, i.e., discovering (or rediscovering) and expressing the true self is crucial to psychological health. Represented in these theories is the notion that “losing touch” with one’s true self (e.g., because of parental or societal demands) is a source of considerable human misery. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that the true self should be related to well-being. Empirical work provides support for these intuitively appealing ideas.

Recent work based on self-determination theory conducted by Kernis and Goldman (2004 , 2006 ; Goldman & Kernis, 2002 ) has systematically examined the expression of the true self through the construct of authenticity. Kernis and Goldman define authenticity as the unimpeded functioning of one’s true self in daily life and have found that self-reported authenticity is positively related to such important outcomes as self-actualization, self-concept clarity, and self-esteem, and negatively related to psychological distress. Similarly, other studies of authentic expression have shown that self-reported levels of authentic behavior are positively related to subjective well-being, self-esteem, positive affect, and hope ( Bettencourt & Sheldon, 2001 ; Harter et al., 1996 ; Neff & Suizzo, 2006 ; Sheldon et al., 1997 )

A separate line of work conducted by Schimel and colleagues (2001 , 2004 ; Arndt, et al., 2002 ; Arndt & Schimel, 2003 ) has demonstrated that validation of one’s true self (or in their terminology, one’s intrinsic self) leads to less defensiveness in a variety of domains. For example, having participants visualize somebody who accepts them non-contingently (i.e., “for who they really are”) leads to less downward social comparison, distancing from a negative other, self-handicapping, and conformity.

The True self as a Source of Meaning in Life

A number of perspectives converge to suggest that one’s sense of who one is at the core may be a potent source of meaning. As existential philosophers have long maintained, coming to a deeper realization of who one is beneath the veneer of social trappings is what imbues life with a sense of authentic purpose. For example, Frankl (1959) argued that one of the fundamental purposes of his logotherapy is to help people in this search. Similarly, scholars of eudaimonic well-being consider meaning in life to be a central component of human flourishing, and argue that meaning in life can be separated from hedonic functioning by its association with authentic self expression ( Keyes & Haidt, 2003 ; McGregor & Little, 1998 ; Waterman, 1984 ). Thus, from this perspective, expression of the self provides an important basis for experiencing meaning in life ( Waterman, 1993 , 2008 ; Ryan & Deci, 2001 ; Ryff & Singer, 2008).

These messages from philosophers and psychologists alike, as noted at the outset, are also widely represented in Western culture, suggesting the internalization of the notion that acting in accord with the inner self is a key to fulfillment. This internalization may have been, in part, driven by important historical changes that have shaped modern society. Scholars have long commented on how the erosion of culturally embraced, structured sources of meaning has left the individual with the primary responsibility of fashioning a meaningful life (e.g., Becker, 1971 ; Fromm, 1941/1969 ; Frankl, 1959 ). Baumeister (1991) has more recently made similar arguments. Whereas past societies provided their members with widely agreed upon value bases, such as religion or tradition, that offered clear direction for how one should live a valuable life, in modern society people are confronted with more responsibility to decide for themselves the answers to the fundamental questions of what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, and what is worthwhile or not. In Frankl’s words, people are increasingly faced with an “existential vacuum.”

These perspectives note that with the lack of a common value base to appeal to, human beings began to look to their individuality for answers. Choices and actions are thus judged in terms of how they make the self feel and those acts which make the inner self feel good are deemed valuable. As Baumeister (1991) has stated, “the self exports a considerable amount of value, for personal relationships and work and other activities depend on the self for their justification. Thus, the self provides legitimacy and justification to other things without itself needing a higher source of value” (p. 107). Empirical work offers further insights.

For example, Bellah and colleagues (1985) report that when asked to justify their life decisions, many Americans could not do so without reference to the self, leading these researchers to conclude that “each self constitutes it own moral universe” (p. 76). McGregor and Little (1998) found that the extent to which personal projects reflected core aspects of the self (e.g., one’s traits, competencies, goals, and values) predicted the experience of meaning in life. Similarly, Debats, Drost and Hansen (1995) had participants describe a time in their life when they felt that their life was meaningful, as well as a time in their life when they felt life seemed meaningless. Content analysis of the narratives revealed the narratives often expressed that meaning was experienced when the participants felt a sense of contact with the self, such as “Life has more meaning to me in those moments that I am close to my feelings and I don’t cling to expectations and duties anymore” (p. 368). Finally, the extent to which people believe their behavior is authentic positively relates to judgments of meaning ( Kernis & Goldman, 2006 ).

Thus, there appears to be something unique about the relationship between core elements of the self and the experience of meaning. Meaning is not obtained simply from performing well, but from feeling that one is in touch with and enacting goals that are expressions of whom one believes he or she really is (see also Waterman, 1993 ). According to these theoretical accounts and empirical evidence, the true self should then be connected to a number of other sources of meaning such as close relationships, goals, and authentic behaviors. This is not to say that relationships and goals are not meaningful in and of themselves, but rather that the true self provides each person with a unique “life philosophy” which can be used to make decisions about which relationships, behaviors, and goals are valuable, as well as the relative importance of these to each other, thus imbuing these other life activities and pursuits with meaning and value.

The Accessibility of the True Self-concept

We propose that the true self serves as a wellspring for meaning by exporting feelings of legitimacy, importance, and value to other aspects of life (relationships, behavior, goals, work, etc.). As such, we might expect that the true self itself is an important source of meaning in life. Previous studies suggest that the relative cognitive accessibility of a meaning source relates to the extent to which people judge life as meaningful ( King, Hicks, Krull, & Del Gaiso, 2006 ). Thus, if the true self is indeed an important source of meaning, the extent to which it is cognitively accessible should relate to perceptions of meaning in life. Based on this idea, we hypothesized that both individual differences in accessibility and manipulated accessibility (e.g., via priming techniques) of the true self would influence perceptions of life’s meaning.

It is worth noting that the theories upon which our hypotheses rest regard the true self as a potentially unconscious, core aspect of the person from which spontaneous behaviors and motivations arise. This core self might be difficult, if not impossible, to operationalize directly. So instead, we focus on the true self-concept, or the person’s avowed “true self” and its components. The true self-concept may be defined as a cognitive schema representing those aspects of the self that are considered, by the person, to be most emblematic of his or her true nature. Of course, the individual’s assessment of the contents of the true self may not coincide with a person’s “real” true self. Although this is clearly a more circumscribed concept than the true self as treated in classic personality theories, this definition allows us to measure and manipulate true self-concept accessibility using contemporary reaction time and priming methods.

Thus, the current investigation differs from past theory and research in that we focused on the role of the cognitive accessibility of the true self-concept, rather than the discovery, expression or validation of the true self. More specifically, we suggest that when those characteristics which comprise the true self-concept are readily accessible, life is experienced as more meaningful.

Overview of Studies

The current studies examine whether the true self-concept does indeed serve as a valuable source of meaning in life. In five studies, participants identified traits that they believed described their true selves. Reaction times to these descriptors in “me-not me” judgment paradigms were used to examine individual differences in accessibility of the true self-concept in Studies 1, 2, and 4 and priming of these traits was used to manipulate the accessibility of the true self-concept in Studies 3 and 5. For all studies, we predicted that heightened accessibility of the true self-concept (whether naturally occurring or manipulated) would relate to enhanced meaning in life.

Testing these predictions required the selection of an appropriate control condition—some way to insure that observed effects were due to the unique link between the true self-concept (and not simply the self in general) and meaning in life. In the present studies, we used the “actual self” to provide such a comparison. This approach follows that used by Bargh, McKenna and Fitzsimmons’ (2002) examination of the accessibility of the true self-concept (defined as “those characteristics that you possess and would like to express socially, but are not always able to, for whatever reason…those traits you are able to express around those people you are closest to”) and the actual self-concept (defined as “those characteristics that you possess and are often able to express to others in social settings”). 1

In Bargh’s study, participants interacted with a partner, either over the internet or face to face, and then completed Markus’ (1977) “Me/Not Me” task for words which were previously judged as descriptive of the true or actual self-concept. The latency for responding served as an indicator of the relative accessibility of self-concepts, such that faster reaction times indicate greater accessibility ( Bargh & Chartrand, 2000 ). Bargh and colleagues (2002) showed that the accessibility of the true self-concept differed based on whether participants interacted with a partner face to face or over the internet (Study 1). Participants in the internet interaction condition responded faster to words that described the true self compared to their counterparts who interacted face to face. The authors interpreted these findings as evidence that people felt more comfortable being who they really are over the internet and that such interactions activate the true self-concept.

Overview and Predictions for Study 1

In Study 1, participants selected traits that described their true and actual selves, and then completed timed “Me/Not Me” judgments for those traits and control words. We predicted that quicker reaction times to true self-concept traits (or true self-concept accessibility) would relate to higher meaning in life after controlling for actual self-concept accessibility. Additionally, we examined whether the relationship between true self-concept accessibility and meaning in life would remain significant even after controlling for other important sources of meaning in life including positive affect ( King, et al., 2006 ) and basic psychological need satisfaction ( Ryan & Deci, 2000 ).

It is also important to consider the possibility that the true self-concept is psychologically important simply because it is composed solely of those aspects we like the best about ourselves or even of unrealistically positive self views. Recall that the classic notion of eudaimonia refers to living one’s true nature, but also one’s best nature (Ryff & Singer, 2008). The true self, then, might reflect especially positive aspects of self, or one’s ideal self ( Higgins, 1987 ). Further, considering whether meaning in life is related to the accessibility of one’s true self-concept implicates the debate on the role of positive illusions in healthy human functioning ( Taylor et al., 2007 ). Does the true self reflect oneself “warts and all?” To address this issue we also explored the contents of participants’ true and actual self-concepts. No specific hypotheses were made regarding whether the true self is more positively imbued than the actual self, and whether this explains the potential benefits of true self-concept accessibility for meaning in life.

Participants

Fifty-nine participants (30 women, 29 men) enrolled in an introductory psychology course at the University of Missouri participated for partial fulfillment of a course requirement. Ages ranged from 18–22 ( M = 19.11, SD = 1.12). Represented ethnicities included 82% European American, 9% African American, 4% Hispanic American, and 5% Asian American.

Materials and Procedure

True/actual self-concept trait lists.

Participants came into the lab in groups of 1–4. Each participant was greeted individually and escorted to a private cubicle which contained a desk and a computer. Participants completed a true and actual self-concept measure adapted from Bargh et al. (2002) . The measure consisted of a list of 60 trait words taken from Anderson’s (1968) normative likeability ratings. The list contained equal numbers of normed positive, neutral, and negative words. Participants were instructed to circle 10 words that they felt were indicative of their “true self” and underline 10 that were indicative of their “actual self.” Following Bargh et al., the true self was defined as “those characteristics that you possess and would like to express socially, but are not always able to, for whatever reason. Think of only those traits you are able to express around those people you are closest to” and the actual self was defined as “those characteristics that you possess and are often able to express to others in social settings.” Participants were additionally instructed to choose different descriptors for each self (i.e., the same trait could not be chosen as both a true and actual self descriptor).

Meaning in Life

Participants also completed a battery of questionnaires including a variety of questionnaires unrelated to the purpose of the study to help alleviate suspicion about the study’s hypothesis. To assess meaning in life, participants completed the 5 item presence of meaning scale of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ; Steger & Frazier, 2005 ). The MLQ consists of the presence of meaning and search for meaning subscales. Each subscale has shown convergent and discriminant validity, as well as high test retest reliability ( Steger, Frazier, Oishi, & Kaler, 2006 ; Steger & Kashdan, 2006 ). Because the current studies are exclusively interested in the experience of meaning, only the presence subscale was administered. Sample items from the MLQ presence subscale include “I understand my life’s meaning,” “I have a good sense of what makes my life meaningful,” and “My life has no clear purpose,” (reversed scored) ( M = 4.52, SD = 1.19. α = .84). All items were rated on a 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree) scale.

Psychological Need Satisfaction

Participants also completed the 21-item Basic Psychological Needs Scale ( Gagné, 2003 ). The Basic Psychological Needs Scale assesses the extent to which participants’ needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy are currently satisfied. Satisfaction of these psychological needs has been shown to be positively associated with well-being ( Ryan & Deci, 2000 ) and theorized to contribute to the experience of meaning in life ( Ryan & Deci, 2001 ). Examples of items assessing competence include, “Most days I feel a sense of accomplishment from what I do,” and “I have been able to learn interesting new skills recently” ( M = 5.05, SD = .78, α = .79). Examples of items assessing relatedness include, “I get along with people I come into contact with,” and “People in my life care about me.” ( M = 5.66, SD = .72, α = .83). Examples of items assessing autonomy include, “I feel like I am free to decide for myself how to live my life,” and “I feel like I can pretty much be myself in my daily situations” ( M = 5.08., SD = .74, α = .67). A composite need satisfaction score was then created by averaging the 3 subscales ( M = 5.27, SD = .60, α = .70). Items were rated on a 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree) scale.

At the end of the packet of questionnaires, participants rated 6 positive (e.g., “happy,” “joy,” “pleased”) and 6 negative (e.g., “bored,” “depressed,” “anxious”) mood adjectives to provide a measure of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) ( M = 3.93, SD = 1.39, α = .82, for PA; M = 2.88, SD = 1.15, α = .80, for NA; Diener & Emmons, 1984 ). For this study, participants were instructed to rate how much they were experiencing the particular emotion “right now.” Mood items were also rated on a 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely much) scale.

Me/Not Me Task

Finally, to test the accessibility of the true and actual self-concepts, participants completed the Markus’ (1977) “Me/Not Me” task. Stimuli were presented on a computer screen using DirectRT precision timing software v2004.1.037 and MediaLab v2004 software. In this task, participants were asked to respond as quickly as possible to a series of personality traits which were presented on the screen one at a time in succession. Specifically, participants were asked to decide whether the presented word was self-descriptive by pressing a key labeled either “Me” (Z) or “Not Me” (/). The shortened latency of response times in this type of task has been argued to be indicative of greater self-concept accessibility ( Bargh et al., 2002 ). All of the 60 trait words from the true/actual self trait lists were presented in random order. Each word appeared on the computer screen until the participant responded. After each response, there was a 1 second delay before the next trial. There were 8 practice trials using words from the Anderson list that were not on the true/actual self measure, followed by the 60 experimental trials.

Preliminary Analyses

Three participants were dropped from all analyses due to their suspicion regarding the nature of the experiment. Consistent with typical procedures in the literature, all reaction times were log transformed to reduce skew and response times more than 2.5 standard deviations away from the mean were dropped. Composite scores for the true and actual self-concept items were created by averaging the response times for all items rated as indicative of the particular self-concept ( M = 1131.66, SD = 253.68 for true self; M = 1110.24, SD = 253.46 for actual self). 2 A composite control score was also created by averaging the response times for all traits from the 40 control words to which participants responded “Me” ( M = 1466.77 ms, SD = 280.92). A repeated measures ANOVA revealed significant differences in response time to the self-descriptors ( F (2, 54) = 73. 03; p < .001). Pairwise comparisons revealed that participants were significantly faster to respond to both the true and actual self-concept words compared to the control “Me” words ( p’ s < .001).

To control for a participant’s general speed of responding (an irrelevant individual difference variable), we created two new variables to represent self-concept accessibility by regressing the true self-concept composite and the actual self-concept composite onto the control composite ( Robinson, 2007 ). The standardized residuals from these analyses served as the predictors in the primary analyses. These residual scores represent the variance which is specific to the accessibility of the self-concept of interest. For example, participants with a negative true self-concept residual score categorized their true self-concept words faster than they categorized the control traits, suggesting that their true self-concept is highly accessible. To make the results more intuitively understandable, the residual scores were reversed so that higher scores indicate greater self-concept accessibility. From this point, these variables will be simply referred to as true self-concept accessibility and actual self-concept accessibility. 3

To control for the overall social desirability of the traits, actual and true self-concept desirability scores were created by averaging the likeability ratings ( Anderson, 1968 ) for each self-concept ( M = 3.54, SD = .53 for true self; M = 3.97, SD = .47 for actual self). Notably, a t-test revealed that the true self-concept traits were significantly less socially desirable than the actual self-concept traits ( t (55) = −4.14 p < .001).

Primary Analyses

Correlations.

Table 1 shows the zero-order correlations for the variables of interest. As predicted, true self-concept accessibility was positively related to meaning in life. In addition, true self-concept accessibility and actual self-concept accessibility were positively related to their respective social desirability ratings. True self-concept accessibility and actual self-concept accessibility were unrelated, suggesting that these represent independent constructs.

Correlations among measures, Study 1

Note. N = 56. TS = True Self, AS = Actual Self.

Multiple Regression

A simultaneous regression was used to test the effect of true self-concept accessibility on meaning in life. Actual self-concept accessibility, PA, NA, psychological need satisfaction and the social desirability of the self-concepts were entered as covariates. These effects produced a significant change in R 2 ( R 2 change = .28, p < .05) with need satisfaction (β = .37, p < .01) and true self-concept accessibility (β = .29, p < .05) associated with enhanced meaning in life. Actual self-concept accessibility was unrelated to meaning in life ( p > .10). 4

Brief Discussion

These findings support the idea that true self-concept accessibility is associated with enhanced meaning in life. Specifically, faster responses to true self descriptors were associated with higher meaning in life. Notably, this was true even after controlling for other known sources of meaning (PA, and psychological need satisfaction), the social desirability of both self-concepts, and actual self-concept accessibility.

Although the results of Study 1 are encouraging, the study was potentially limited by the fact that participants did not have the opportunity to choose their own true and actual self descriptors. Thus, it is possible that some of the traits chosen were not necessarily exemplary descriptors of participants’ beliefs about their true or actual selves. The central aim of Study 2, therefore, was to replicate the previous findings using participants’ self-generated descriptors.

Overview and Predictions for Study 2

In Study 2, participants first completed the need satisfaction measure and listed traits that described their true and actual selves. Approximately 1 ½ months later, participants were brought into the laboratory where they completed measures of mood, meaning in life and a Me/Not Me task similar to the task used in Study 1. In Study 2, however, the words used in the Me/Not Me task were tailored for participants using their self-generated true and actual self descriptors as response targets. It was predicted that, replicating Study 1, true self-concept accessibility would be associated with enhanced meaning in life even after controlling for mood and need satisfaction. Additionally, we assessed the valence of the contents of people’s true selves to again examine potential positivity biases in the true self-concept. Based on the findings of Study 1, we predicted that the true self-concept accessibility would remain a significant predictor of meaning in life after controlling for actual-self concept accessibility, likeability of the true self-concept, and other sources of meaning in life (PA, NA and need satisfaction).

Sixty-eight participants (49 women, 19 men) enrolled in a personality psychology course at the University of Missouri participated for extra credit. Ages ranged from 18–25 (M = 20.08, SD = 1.54). Represented ethnicities included 87% European American, 7% African American, 5% Hispanic American, and 1% Asian American.

True/Actual Self Descriptions

At the beginning of the semester, participants completed a large packet of questionnaires. For one of the measures, participants listed 10 traits that described their true selves and 10 traits that described their actual selves. These two aspects of the self were defined in the same way as in Study 1. Participants were additionally instructed to list different descriptors for each self.

Participants also completed the Basic Psychological Needs Scale ( Gagné, 2003 ) to assess autonomy ( M = 4.76, SD = .76, α = .75), competence (M = 5.01, SD = .97, α = .84) and relatedness ( M = 5.69, SD = .88, α = .81) need satisfaction. All items were rated on a scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree). A composite need satisfaction score was created by averaging the 3 subscales ( M = 5.15, SD = .72, α = .76).

Meaning in Life and Mood Measures

Approximately 1 ½ months after completing the questionnaire packet, participants attended a laboratory session. Upon arrival, participants completed a variety of questionnaires that were used in Study 1 including the presence subscale of the MLQ ( M = 5.23, SD = 1.19, α = .83) and a measure of state PA ( M = 5.11, SD = .93, α = .84) and state NA ( M = 2.99, SD = 1.05, α = .79). All items were rated on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely much).

After completing the questionnaires, participants completed a Me/Not Me Task similar to the task administered in Study 1. The current task, however, was tailored for the participants by incorporating their true and actual self-concept descriptors. In addition to these self-generated traits, 40 control words, selected from Anderson’s (1968) normative likeability ratings, were embedded in the task. Like Study 1, the trait words were presented in random order, and each word appeared on the computer screen until the participant responded. After each response, there was a 1 second delay before the next trial. Eight practice trials were followed by the 60 experimental trials. Although the instructions asked participants to list different words for each self, some participants listed some overlapping words. For consistency across participants, these overlapping words were not included in the task.

Finally, two independent raters rated the desirability of the true and actual self-concept descriptors using Anderson’s (1968) likeability ratings as a guideline. Inter-rater agreement was adequate ( r = .78).

Desirability ratings were created by averaging the raters’ scores for each self-concept ( M = 4.05, SD = .73 for true self; M = 4.10, SD = .60 for actual self). In contrast to Study 1, no differences in likeability emerged between the true and actual self-concept traits ( p > .10).

Composite reaction times were created using the same procedures as reported in Study 1. Results of a repeated measures ANOVA revealed the response times were significantly different from each other ( F (2, 66) = 21.47, p <. 01). Pairwise comparisons revealed that participants were significantly faster to respond to both actual self-concept words ( M = 954.42 ms, SD = 245.79) and true self-concept words ( M = 988.85 ms, SD = 386.71) compared to the control (“Me”) words ( M = 1090.41 ms, SD = 258.59; p’s < .01). True and actual self-concept reaction times did not differ from each other ( p > .10). 5

Also following the procedures from Study 1, standardized residual scores were created by regressing the true self-concept composite and the actual self-concept composite on the control “Me” composite scores. These residual scores were then reversed before serving as the predictors in the primary analyses (true self-concept accessibility and actual self-concept accessibility).

Table 2 presents the zero-order correlations for the variables in this study. As in Study 1, true self-concept accessibility shared a significant relationship with meaning in life. Additionally, true self-concept accessibility was negatively associated with NA and positively associated with true self-concept desirability ratings. Actual self-concept accessibility was positively associated with actual self-concept desirability and negatively associated with true self-concept desirability. Again, true self-concept accessibility and actual self-concept accessibility were not related.

Correlations among measures, Study 2

Note. N = 68. TS = True Self, AS = Actual Self.

To examine the contribution of true self-concept accessibility to meaning in life, a simultaneous regression was computed. Actual self-concept accessibility, PA, NA, psychological need satisfaction, and true self and actual self-concept likeability ratings served as control variables. These effects contributed to a significant change in R 2 ( R 2 = .35, p < .01) with true self-concept accessibility (β = .24, p < .05) and psychological need satisfaction (β = .32, p < .05) predicting enhanced meaning in life. These findings replicate those of Study 1, further suggesting that accessible knowledge of one’s true self-concept is associated with the perception that one’s life is meaningful.

The present results converge with the Study 1 findings to further suggest that the accessibility of the true self-concept is associated with a greater sense that life is meaningful. Of course, a critical limitation of Studies 1 and 2 is that the correlational nature of the designs precludes an assessment of whether true self-concept accessibility leads to meaning in life, or simply covaries with judgments of meaning. Indeed, the alternative causal direction is, perhaps, equally compelling (i.e., that individuals high in meaning in life experience a greater awareness of the true self-concept). More definitive evidence is needed to understand the potential causal role of true self-concept accessibility in meaning in life. To the extent that the true self-concept serves as an important source of meaning, activation of this concept (even in the absence of awareness) should positively influence judgments of meaning in life. Study 3 addressed this issue by using suboptimal priming as an implicit means of manipulating the accessibility of the true self-concept.

Research has often examined how self-related primes elicit schema-consistent behavior such as extraversion and aggression ( Fazio, Effrein & Falender, 1981 ; Carver, et al., 1983 ; Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996 ). Additionally, an extensive literature has examined how priming certain types of self-standard discrepancies (e.g., actual – ideal; Higgins, 1987 , 1989 ) can engender specific classes of affect. Unlike this previous work, the primes in the current study share only a theoretical connection with the hypothesized outcome. Thus, the present study presents a unique opportunity to observe the effects of non-conscious self-concept activation on the otherwise unrelated domain of meaning in life.

Finally, it could be argued that Studies 1 and 2 did not adequately control for the issue of whether the true self-concept was an idealized view of the self. In those studies, we compared likeability ratings for the two selves derived from Anderson (1968) and undergraduate coders. In Study 1 the true self-concept was less desirable than the actual self-concept, whereas in Study 2 there was no difference in likeability. However, it might be more appropriate to consider what the person thinks about his or her own true and actual selves, rather than what others think. In other words, despite what is suggested by objective ratings, it is possible the true self-concept is judged, subjectively, as more positive. In Study 3, we addressed this issue by asking participants how much they liked their own true and actual selves.

Overview and Predictions for Study 3

In Study 3, participants first completed a short questionnaire packet in which they listed traits that represented their true and actual selves. They then rated their attitudes toward each self-concept. Approximately 1 month later, participants completed a second laboratory session where they were suboptimally primed (e.g., Friedman, McCarthy, Förster, & Denzler, 2005 ; see Bargh & Chartrand, 2000 , for a review) with either their true self-concept traits or their actual self-concept traits. After the priming task, participants completed a measure of meaning in life. Consistent with the idea that the activation of the true self-concept enhances meaning in life, we predicted that those individuals who were primed with their true self-concept descriptors would report higher levels of meaning in life at Time 2 compared to those primed with their actual self-concept descriptors, controlling for self-rated liking for each self-concept. As an indicator of the robust nature of this effect, we predicted these differences would remain significant even after controlling for Time 1 meaning in life ratings.

It is perhaps worthwhile to note the subtle underpinnings of this prediction. Participants selected the traits representative of the true and actual self-concepts one month prior to the priming manipulation. As such, the influence of priming rests on the presumed stability of the traits associated with the true self-concept at least for a few weeks.

Eighty participants (63 women, 17 men) enrolled in an introductory psychology course at the University of Missouri participated for partial fulfillment of a course requirement. Ages ranged from 18–24 (M = 18.34, SD = 1.23). Represented ethnicities included 81% European American, 8% African American, 4% Hispanic American, 4% Asian American, and 3% other.

True/Actual Self Descriptions and Meaning in Life Measures

Participants were first brought into the laboratory to complete a large packet of questionnaires. Embedded in the questionnaire packet was an “identity task.” For this task, participants were asked to write down 10 traits that described their true selves and 10 traits that described their actual selves. The true and actual selves were defined the same as they were in the previous studies. As in Studies 1 and 2, participants were instructed to select different traits for each self-concept. After listing the traits for each self-concept, participants rated 1 item assessing how much they liked the particular self aspect: “How much do you like your true/actual self?” ( M = 5.81, SD = 1.10 for the true self; M = 5.29, SD = 1.34 for the actual self). These items were rated on a 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much) scale. Results of a t-test revealed that participants liked the true self-concept significantly more than the actual self-concept ( t (79) = 3.55, p < .01).

During this time, participants also completed the presence subscale of the MLQ as a measure of baseline meaning in life ( M = 5.01, SD = 1.11, α = .85). Participants also rated 4 items adapted from the Purpose in Life test (PIL; Crumbaugh & Maholick, 1964 ; M = 5.28, SD = 1.01, α = .83). The four items included, “In life, I have very clear goals and aims,” “My personal existence is very purposeful and meaningful,” “I have clear goals and a satisfying purpose in life,” and “I regard my ability to find a meaning, purpose, or mission in life to be very great.” These items have been identified as tapping meaning in life, specifically, and not simply positive affect (MacGregor & Little, 1998), and have been used extensively in recent research on meaning in life ( Hicks & King, 2007 , 2008 ; King, et al., 2006 ). As expected, these scales were highly correlated ( r = .79). A composite meaning in life variable was subsequently created by averaging the two scales ( M = 5.14, SD = 1.00).

Priming Task

Approximately 1 month later participants returned to the laboratory. They were told they would be completing a variety of tasks for separate research projects. Participants were first instructed that they would complete a lexical decision task. For this task, participants were asked to categorize various stimuli as either words (by pressing the “Z” key) or non-words (by pressing the “/” key). They were additionally instructed that there would be a random string of letters before each stimulus was presented and that “we [were] interested in how the presentation of the random stimuli influences subsequent lexical decisions.” Participants were told to respond as quickly as possible. Each trial began with a “+” presented in the middle of the screen for 1000 ms. Participants were instructed that they should stare at the “+” to help them respond as quickly as possible. After the “+” a string of “&”s was displayed for 400 ms. Then, after the string of “&”s were presented, either the true or actual self-concept traits were presented for 40 ms. The amount of time each word was presented was meant to limit the extent of processing each word (see Bargh & Chartrand, 2000 ). In addition, previous research using an identical priming method has shown that most people are unaware that they were exposed to additional words (e.g., Friedman, McCarthy, Bartholow, Hicks, 2007 ; Friedman, McCarthy, Förster, & Denzler, 2005 ). Half of the participants were primed with their true self-concept traits. The other half were primed with their actual self-concept traits. Immediately after the primes were presented, a string of “X”s was presented for 400 ms to serve as a backward mask. After the mask, participants were presented with another letter string which served as the stimuli for their lexical decision (e.g., “irony” or “nogzp”). Participants in both conditions responded to the same stimuli during the lexical decision task. There were a total of 110 trials. Again, each trial included a (brief) presentation of the primed stimulus followed by a target word for the lexical decision.

After the lexical decision task, participants were instructed to complete an “Attitudes and Thoughts Survey.” Participants then completed the presence subscale of the MLQ ( M = 4.99, SD = 1.10, α = .84) and the 4 items adapted from the Purpose in Life test ( M = 5.28, SD = 1.11, α = .80). Again, the high correlation between measures ( r = .81) justified the creation of a composite meaning in life variable ( M = 5.13, SD = 1.05). Participants also completed a measure of state PA ( M = 4.56, SD = 1.12, α = .89) and state NA ( M = 3.29, SD = .96, α = .95). All items were rated on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely much).

After the task, participants were asked if they noticed any words (other than the lexical decision stimuli) displayed during the lexical decision task. None of the participants were able to correctly identify the stimuli or expressed any suspicion regarding the purpose of the study. Thus, like other studies using similar procedures for suboptimal priming (e.g., Arndt et al., 1997 ) there appears to be little indication that participants could consciously identify the primed words.

Table 3 shows the zero-order correlations for the variables of interest in Study 5. PA was negatively related to NA and positively related to liking the true self-concept, liking the actual self-concept, and both meaning in life measures. Liking the true self-concept was positively related to liking the actual self-concept and both meaning in life measures. Liking the actual self-concept was also positively related to both meaning in life measures. As expected, meaning in life at Time 1 was positively related to meaning in life at Time 2.

Correlations among measures, Study 3

Note. N = 80

Before adjusting for important covariates, we examined the differences in Time 2 meaning in life between the two conditions. A t-test ( t (78) = 4.16, p < .01) revealed that those in the true self-concept condition ( M = 5.59, SD = .80) reported higher meaning than those in the actual self-concept condition ( M = 4.72, SD = 1.07).

An ANCOVA was then performed to test whether the groups significantly differed on Time 2 meaning in life after controlling for Time 1 meaning and other important covariates (PA, NA, true and actual self-concept liking ratings). Results revealed that, as expected, Time 1 meaning in life ( F (1, 73) = 56.33, p < .001) and PA ( F (1, 73) = 5.37, p < .05) significantly predicted Time 2 meaning in life. Moreover, as predicted, results also revealed that the group primed with their true self-concepts ( M = 5.59, SD = .80) was significantly higher in Time 2 meaning in life ratings than the group primed with their actual self-concepts ( M = 4.71, SD = 1.07; F (1, 73) = 4. 46, p < .05). 6

These results support the prediction that true self-concept accessibility leads to enhanced meaning in life. Participants who were suboptimally primed with words associated with their true self-concept reported higher levels of meaning in life compared to counterparts who were primed with words associated with their actual self-concept. This was evident even after controlling for affect and how much subjects liked both their true and actual self-concepts. Equally compellingly, these analyses controlled for baseline meaning in life ratings.

Studies 1 through 3 provide converging evidence that true self-concept accessibility is a powerful cue to meaning in life. However, these three studies are limited in a number of ways. Following previous research ( Bargh et al., 2002 ) and theory ( Rogers, 1951 ) we instructed participants to think of those traits that they are able to express around those people to whom they are closest. As such, activating these traits may have also activated associated concepts such as close relationships. Relationships are widely recognized as an important source of meaning in people’s lives ( Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ; Erbelsole, 1998; Mikulincer, Florian, & Hirschberger, 2005). Thus, indirectly reminding people of such close relationships might have influenced meaning in life judgments. Additionally, it is possible that some individuals’ true self-concepts contain traits that aren’t usually expressed even around people who know them well. Studies 4 and 5 addressed these issues by providing participants with a description of the true and actual selves that did not reference social relationships.

Additionally, in Studies 1 through 3, we constrained participants to pick different words for their true and actual selves. However, there can be overlap in people’s true and actual self-concepts and the amount of this overlap may be conceptually important ( Sheldon & Gunz, 2008 ). Furthermore, constraining participants in this way may have led participants to choose words which they believed were not truly indicative of the true or actual self-concept, but were endorsed simply because they were all that were left to be selected or nominated. In Studies 4 and 5, participants were permitted to choose the same words for both selves and in Study 4 we examined the potential relationship between the amount of overlap and meaning in life.

Finally, two variables which one might suspect as potential alternative explanations for the relationship between true self-concept accessibility and meaning in life were considered in Studies 4 and 5, namely state self-esteem and self-reported authenticity. If the true self-concept is a particularly likeable aspect of the self, it may be that self-esteem is related to its accessibility. Considering that it is not yet clear if true self-concept accessibility is a stable individual difference, naturally occurring fluctuations of true self-concept accessibility, as well as manipulated true self-concept accessibility, could covary with current levels of self-esteem. Thus, a measure of state self-esteem was included in Studies 4 and 5. Authenticity is the feeling of acting in accord with the true self across many different situations. Thus, authenticity might be thought of as a correlate of both true self-concept accessibility and meaning in life. However, if there is something unique about the true self itself which fosters perceptions of meaning, then the relationship between true self-concept accessibility and meaning in life should remain significant after controlling for these potentially related constructs.

Overview and Predictions for Study 4

In Study 4, participants selected traits describing their true and actual selves as in Study 1.However, rather than choosing traits for both selves at one time, participants completed the measure twice, once when choosing true self words and once when choosing actual self words; they were not instructed to choose different words. In addition, as noted above, instructions did not refer to social relationships. Following a timed “Me/Not Me task,” participants completed measures of state self-esteem, authenticity, mood, basic need satisfaction and meaning in life. We predicted that, replicating the results from Studies 1 and 2, true self-concept accessibility would be related to meaning in life after controlling for actual self-concept accessibility and other important sources of meaning in life such as affect, basic need satisfaction, state self-esteem and authenticity. Additionally, in this study, we controlled for the amount of overlap between the true and actual selves as well as self-rated liking for both selves.

One hundred and forty participants (97 women, 43 men) enrolled in introductory psychology at the University of Missouri participated for partial fulfillment of a course requirement. Ages ranged from 18–33 (M = 18.56, SD = 1.57). Represented ethnicities included 83% European American, 9% African American, 3% Hispanic American, and 5% Asian American.

True/Actual Self Trait Lists

Participants came into the lab in groups of 1–4. Each participant was greeted individually and escorted to a private cubicle which contained a desk and a computer. Participants completed a true and actual self-concept measure similar to that used in Study 1. The measure consisted of the same list of 60 trait words; participants were instructed to choose 10 words which described their “true self” on one page and 10 words which described their “actual self” on a separate page, with order counterbalanced across participants.

In contrast to previous studies, the definitions of true and actual self used in the current study avoided reference to close relationships. The true self was defined as traits that describe “who you believe you really are, even if you sometimes act in different ways”. The actual self was referred to as the “everyday self” in this measure and was defined as traits that describe “who you are during most of your daily activities, even if these traits don’t reflect who you really are”.

Unlike Study 1, participants in this study were not instructed to choose different words for the true and actual selves, allowing us to measure and control for the amount of overlap between the two selves. Most participants chose at least some of the same words for both selves, indicating a fair amount of overlap between the two selves ( M = 4.05, SD = 2.07, within the 10 traits).

After choosing the traits for each self-concept, participants rated 1 item assessing how much they liked the particular self-concept: “How much do you like your true/everyday self,” M = 5.84, SD = 1.14 for the true self; M = 5.38, SD = 1.27 for the actual self). These items were rated on a 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much) scale. Results of a t-test revealed that participants liked the true self-concept significantly more than the actual self-concept (t (139) = 3.81, p < .01).

State Self-Esteem

Participants also completed the 20 item State Self-Esteem Scale which has been argued to be sensitive to transient changes in self-esteem ( Heatherton & Polivy, 1991 ). Using the state measure during the same session as the reaction time task and meaning in life measure allowed us to assess whether true self-concept accessibility also activated positive feelings about the self. Participants were asked to answer the items with respect to how they felt “at this moment.” Example items include “I feel confident about my abilities” and “I feel that others respect and admire me.” All items were rated on a 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely) scale. A composite state self-esteem score was created by averaging all 20 items ( M = 5.42, SD = .87, α = .91).

Authenticity

Participants completed Kernis and Goldman’s (2006) Authenticity Inventory (AI-3). Example items include: “For better or for worse I am aware of who I truly am” and “I frequently pretend to enjoy something when in actuality I really don’t”. A composite authenticity score was created by averaging all 45 items ( M = 4.18, SD = .65, α =.94).

Meaning in Life, Basic Need Satisfaction and Mood

Participants also completed a variety of questionnaires that were used in the previous studies including the presence subscale of the MLQ ( M = 4.76, SD = 1.31, α = .91) and a measure of state PA ( M = 4.80, SD = 1.43, α = .91) and state NA ( M = 3.24, SD = 1.31, α = .72). Participants also completed the same Basic Psychological Needs Scale administered in Study 1, to assess autonomy ( M = 5.07, SD = .94, α = .74), competence (M = 5.26, SD = .97, α = .71) and relatedness ( M = 5.93, SD = .96, α = .86) need satisfaction. A composite need satisfaction score was created by averaging the 3 subscales ( M = 5.42, SD = .87, α = .91). All items were rated on a scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree).

After completing all of the questionnaires, participants completed the same Me/Not Me Task administered in Study 1. Seventeen participants failed to follow the given directions and circled more (or less) than 10 words for either the true self measure, actual self measure, or both. These participants were excluded from all subsequent analyses. Following the Me/Mot Me task, all participants were probed for suspicion and thoroughly debriefed. None of the participants expressed suspicion related to the study hypotheses.

Composite scores for true and actual self-concept accessibility were created as in Studies 1 and 2. A repeated measures ANOVA revealed significant differences in response time to the self-descriptors ( F (2, 121) = 121. 95; p < .001). Pairwise comparisons revealed that participants were fastest to respond to true self-concept words ( M = 893.56 ms, SD = 168.36), followed by actual self-concept words ( M = 915.67 ms, SD = 180.55), and were slowest to respond to control words ( M = 1154.23 ms, SD = 225.49, p’s < .05). All reaction times were then log transformed and responses more than 2.5 standard deviations away from the mean were dropped. 7 Finally, the same standardized residual scores used in Studies 1 and 2 were created.

Table 4 shows the zero-order correlations for the variables of interest. True self-concept accessibility was related to true self-concept liking, overlap between true and actual selves, basic need satisfaction, state self-esteem and meaning in life. True self-concept accessibility was unrelated to the authenticity measure.

Correlations among measures, Study 4

Note. N = 124. TS = True Self, AS = Actual Self, TSCA = True Self-Concept Accessibility, ASCA = Actual Self-Concept Accessibility. SSE = State Self-Estem.

To examine the contribution of true self-concept accessibility to meaning in life a simultaneous regression was computed. Actual self-concept accessibility, PA, NA, true self-concept liking, actual self-concept liking, the overlap between true and actual self-concepts, authenticity, state self-esteem, and basic need satisfaction were entered as covariates. These effects contributed to a significant change in R 2 ( R 2 change = .56, p < .001). The overlap variable (β = .21, p < .01) and authenticity (β = .34, p < .01) both predicted enhanced meaning in life ratings. While controlling for these substantial predictors of meaning in life, true self-concept accessibility remained independently and significantly related to meaning in life (β = .19, p < .05). Actual self-concept accessibility was again unrelated to meaning in life ( p > .10). It is notable that among these predictors, true self-concept accessibility is the only significant predictor that does not share method variance with (self-reported) meaning in life.

Study 4 resolves a number of the methodological issues associated with the first three studies. Namely, Study 4 used a definition for the true self that did not make any reference to close relationships, allowed overlapping true and actual self-concept traits, included a state measure of self-esteem and a self-report measure of authenticity, and assessed participants’ liking of their own true and actual selves rather than using objective ratings. After making these methodological adjustments and controlling for the degree of overlap as well as authenticity, the effect of true self-concept accessibility on meaning in life remained significant. The results of Study 4 provide strong evidence that even when the true self is defined in terms that do not explicitly connect it to social relationships, the accessibility of this self-concept relates to the experience of meaning in life over and above other potential correlates of meaning in life.

Study 5 sought to address whether manipulating the accessibility of the true self-concept, when defined as in Study 4, would lead to enhanced meaning in life. In Study 5, we again utilized a state measure of self-esteem to assess whether priming the true self-concept increased current self-esteem and to ensure that it was not self-esteem driving the relationship between true self-concept accessibility and meaning.

Because Studies 3 and 4 suggest that the true self-concept is subjectively more positive than the actual self-concept, in Study 5 we adopted a direct approach to determining whether or not a positivity bias in the true self-concept was driving its relationship with meaning in life. In this study, participants listed traits they both liked and disliked about themselves which described both their true and actual selves. We then primed participants with only one of the four types of words listed. Participants were randomly assigned to the cells of a 2 (type of self-concept, true vs. actual) x 2 (valence, liked vs. disliked traits) design, allowing us to examine the independent effects of valence and type of self-concept, as well as their interaction in predicting meaning in life.

Overview and Predictions for Study 5

Participants in Study 5 completed an online survey before participating in a lab session. The online survey included the adapted true and actual self-concept measure from Study 4 to provide priming stimuli. A baseline measure of meaning was also included in the online survey. In the lab session, after the priming procedure, participants completed a second meaning in life measure as well as measures of affect, authenticity and state self-esteem. We predicted that participants primed with true self-concept words would report increased meaning in life, regardless of the valence of those words, whereas participants primed with the actual self-concept would only report increased meaning in life if those words were liked. More specifically, because we know from previous research that positive stimuli increase self-reported meaning in life ( King et al., 2006 ), this design leads to an interaction prediction with a 3 vs 1 pattern. Participants in the positive true, negative true and positive actual conditions should all report higher meaning in life than those participants in the negative actual condition. Further, we predicted that this would be evident even after controlling for mood, authenticity and state self-esteem.

One hundred and fifty five students (77 females, 78 males) enrolled in either an introductory psychology course or introductory personality course at the University of Missouri participated for partial fulfillment of a course requirement or for extra credit. Ages ranged from 18–27 (M = 19.48, SD = 1.23). Represented ethnicities included 87% European American, 6% African-American, 2% Hispanic American, 3% Asian American, and 2% other.

Participants first completed a number of measures online. Embedded within these measures was an “identity task.” For this task, participants were asked to generate 10 traits which described their true and actual selves. Participants were further instructed that for each of these selves, five of the traits should be ones that they considered positive and five of the traits should be ones that they considered negative. This task was prefaced with the following statement: “People often have a variety of traits that they (or others) like about themselves as well as traits that they (or others) dislike. Next, we would like you to think about the traits that best describe you and are traits that might be seen as positive or negative.” The true and actual self were defined the same as they were in Study 4 and participants were again allowed to list overlapping traits. Participants listed traits for each combination of valence and self-type (positive/true, negative/true, positive/actual, negative/actual) on separate screens. After each trait, participants rated 1 item assessing how much they liked that particular trait: “How much do you like this part of your self?” on a 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much) scale. These ratings were then averaged over the five traits listed for each combination of positive/negative and true/actual ( M = 6.30, SD = .64 for positive/true; M = 2.44, SD = .83 for negative/true; M = 5.97, SD = .83 for positive/actual; M = 2.41, SD = .96 for negative/actual). A repeated measures ANOVA revealed a significant interaction between valence and self-concept type in mean liking ratings (F (1,148) = 6.751; p < .01). Post hoc comparisons revealed that participants reported the highest liking for the positive true self-concept ( p ’s < .01) Additionally, participants reported liking the positive actual self-concept more than both the negative self-concepts ( p’s < .01). Liking ratings did not differ between the negative true and negative actual self-concepts ( p > .10). Finally, participants also completed meaning in life items from the PIL as a Time 1 measure of meaning in life ( M = 5.07, SD = 1.32, α = .86).

Participants completed a laboratory session which occurred approximately two weeks following the online survey. Participants were told they would be completing a variety of tasks for separate research projects. For the priming task, participants were told that they would be completing a “periphery decision task”. Participants were told that the researchers were interested in how different types of random stimuli would affect their performance on the task. The instructions for the task stated that a + would appear in the middle of the computer screen and that this would be followed by a stimulus which would be presented on either the right or left side of the screen. Participants were told that their task would be to indicate on which side of the screen the stimulus appeared by pressing a red circle, located on the “;” key if the stimulus appeared on the right, or a green circle, located on the “a” key, if the stimulus appeared on the left. They were instructed to focus only on the + throughout the duration of task.

The stimuli for the task were random strings of letters and numbers. The primes were presented immediately before the random stimuli in the parafoveal region of vision, to the right or left of the fixation point, outside the focus of conscious visual attention. Stimuli presented in this region are not believed to reach conscious awareness (see Bargh & Chartrand, 2000 ). Each word was displayed for 35 ms and immediately masked by a string of Xs. There were 50 trials, each of which lasted 2 s and timed out if no response was made within 2 s (all responses were made within 2 s). This type of priming technique has been used in previous meaning in life research ( Hicks & King, 2008 ; King, et al., 2006 ). Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions and were primed with the words they had listed for that part of the self-concept.

Meaning in Life, State Self-Esteem, Authenticity and Mood Measures

After the priming task, participants were instructed to complete an “Attitudes and Thoughts Survey.” Participants first completed the Time 2 meaning measure, i.e., the 4 meaning in life items adapted from the purpose in life test ( M = 5.28, SD = 1.11, α = .80). Participants also completed a measure of state PA ( M = 4.29, SD = 1.04, α = .89) and state NA ( M = 3.05, SD = 1.13, α = .71). Finally, participants completed the same state self-esteem measure ( M = 3.74, SD = .74, α = .90) and the same authenticity measure ( M = 4.80, SD = .71, α = .91) utilized in Study 4. All items were rated on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely much).

After completing all of the measures, participants were probed for general suspicion and asked to indicate the types of stimuli that were flashed during the priming task. One participant expressed suspicion regarding the purpose of the study and three participants reported seeing some of the primed words. These four participants were excluded from all subsequent analyses.

Data screening revealed two outliers who were more than 3 standard deviations away from the mean on the Time 2 measure of meaning; these participants were also excluded from all subsequent analyses. Descriptive statistics for the post measure of meaning across the four conditions were as follows: positive true ( M = 5.21, SD = 1.05), negative true ( M = 5.16, SD = 1.05), positive actual ( M = 5.49, SD = 1.17) and negative actual ( M = 4.86, SD = .98).

Table 5 shows the zero-order correlations for the variables of interest in Study 5. The correlations are similar to the results from the previous studies. PA and NA are both related to both meaning in life measures, as is state self-esteem. Of particular interest, this study reveals that it is only the liking ratings for positive aspects of both the true and actual self-concept that seem to contribute to state self-esteem, mood, and meaning in life. Liking ratings of negative aspects of both the true and actual self-concept were unrelated to meaning, affect or state self-esteem.

Correlations among measures, Study 5

Note. N = 152. Positive TSC Liking = Self-reported liking of one’s positive true self-concept, Negative TSC Liking = Self-reported liking of one’s negative true self-concept, Positive ASC Liking = Self-reported liking of one’s positive actual self-concept, Negative ASC Liking = Self-reported liking of one’s negative actual self-concept, T1 = Time 1, T2 = Time 2.

An ANOVA was performed to examine whether the priming manipulations influenced state self-esteem. The analyses revealed that neither of the main effects (self-concept type, valence) nor the interaction influenced state self-esteem (all ps > .40). 8

To assess how the primes may have changed participants’ perceptions of meaning in life, an ANCOVA was performed to compare the groups, using Time 2 meaning in life as the dependent variable. Time 1 meaning, PA, NA, state self-esteem, authenticity and all four self-concept liking ratings (positive/true, negative/true, positive/actual, negative/actual) were entered as covariates. Results revealed that Time 1 meaning was related to Time 2 meaning (F (1, 139) = 61.06, p < .05) as were three of the liking variables: positive true liking (F(1, 139) = 12.43, p < .05), negative true liking (F(1, 139) = 9.50, p < .05) and negative actual liking (F(1,139) = 3.94, p < .05).

The main effects for type of self-concept (true vs. actual) and valence of self-concept (liked vs. disliked) and the interaction were examined next. As predicted, results revealed a significant interaction between type of self-concept and valence of self-concept ( F (1, 139) = 1.63, p < .05). Neither of the main effects were significant ( p’s > .18 ). The estimated marginal means were as follows: positive true (M = 5.16), negative true (M = 5.23), positive actual (5.29) and negative actual (M = 4.91). Following the recommendations of Rosenthal, Rosnow and Rubin (2000) planned contrast analyses of the estimated marginal means were performed to compare the negative actual self-concept condition to the other three conditions, thereby testing the specifically hypothesized pattern. Results revealed that participants in this condition reported significantly lower meaning in life ( M = 4.91) than participants in the other three groups ( M = 5.21; F(1, 139) = 5.07, p < .05). 9

An additional contrast was conducted to confirm that the negative true self-concept concept condition did in fact show higher meaning in life than the negative actual self-concept condition. This contrast revealed the predicted effect (F (1, 139) = 4.63, p < .05). Two additional contrasts were conducted to confirm that valence of the self-concept influenced meaning judgments in the actual self-concept conditions but not in the true self-concept conditions. The analyses revealed the expected effects. Participants in the positive actual condition reported higher meaning than those in the negative actual condition (F (1, 139) = 5.09, p < .05), whereas participants in the positive true condition reported similar levels of meaning as those in the negative true condition ( p > .40).

The results of Study 5 provide strong support for the hypothesis that true self-concept accessibility leads to an enhanced sense that one’s life is meaningful. Participants who were suboptimally primed with traits associated with the true self-concept reported higher levels of meaning in life, regardless of the valence of those traits. In contrast, participants who were primed with traits associated with their actual self-concepts reported higher meaning in life only if those traits were liked. Thus, even negative words which describe the true self-concept appear to serve as a source of meaning.

Additionally, results revealed that priming the true self-concept did not lead to an increase in state self-esteem. The primary analyses also controlled for this variable to further ensure that any short-lived boosts in self-esteem did not drive the effect of true self-concept priming.

Although the lack of a main effect for type of self-concept in this study may seem troubling, the observed interaction is perhaps equally compelling and informative. First, previous research ( King et al., 2006 ) suggests that positive stimuli increase self-reported meaning in life, which would explain the effect of valence observed in the actual self-concept conditions. That negative stimuli can overcome this powerful effect of valence if they are associated with the true self-concept is notable. Second, results from our previous studies suggest that positive components of one’s actual self-concept are beneficial to the experience of meaning. The social desirability and self-reported liking of actual self-concept traits has been related to a number of positive outcomes, including basic need satisfaction, positive affect, state self-esteem, authenticity and importantly meaning in life itself. Thus, it appears that it is not the case that the actual self-concept is completely unimportant to the experience of meaning, but rather that the extent to which we like this self-concept is what matters. This may be what distinguishes these two selves. That is, the true self-concept may be important simply because it represents who we believe we really are, regardless of how much we like it.

Alternatively, one might expect that the effects of positive words and true self-concept words would be additive. In other words, if both positive stimuli and aspects of the true self contribute to meaning, perhaps participants in the positive true self condition should have reported the highest meaning in life of the four groups. It is not entirely clear why such a pattern was not observed. One possibility is that the descriptors participants provided for the positive actual self-concept are particularly likely to overlap with the true self-concept. It makes at least some intuitive sense that those aspects of one’s behavior (e.g. the actual self-concept) which are likeable would also be integrated into one’s definition of who one really is (e.g., the true self-concept). Thus, at least some of the participants in the positive actual self condition may have inadvertently been primed with their true selves as well. Importantly, this overlap may go beyond the 10 most definitive words participants listed on our measure, making this type of overlap difficult to assess with the type of open-ended measure used in the current study.

General Discussion

The notion that the true self is psychologically important is not new. Indeed the idea appears in commonly held lay theories as well as in a number of philosophical and psychological traditions. We argued that one important role of the true self is that it serves as a hub of meaning, and that the accessibility of one’s true self-concept should influence the experience of meaning in life judgments. That is, because the extension of the true self-concept to experiences imbues those experiences with feelings of meaningfulness, the simple activation of the true self-concept itself should be sufficient to elicit a corresponding increase in meaning in life, even in the absence of the phenomenological experience or actual expression of one’s true self-concept. The results of five studies support this supposition. Both individual differences in true self-concept accessibility and manipulated true self-concept accessibility related to increased perceptions of meaning in life, even after controlling for a variety of other important predictors of meaning.

Studies 1, 2 and 4 assessed the correlates of true self-concept accessibility. The results of these three studies showed that individual differences in true self-concept accessibility were positively associated with meaning in life. Further, this relationship was significant at both the bivariate level as well as in regression analyses which controlled for the accessibility of other aspects of the self (e.g., the actual self-concept). Of course, making causal interpretations in light of the correlational design of these three studies is problematic.

Studies 3 and 5 examined the same issue experimentally. The results of these two studies suggest that when the true self-concept is made more accessible by priming people with traits they associate with this self-concept, life is seen as more meaningful. These findings suggest that it is the simple accessibility of these privileged traits that influences meaning in life. Furthermore, Study 5 demonstrated the robustness of this relationship in that priming participants with true self-concept traits led to an increase in meaning in life, regardless of the valence of these true self-concept traits.

The True Self: Warts and All

A positive illusions perspective might suggest that the true self-concept is a self-schema that is composed of unrealistically positive views of the self and that it is these inflated self-views which are psychologically beneficial (e.g. Taylor et al., 2007 ). Results of these studies speak against this possibility. Although the true self-concept is liked more than the actual self-concept, it is not necessarily more positive than the actual self-concept (Studies 1 and 2). Furthermore, priming individuals with aspects of the true self-concept led to increased meaning in life even when those self-aspects were disliked (Study 5). Moreover, the effect of accessibility was significant after controlling for objective ratings of how likeable the true self-concept was (Studies 1 and 2) as well as after controlling for how well participant’s liked their own true self-concept (Studies 3 and 4) or the individual traits comprising that self-concept (Study 5).

The lack of effects for state self-esteem would also seem to speak against the notion that the true self-concept is an overly positive version of the self-concept. If it is the case that people are overly fond of their true selves, it would be reasonable to expect that the accessibility of this part of the self-concept would lead to a boost in self-esteem. The results of Study 4 demonstrated that individual differences in true self-concept accessibility were unrelated to state self-esteem and Study 5 demonstrated that increasing true self-concept accessibility did not lead to increased state self-esteem. Even if people tend to like the true self-concept more than the actual self-concept, this feeling of liking does not fully explain the effects of true self-concept accessibility on meaning in life.

That the true self-concept would include at least some negative aspects makes intuitive sense. If the true self-concept includes those characteristics we are not willing to share with everyone we meet, then the true self-concept may, in part, serve a role as a secret that includes those negative parts of the self we work to hide from most others ( Goffman, 1959 ). It is noteworthy that the accessibility of these potentially negative aspects of the self can be beneficial to the experience of meaning. This pattern is in accord with Kernis and Goldman’s (2006) contention that true authenticity comes, in part, from awareness and acceptance of both one’s positive and negative attributes.

It is worth noting that the current investigation may be thought of as firmly entrenched in modern times ( Gergen, 1973 ). As noted earlier, emphasis on searching for one’s true self seems to be more poignant in modern times (e.g., Baumeister 1991 ; Becker, 1971 ; Bellah et al., 1985 ; Frankl, 1959 ; Fromm, 1941/1969 ) and is perhaps spurred by the need to find a value base in light of the erosion of more widespread systems of meaning. When society supplied its members with answers to what made a good life, there was less need to find one’s self. Thus it is not entirely clear if the true self-concept has always been, or will always be, a source of meaning in life. However, it is easy to imagine that even when society supplies the answer, one’s identity and role in that society (whether chosen or assigned) provides each person a place in that system and as such provides a sense of meaning ( Becker, 1971 ).

In this vein, it is worth considering whether “being in touch with” one’s true self-concept would translate cross-culturally as a source of meaning in life. In answering this question it is important to first consider potential differences in how the true self is defined in different cultures. Whereas people in Western cultures tend to focus on which of one’s multiple self-concepts is “true” (i.e., Gergen, 1991 ; Bellah et al., 1985 ), other cultures seem to have more flexible definitions of the true self. For example, Kanagawa et al. (2001) , suggests that some cultures may allow for inconsistency to be part of the true self. Supportive of this, Kashimi et al. (2004) found survey evidence that in Japan the true self is seen as variable across situations. Thus, it seems likely that the true self-concept varies across cultures in its content and temporal stability. Nonetheless, we expect that cross-cultural differences would be less evident in the importance of the cognitive accessibility of the true self-concept. Research has shown that the concept of authenticity is important across cultures (e.g., Neff & Suizzo, 2006 ) and that individuals from more collectivist cultures value trait stability within social contexts ( English & Chen, 2007 ). Clearly, examining these complex issues is a promising direction for future research.

True and Actual Selves

Although we were interested in the relationship between the true self-concept and meaning in life, we also assessed actual self-concept accessibility as an important control variable in all five studies. A comparison of the results for these two selves provides insights into the nature of each. Whereas accessibility of the true self-concept was consistently related to the experience of meaning, accessibility of the actual self-concept was only related to meaning in life when exclusively positive traits of that self-concept were primed. This pattern might make one wonder whether the actual self-concept is important to the experience of meaning at all?

Though the accessibility of the actual self-concept as a whole was consistently unrelated to the experience of meaning, the social desirability of actual self-concept traits was related to basic need satisfaction (Studies 1 and 2), and self-reported liking of one’s actual self-concept related to state self esteem (Study 4) and meaning in life (Studies 3, 4, and 5). Additionally, priming participants with traits they liked about their actual self-concept increased meaning in life (Study 5). For the self that we chronically enact, which is at least partially constrained by social context, the important issue appears to be whether we like it or not.

The results of Study 4 also suggest that the actual-self concept is important in another way. As might be expected, based on perspectives such as self-discrepancy theory ( Higgins, 1987 ; 1989 ), the extent to which the actual self-concept matched the true self-concept uniquely predicted meaning in life. Participants who had a relatively high degree of overlap (or lack of discrepancy) between the two self-concepts also reported higher positive affect, liking of both self-concepts and self-reported authenticity. Future research should also examine the importance of matching one’s true self-concept to situations. As would be suggested by person-environment-correspondence counseling ( Lofquist & Dawis, 1991 ), the fit between one’s true self-concept and situations may have implications for both well-being and performance. Similarly, individual differences in the fit between the true self-concept and social relationships, work or academic life may relate to performance and satisfaction in these domains as well as to well-being, more generally.

Further, having similar true and actual self-concepts predicted having a more accessible true self-concept, providing at least some insight into how someone comes to have a highly accessible true self-concept. It may be that those who express their true self-concept in their daily activities increase the accessibility of that self-concept. This possibility is further supported by the findings of Bargh et al. (2002) which showed that participants who presumably felt more comfortable expressing their true self in an interaction with a partner evidenced increased accessibility of the true self-concept compared to those who were less comfortable with such true self expression in their interaction.

It is worth noting that these two selves may also be distinguished by their stability. Unfortunately the current studies only assessed the contents of the true and actual self-concepts once, precluding us from testing the temporal stability of each. However, we suspect that the true self-concept may be more temporally stable. The actual self-concept, by definition, seems most prone to change based on situation, circumstance, and social role, but that part of the person which represents who you believe you really are might be much more stable. Future research might examine whether it is more difficult to change the contents of the true self-concept when such changes are desired. More nuanced treatment of the content of the true and actual selves would also allow us to address the question of how it is that traits end up in the true vs. actual self-concept.

With regard to both selves, it is notable that the sheer number of traits that participants could generate was constrained. Though this constraint was necessary for practical purposes considering the methodologies employed, the quantity and complexity of traits associated with the true and actual selves may be of interest in future research. Indeed the complexity of these two selves may have important implications for meaning in life ( Linville, 1985 ; 1987 ).

Limitations

Conceptually, true self-concept accessibility resonates with previous notions such as the awareness aspect of authenticity ( Kernis & Goldman, 2006 ) or basic need satisfaction in self-determination theory ( Ryan & Deci, 2000 ). The present studies provide some data pertaining to whether these various conceptualizations in fact tap the same underlying construct. Results suggest that true self-concept accessibility differs from these constructs in that each maintained independent relationships to meaning in life. Of course, these variables also differ methodologically. Whereas previous research on authenticity and need satisfaction has relied on self-report measures, the current studies utilized reaction time measures and manipulated cognitive accessibility to assess true self-concept accessibility. It is important to note, however, that the current studies only utilized self-report measures of meaning. As such, the current studies are limited in the sense that they can only speak to conscious attitudes and may be prone to social desirability biases. As such extending these findings to other types of meaning measures and to behavior promises to be an exciting avenue for future research.

Importantly, in the present studies the true self-concept was examined in a relatively isolated point in life (i.e., among college students) in only one situational context (i.e., in a psychology lab). It would be interesting to examine both developmental trajectories and situational variations in true self-concept accessibility. Considering that college is an important time of identity development for many people, it is possible that less variability would exist in an older sample. It is also possible that true and actual selves become more integrated later in life.

Finally, it is worth noting that true and actual selves may be thought to contain characteristics beyond traits. For the sake of simplicity, participants in these studies were instructed to think of traits when describing their true and actual selves. In practice, however, it seems likely that these selves involve other characteristics such as attitudes, goals, and roles.

Conclusions

The role of the true self in the Good Life has been recognized since ancient times and is reflected in a wide range of approaches to psychological health. The present studies shed empirical light on this powerful meme, demonstrating that the cognitive accessibility of traits that are thought to be characteristic of the true self relate to and enhance the experience of meaning in life, even in the absence of the phenomenological experience or expression of one’s true self-concept. This relationship was evidenced both through individual differences in true self-concept accessibility and in manipulated accessibility via priming words related to an individual’s true self concept. In this way, the present studies may provide an important piece to a basic understanding of what enables people to extract meaning from their lives.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by NIAAA T32-AA13526. We thank Ken Sheldon and the anonymous reviewers for insightful feedback on a previous version of this manuscript.

1 The “actual self” refers to how one behaves around most other people because Rogers (1951) believed that most people only feel comfortable expressing their true selves around close others and keep them hidden during most of their daily activities. Thus, the term “actual self” might best be thought of as a public self. However, to maintain continuity with previous research adopting this approach (e.g., Bargh et al., 2002 ), we use the term actual self.

2 As expected, the overwhelming majority of responses to true and actual self traits were classified as “Me” (in all studies, greater than 95%). As such, all response times were included in the composites.

3 To ensure that any subsequent results were not due to this residualization procedure, we examined the correlations between the raw mean reaction times and meaning in life. The correlations indicated that reaction times for true self-concept words were significantly related to meaning in life ( r = .35, p < .05), whereas reaction times for actual self-concept words were not ( r = .21, p > .10).

4 Additional analyses tested for gender effects. Gender was neither a significant predictor of meaning in life nor did it interact with true self-concept accessibility or actual self-concept accessibility to predict meaning in life ( p’s > .78). Gender was also tested as a possible moderator in all subsequent studies. The only significant interaction was found in study 2 showing a significant gender by true self-concept accessibility interaction predicting meaning in life (p <.05). This analysis revealed that the relationship between true self-concept accessibility and meaning in life was significant for both men and women (p < .05), but was stronger for men. However, these results should be interpreted with caution considering no gender effects were found in other studies and there were only 14 males in Study 2.

5 We again examined the correlations between these mean reaction times and meaning in life. The correlations indicated that reaction times for true self-concept words were significantly related to meaning in life ( r = .48, p < .05), whereas reaction times for actual self-concept words were not ( r = .18, p > .10).

6 The primes did not influence mood ratings (p’s > .18).

7 As with Studies 1 and 2, we examined the correlations between these mean reaction times and meaning in life. These analyses indicated that reaction times for true self-concept words were significantly related to meaning in life ( r = .19, p < .05), whereas reaction times for actual self-concept words were not ( r = .09, p > .10).

8 An ANOVA revealed that the primes also did not influence self-reported authenticity ratings. Neither of the main effects (self type, valence of self) nor the interaction were significant (p’s > .34).

9 One weakness of the present study is that, without a neutral control condition, it may not be clear whether, for example, negative true self concept primes actually increased meaning in life, or whether negative actual self concept primes decreased meaning, or both. Fortunately, the inclusion of a pre-manipulation measure of meaning allowed us to address this issue. Change scores were calculated for the two meaning measures. The change scores indicated that whereas meaning in life increased for participants primed with their true self (negative true mean = .28, positive mean =.10), it decreased for participants in the negative actual self prime condition (mean = −.13). Participants in the positive actual self condition reported essentially no change in meaning in life (mean = .01). It is important to note, however, that these change scores should be interpreted with caution due to differences between conditions on the pre-measure of meaning in life.

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Donald Winnicott: The True Self

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More about Donald Winnicott: The True Self

Related topics.

• Consciousness

True Self and False Self

True self and false self are terms introduced into psychoanalysis by D. W. Winnicott in 1960. Winnicott ‘contrasts a basic True Self with a False Self, the latter a self-protective mechanism….The true self feeling involves a sense of all out personal aliveness…feeling real’. ‘Winnicott conceives of a “false self” that an infant develops in despairing defence against the trauma of inadequate maternal care; the analytic task is to give the “true self”, which can feel and is cowering behind the “false self”, which cannot, the strength to emerge’.

Before Winnicott

There was much in psychoanalytic theory on which Winnicott could draw for his concept of the False Self. Helene Deutsch had described the “as if” personalities who have ‘succeeded in substituting “pseudo contacts” of manifold kinds for a real feeling contact with other people: they behave “as if” they have feeling contacts with people’. Winnicott’s own analyst, Joan Riviere, had memorably explored the concept of the masquerade – of ‘the mask of the narcissist…”the trait of deceptiveness, the mask, which conceals this subtle reservation of all control under intellectual rationalizations, or under feigned compliance and superficial politeness”‘. Freud himself, with his late theory of ‘the ego as constituted in its nucleus by a series of alienating identifications’, had produced a theory of ‘the Ego, which does bear some comparison with the False Self’.

Despite its many antecedents, it would be wrong to underestimate the quiet conceptual revolution offered by Winnicott’s 1960 article, which offered a fresh and compelling, clinically-rooted picture of the human mind.

For Winnicott, in the False Self, ‘Other people’s expectations can become of overriding importance, overlaying or contradicting the original sense of self, the one connected to the very roots of one’s being’. The danger is that ‘through this False Self, the infant builds up a false set of relationships, and by means of introjections even attains a show of being real’. The result can be a ‘child whose potential aliveness and creativity has gone unnoticed…concealing an empty, barren internal world behind a mask of independence’. Yet at the same time the ‘Winnicottian False Self is the ultimate defence against the unthinkable “exploitation of the True Self, which would result in its annihilation”‘.

By contrast, the True Self is rooted in, and ‘”does no more than collect together the details of the experience of aliveness” – this means the body’s life-sustaining functions, “including the heart’s action and breathing”‘. Out of this the baby creates the experience of reality: a sense that ‘”Life is worth the trouble of living”. In the baby’s nonverbal gesture which ‘… expresses a spontaneous instinct’, the true self potential can be communicated to, and affirmed by, the motherer.

‘The False Self in its pathological guise prevents and inhibits what Winnicott calls the “spontaneous gesture” of the True Self. Compliance and imitation are the costly results’. Some would indeed consider that ‘the idea of compliance is central to Winnicott’s theory of the false self’, and add, paradoxically, that ‘concern for an object is easily a compliant act’. Where the motherer is not responsive to the baby’s spontaneity, where instead ‘a mother’s expectations are too insistent, they can eventually result in compliant behaviour and an impaired autonomy’, as the baby has ‘to manage a prematurely important object….The False Self enacts a kind of dissociated regard or recognition of the object; the object is taken seriously, is shown concern, but not by a person’.

It has been suggested that ‘in pathology, Winnicott’s distinction between “true and false selves” corresponds to Balint’s “basic fault” and to Fairbairn’s “compromised ego”‘.

One persistent criticism of Winnicott’s theory of is that it was not theoretically integrated. Neville Sympington writes: “Most clinicians … when they have a clinical insight, they simply paste it onto existing theory. … Winnicott did the same with the true and false self: he did not ask himself how the theory fitted with ego and id.” Similarly Jean-Bertrand Pontalis and Maud Mannoni are very reserved about the theoretical implication of Winnicott’s true/false self distinction, but they acknowledge the justice of his clinical observations.

Further developments

The last half-century have seen Winnicott’s ideas extended and applied in a variety of contexts, both in psychoanalysis and beyond.

It has been suggested that ‘Kohut offers essentially the same program’ as Winnicott in his descriptions of ‘the narcissistic disorders in which he specializes….Like Winnicott’s “false-self” patients, these patients develop a shoddy armor (of a “defensive” or “compensatory” character) around their maimed inner core’. Kohut himself ‘has noted that his work “overlaps” with Winnicott’s investigations’, and others have ‘regarded Kohut’s contribution to psychoanalysis to be an extension of Winnicott’s work’.

Thus Kohut emphasises that ‘to be…the maintenance of even the diseased remnants of the self is preferable to not being, that is, to accept the takeover of another’s personality rather than his actively elicited responsiveness’. Similarly, he stressed that ‘there is a decisive difference between the support of self-objects that are sought after and chosen by a self in harmony with its innermost ideals…and the abandoning of oneself to a foreign self, through which one gains borrowed cohesion at the price of genuine initiative and creative participation in life’.

Alexander Lowen identified narcissists as having a true and a false, or superficial, self. The false self rests on the surface, as the self presented to the world. It stands in contrast to the true self, which resides behind the facade or image. This true self is the feeling self, but it is a self that must be hidden and denied. Since the superficial self represents submission and conformity, the inner or true self is rebellious and angry. This underlying rebellion and anger can never be fully suppressed since it is an expression of the life force in that person. But because of the denial, it cannot be expressed directly. Instead it shows up in the narcissist’s acting out. And it can become a perverse force.

James F. Masterson argued all the personality disorders crucially involve the conflict between a person’s two “selves”: the false self, which the very young child constructs to please the mother, and the true self. The psychotherapy of personality disorders is an attempt is to put people back in touch with their real selves.

Jungians have explored how ‘the narcissistic longings of mothers (or fathers) to amass reflected glory through their children’ can result in a situation where ‘in place of autonomy, the adult…would come to obey an internal source that the psychoanalyst Neville Symington calls the “discordant source”‘. Symington contrasted ‘two poles: one in which I am the source of my own action, where I have a creative capacity that comes from my own source of action, and the other in which an inner figure opposed to myself is the source of action. He termed the twin ‘sources of action the “autonomous source” and the “discordant source”‘, and acknowledged that ‘although the formulation is different, it is along the lines of what Winnicott talks about – the true self and the false self’.

His main criticism of Winnicott concerned the initial adoption or internalisation of the discordant source – wanting ‘to stress that an intentional identification is what brings about the donning of the false self. Winnicott leaves out this intentional aspect in his description of its origins’.

Persona and false self

Jungians have explored ‘to what extent Jung’s concept of the persona overlaps with Winnicott’s concept of the False Self’ – noting the way ‘the antecedents of such persona-identification in the individual’s life-history are usually quite similar to those of the False Self’. However most would agree that it is only ‘when the persona is excessively rigid or defensive…[that] the persona then develops into a pathological false self’.

Stern’s tripartite self

In The Interpersonal World of the Infant, Daniel Stern considered ‘the sense of physical cohesion (…”going on being”, in Winnicott’s term)’ as essential to what he called the Core Self – providing ‘an affective core to the prerepresentational self’. He also explored how selective maternal attunement could create ‘two versions of reality….Language becomes available to ratify the split and confer the privileged status of verbal representation upon the false self’, so that ‘the true self becomes a congloberate of disavowed experiences of self which cannot be linguistically coded’.

However ‘in place of true self and false self, Stern suggests the adoption of a tri-partite vocabulary: the social self, the private self and the disavowed self’.

And the big paperback book

“No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.” – Thomas Mann

W e all wear masks.  Our social masks enable us to survive and to interact appropriately in a wide variety of interpersonal contexts.  We show a different side of ourselves to different people in our lives: significant others, family members, friends, professional colleagues, and acquaintances.  It is important to be aware of these different social masks and use them to help us manage our lives in a balanced and integrated way.  Without this awareness and balance, we are at risk for feeling disconnected from ourselves and others.  A clear understanding of our various selves enables us to develop a cohesive integrated identity.

According to Dr. Donald Winnicott , an English psychoanalyst hugely influential in the field of object relations , the false self develops through early environmental failure wherein true self-potential is unrealized and hidden.  The idea is that infants depend on their primary caregiver not only to meet their most basic needs for survival, but also for reliable, accurate, and empathic emotional responses.

When these emotional needs are either unmet, or met unreliably, the infant gradually learns not only not to trust the environment, but also not to trust the self.  Psychoanalytically speaking, this basic mistrust develops because infants rely on their primary caregivers to accurately mirror their emotional experiences.  It is through this accurate mirroring that infants learn not only how to label their own emotions, but to trust the validity of their internal experiences.

How does this apply to us as adults?  Whether the basic ideas of object relations and psychoanalytic thought sit well with you or not, almost all of us (except maybe those lucky few who seem to have reached complete self-actualization ) struggle at times to project what we believe to be the “true” or “authentic” self.  In many ways, wearing a social mask protects our authentic selves from being constantly exposed to the nonstop demands of our interpersonal environment.

There is a natural human tendency to protect our authentic selves from the scrutiny of the outside world.  When we protect our true selves, we are able to avoid being rejected or hurt.  There is a downside to this protection though – we may miss out on the opportunity to have genuine connections with other people.

Some of us may relate to both ourselves and others from a dominantly false self position.  If we have been relating to the world in this way for many years, it can feel “normal.”

Authentic Self:

• Thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions come from a deep-seated place within
• Lack of disparity between values and lived values
• Unique combination of your vast multitude of talents, skills, interests, and abilities

False Self:

• Putting on a facade with others may result in an internal sensation of being depleted, drained, or emotionally numb
• Possible tendencies to turn to mood-altering substances in order to feel “different”
• Actions may feel forced, alienated, or detached

W hile there are clear distinctions between characteristics of acting from the authentic self versus the false self, it is important to remember that the false self, or social mask, serves many adaptive (i.e., useful) purposes.  We need to be able to utilize aspects of the false self in a variety of social contexts.  The difference between utilizing the false self in an adaptive way versus a maladaptive way has to do with both our awareness of its attributes and sense of congruence between our social masks and our core values.

When we are aware of the many sides of ourselves we are able to gain a sense of ownership and mastery over when and how we choose to show these sides.  When we are in control of what part of ourselves we choose to show, the false self is no longer foreign and detached: our social masks become congruent and integrated.  We are whole.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Winnicott, D. W. (1960). “Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self,” in The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. New York: International UP Inc., 1965, pp. 140-152.

Featured image: Jackie Martinez (#31899) by mark sebastian / CC BY-SA 2.0

About Laura K. Schenck, Ph.D., LPC

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Northern Colorado. Some of my academic interests include: Dialectical Behavior Therapy, mindfulness, stress reduction, work/life balance, mood disorders, identity development, supervision & training, and self-care.

Another excellent post! As you know we work with kids. I am always fascinated at how young some kids really are when they learn to wear their masks. So this is a very interesting read you’ve posted about Dr. Winnicott’s work in the filed of object relations and gives me great insight into the possibilities of what is behind this behavior for youth.

I’ve read Dr. Robert Coles’ books on adolescent behavior where he makes a point (loosely quoted here) that kids are ever attentive witnesses of their parents and others behaviors. Now, through your post, you are reminding me of just how important it is to teach/model an integrated balance and perspective of these aspects to help kids learn healthy ways to connect with their peers, parents and other adults in their lives!

Will you be posting insights on how some of the issues you cover in your blog affect youth specifically as well?

Thanks again for a thoughtful post!

Amy – It seems like we learn how to wear social masks very early on in the socialization process. We learn this through repeated experiences of getting particular responses when we act in particular ways. These responses serve to reinforce certain behaviors. All of these experiences build upon our constantly evolving style of relating to others. It helps me to remember that people absolutely “are the way that they are” for innumerable reasons. I will include some posts specifically geared towards youth in the future. I’m glad that you enjoyed this post!

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The True Self And The False Self

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Analysis Of Normal Life By Dean Spade

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The Hidden Assault On Our Civil Rights

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“The Danger of a Dominant Identity,” discusses what one columnist believes to be one of the largest problems facing America today. David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, argues that reducing people to nothing more than a label with a singular identity is one of the largest problems America faces. Through the appropriate use of rhetorical appeals, David Brooks writes an effective article by informing and firmly convincing the reader of the danger in viewing others as one-sided.

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The Deeper Journey for Leaders: From the False Self to the True Self

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Paul in Colossians 3

Once I asked the pastor of a large, vigorous, dynamic, growing church with a strong emphasis on the deeper life in Christ—a church that confirmed fifty to seventy-five new members each week—where these people were coming from.  His response surprised me.  He told me almost all of these people had begun their journey in Christ in an even larger, more vigorous, more dynamic church whose worship was leading-edge contemporary, whose focus was strongly charismatic and whose corporate life centered in highly emotional expressions of faith in God.

These people would stay in that church for about two to three years and then the novelty and excitement would become ritualized and dry for them.  They began to hunger, in his words, “for something deeper.”  They began to sense there was more to the Christian life.

You may have felt the same thing and asked yourself, Isn’t there more to the Christian life than being active in a Christian community, affirming a certain set of beliefs, adopting a particular behavior pattern?  

The answer is Yes. The “more” is the journey from living out one’s false self to living as our true self in Christ—a self that is deeply centered in and utterly abandoned to God. 

Two Ways of Being in the World 

You see, there are two fundamental ways of being human in the world: trusting in our human resources and abilities or radically trusting in God. You cannot be grasped by or sustained in the deeper life in God—being like Jesus— until you are awakened at the deep levels of your being to this essential reality. You might describe these two ways of being in the world as the “false self” and the “true self.” Unless you are aware of these two selves—these two ways of being in the world – you will have great difficulty allowing God to lead you into a deeper life of wholeness in Christ.

The reality of the “false self”–this pervasive, deeply entrenched, self-referenced structure of being as the primary context of our spiritual journey—is one of the hardest things for us to acknowledge. We tend to think of the false self as a “surface phenomena” that can be treated by a few cosmetic alterations in our behavior. We are slow to accept the fact that our false self permeates all the way to the core of our being. It is hard to admit that we are profoundly habituated to a self-referenced way of being in the world that manifests itself in characteristics such as being fearful, protective, possessive, manipulative, destructive, self-promoting, indulgent, and making distinctions so as to separate ourselves from others.

Jesus makes the reality of the false self unmistakably clear when he says, “If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves,” and, “Whoever loses their self for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:24-25). Jesus is not talking about giving up candy for Lent. He is calling for the abandonment of our entire, pervasive, deeply entrenched matrix of self-referenced being so we can enter into a life of loving union with God that manifests itself in Christlikeness.

The Religious False Self

What’s even more difficult, however, for us as Christian leaders to acknowledge is the reality of a particular aspect of our false self that is even more subtle– our religious false self.

Our religious false self presumes, because we are religious, that everything is fine in our relationship with God. Oh, to be sure, there may be a need for some “fine-tuning” of a few aspects of our life, a polishing up of a few of our rough edges. Our religious false self may be rigorous in religiosity, devoted in discipleship and sacrificial in service—without being in loving union with God.

We see a frightening example of this at the end of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus depicts a scene before the throne on the judgment day. A group of people appear there and say, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” Obviously these were serious, dedicated disciples. Their lives had been spent doing “God things.” But Jesus replies to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers” (Mt 7:22-23 NRSV).

Their lives, their ministries, were not grounded in a loving union with Christ. They were religious false selves. They were so busy being in the world for God that they failed to be in God for the world .  And here is a great difference between these two ways. A religious false self will expend amazing amounts of energy and resources to be in the world for God. But the true self is called to be in God for the world, and this is costly. It requires the abandonment of the whole self-referenced structure of our false self and, especially, the religious false self.

An Essential Awareness 

Perhaps the premier examples of religious false selves in the New Testament are the Pharisees. Jesus uses a powerful simile to describe their frightening condition. He calls them “whitewashed tombs” that outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of deadness (Mt 23:27). Their outward display of religiosity was enviable in its apparent holiness, in its faithful obedience to the Torah, in its devotion to the scribal lists of dos and don’ts, in its rigorous abstention from anything that might defile its purity. Behind this religious façade, however, was an emptiness of deadly proportions.

Their profound religiosity was a self-generated effort at attaining holiness for themselves rather than the fruit of a life in loving union with God.

For those on an intentional spiritual journey, our awareness of the deadly and debilitating nature of the religious false self is essential. Rigorous religious practices, devoted discipleship, sacrificial service, deeper devotional activities may do nothing more than turn a nominally religious false self into a fanatically religious false self.

The essential difference between a false self and a religious false self is that the latter brings God into its life, but in service of its false self programs.  Our religious false self may begin with a genuine experience with God.  But then, like Peter on the mount of transfiguration, we often seek to contain our experience within a box of our own making.  We attempt to integrate our experience with God into the structures of our life in ways that are minimally disruptive to our status quo.  The “God” within our box, however, becomes a construct, an idol, that enables us maintain control of what we call “God” as well as continue to be in control of our existence.

Letting God out of the Box

To put it succinctly, whenever we attempt to have God in our life on our own terms, we are a religious false self.  The temptation to take over God’s role in our life is the essence of the false self.  The false self is the self that in some way is playing God in its life and in its world. Before we can move forward to a life of radical abandonment to God in love—we must be clear on the nature of our religious false self and must come to the decision to lose this life for Christ’s sake.

But loss is not the main point. The main point is what we stand to gain.  We are created to experience our true life, our genuine identity, our ultimate value in an intimate loving union with God at the core of our being.  This is a life of radical abandonment to God in love and equally radical availability to God for others so that in all circumstances and relationships our life becomes one in whom God is present for others.

The life hidden with Christ in God is one of such growing union with God in love that God’s presence becomes the context of our daily life, God’s purposes become the matrix of our activities, and the values of God’s kingdom shape our life and relationships; God’s living presence becomes the ground of our identity, the source of our meaning, the seat of our value and the center of our purpose. And that way of being in the world is life indeed!

Gracious and merciful God, whose cruciform love has plumbed the depths of my false self, awaken me from the pervasive bondage of my false self and enable me through the power of your indwelling Holy Spirit to be restored to wholeness in the image of Christ.  As I reflect on the hope and the possibility of living as my true self in Christ, stir my heart to hunger and thirst for your transforming work in my life through the Holy Spirit, who with Christ lives and reigns with you.  Amen.  

©M. Robert Mulholland, 2016. This article is adapted by Ruth Haley Barton from  The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self (InterVarsity Press, 2016.)

Learn more about the impact of Dr. M. Robert Mulholland, Jr.:

Learn more about the new  M. Robert Mulholland Scholarship Fund .

Read Ruth’s message from  Mulholland’s memorial service .

Purchase  Spiritual Transformation for the Sake of Others  DVD curriculum with Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton

Donate towards the  M. Robert Mulholland Scholarship Fund .

Dr. M. Robert Mulholland, Jr.

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Love this post. I had a colleague who was fond of saying, “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good.” I have been living that way for over a decade. Then I come across this post which includes the statement “ They were so busy  being in the world for God  that they failed to  be in God for the world. ” Ouch! Makes me realize I’ve gotten out of balance in this, which has led to a sense of spiritual malaise. It’s time to focus on being in God for the world. Thank you so much for this reminder!!!

I love this article as you articulate so clearly what has been on my heart but I couldn’t find the language.I pray that training in Spiritual Direction will continue the transforming work of Jesus in me so I can truly let go of all aspects of my false self and learn to be in God for the world. Thank you, I can’t wait to receive Dr Mulhollands book on order.

Yes, our true self loves to worship God! Surmised from yesterdays’ Moravian Daily Watchword: Thus says the Lord God: Repent and turn away from your idols. Ezekiel 14:6

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For Pete’s Sake

Patrick mahomes’ promises to nfl teams in open letter before 2017 draft have come true.

Ahead of the 2017 NFL Draft, SB Nation listed what it saw as the top four quarterbacks available to teams. In order, they were Deshaun Watson, Mitchell Trubisky, DeShone Kizer and Patrick Mahomes.

The Arizona Republic asked readers to vote on the best quarterback in the draft that year and didn’t even include Mahomes as an option.

VOTE: Who is the best QB in the 2017 #NFLdraft ? (Rankings: https://t.co/VFxZCxGOe0 ) — azcentral sports (@azcsports) February 9, 2017

Mahomes had heard the doubters that spring, so he penned an essay on The Players Tribune, making a case for why teams shouldn’t shy away from drafting him.

Here is an excerpt from what Mahomes wrote seven years ago as he made promises about his future:

“Everything that critics want to knock me on, I know I can fix with hard work. I am not a project quarterback. People who say that aren’t really watching my tape. I know that I can make any throw, especially when my team needs a big play.

“In three years at Texas Tech, I learned a lot about leading an offense. So much of that has to do with earning respect in the locker room. Leaders set an example for others. I don’t expect to walk in and know everything on the first day of training camp, but I am ready to get started on that process. Right away you’ll see the type of player I am and, more important, the type of player I want to be in the huddle.

“I hope the main thing you noticed when you were looking at my college stats was that I improved in every major category each season. That’s what I’m most proud of. I won’t try to predict the future, but I guarantee you that if there’s one thing I do know, it’s how to get better.

“And I know that if I want to walk in and make an immediate impact, my mindset has to be that I have to continue to improve every day, every practice, every snap. I’m determined to do that.

“I will not whine or complain during the process. I won’t be a distraction, on or off the field.

“I will put in the hours to master your playbook. I won’t stop until I get everything right, down to the smallest detail.

“I may make mistakes along the way. And I won’t win every single game I play during my career. I won’t retire with a perfect passer rating or zero career interceptions. But I’ll try as hard as anybody.”

Those words have proved to be true.

The Chiefs traded up for Mahomes and took him with the 10th overall pick. For nearly his entire rookie season, Mahomes sat behind Alex Smith, kept quiet and learned the playbook. Mahomes was never a distraction.

Since Mahomes has become the Chiefs’ starter, they have won three Super Bowls, four AFC Championships and six AFC West titles. Teammates have raved about his leadership skills .

Mahomes wrapped up his essay with this thought, which we now know was on the mark.

“I’m ready to start the journey to a championship,” Mahomes wrote. “And, more than anything else in the world, I’m ready to suit up and play some football. The sooner we can get to it, the better.

“Just wait until you see me in the huddle.”

Related stories from Kansas City Star

Patrick mahomes is influencing the nfl draft narrative for all the wrong reasons, kansas city royals open to patrick mahomes’ idea of joining them at spring training.

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Man Sets Himself on Fire Near Courthouse Where Trump Is on Trial

Onlookers screamed as fire engulfed the man, who had thrown pamphlets in the air before he set himself aflame. He was taken to a hospital and died hours later.

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By Nate Schweber and Matthew Haag

• April 19, 2024

A man set himself on fire on Friday afternoon near the Lower Manhattan courthouse where jurors were being chosen for the criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump.

The man, who had lingered outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse earlier this week, doused himself with accelerant at around 1:35 p.m. in Collect Pond Park, across the street from the building. Onlookers screamed and started to run, and soon, bright orange flames engulfed the man. He threw leaflets espousing anti-government conspiracy theories into the air before setting himself on fire.

People rushed and tried to put out the flames, but the intensity of the heat could be felt from some distance.

After a minute or two, dozens of police officers arrived, running around and climbing over barricades to extinguish the blaze. The man was loaded into an ambulance and rushed to a hospital burn unit. He died on Friday night.

The New York Times

City officials identified the man as Max Azzarello, 37, of St. Augustine, Fla. Mr. Azzarello had appeared outside the courthouse on Thursday, holding a sign displaying the address of a website where the same pamphlets were uploaded. The top post of the website says, “I have set myself on fire outside the Trump Trial.”

Mr. Azzarello walked around Lower Manhattan earlier in the week, holding a sign on Wednesday critical of New York University at Washington Square Park before moving on Thursday to Collect Pond Park.

At the park on Thursday, Mr. Azzarello had held up various signs and at one point shouted toward a group of reporters gathered there, “Biggest scoop of your life or your money back!” One of his signs claimed that Mr. Trump and President Biden were “about to fascist coup us.”

In an interview that day, he said his critical views of the American government were shaped by his research into Peter Thiel, the technology billionaire and political provocateur who is a major campaign donor, and into cryptocurrency.

Mr. Azzarello said he had relocated from Washington Square Park because with the cold weather, he thought more people would be outside the courthouse.

“Trump’s in on it,” Mr. Azzarello said on Thursday. “It’s a secret kleptocracy, and it can only lead to an apocalyptic fascist coup.”

Mr. Azzarello arrived in New York City sometime after April 13, the police said, and his family in St. Augustine did not know about his whereabouts until after the incident. While Mr. Azzarello was recently in Florida, he had connections to the New York City area and worked for Representative Tom Suozzi during his 2013 campaign for Nassau County executive on Long Island.

A man at a Brooklyn address associated with a possible relative of Mr. Azarello’s declined to comment on Thursday.

Over the past year, however, Mr. Azzarello’s behavior appeared to become more erratic. He was arrested three times in 2023 on misdemeanor charges in Florida, and he posted online in August that he had just spent three days in a psychiatric hospital.

Later that month, while dining at the Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine, he threw a glass of wine at a framed autograph of former President Bill Clinton. He showed up to the hotel again, two days later on Aug. 21, stripped to his underwear and shouted profanities at guests while blasting music from a speaker.

Three days later, police arrested him for defacing and breaking signs belonging to several businesses. He took a pest control sign from the yard of one business that had warned passers-by to keep children and pets away for their safety. In comments to the police, he said that “the pest control company was there to exterminate children and dogs.”

His mug shot shows Mr. Azzarello sticking his tongue out.

In addition to his website, Mr. Azzarello was also active on social media, promoting anti-government literature on Instagram. Most of his online posts before the spring of 2022 were of his travels and his family, and he noted that his mother died in April 2022 from complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

About a year later, he posted a photo of what appeared to be his Covid-19 vaccination card — defaced with the words “Super Ponzi” and the symbol for Bitcoin.

People who witnessed the fire said they were in disbelief as they saw Mr. Azzarello, who was in an area of the park reserved for supporters of Mr. Trump, toss the pamphlets into the air and then flames shoot toward the sky. Mr. Azzarello, who was wearing jeans and dark gray T-shirt, fell to the ground amid the fire.

Some of the pamphlets referred to New York University as a “mob front” and also mentioned former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Al Gore and the lawyer David Boies, who represented Mr. Gore in the 2000 presidential election recount. Another pamphlet contained anti-government conspiracy theories, though they did not point in a discernible political direction.

Most officers who responded to the fire on Thursday ran from the direction of the courthouse, which is a couple of hundred feet across the street; some struggled to immediately reach Mr. Azzarello because of steel barricades in the park.

Al Baker, a spokesman for the court system, said the trial schedule would not be affected, though one court officer had been taken to hospital because of the effects of smoke inhalation.

Fred Gates, 60, said he had been riding his bike through the park when he stopped to watch the Trump supporters and saw Mr. Azzarello getting ready to light himself on fire. Mr. Gates said he thought it was a prank or a performance until he saw the flames.

Another witness, Gideon Oliver, a civil rights lawyer, said he saw smoke rising from the park and a court officer rushing from a building carrying a fire extinguisher.

“When I saw and smelled the smoke I thought someone, I assumed one of the pro-Trump protesters, had lit a fire in the park,” Mr. Oliver said. “When I saw police and court officers running, I then thought it might have been a bomb.”

Mr. Azzarello stood tall as he poured the accelerant on himself and then held a flame at chest level. As people nearest him fled, others cried out as they realized what he was about to do.

Screams and shouts — though not from him — filled the air as the flames consumed him and he slowly collapsed.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, you can call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

Wesley Parnell , Alan Feuer , Chelsia Rose Marcius , Jan Ransom , Maria Cramer , Stefanos Chen , Nicholas Fandos and Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.

Matthew Haag writes about the intersection of real estate and politics in the New York region. He has been a journalist for two decades. More about Matthew Haag

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