Authenticity is generally believed to play an important role in our daily lives. Empirical research thus far has made progress in understanding the nature of this important construct. We identify four broad conclusions about authenticity based on this research: (a) People value authenticity in their own behavior and other domains (e.g., life experiences, consumer products), (b) Self-reports of personal authenticity are linked to psychological well-being, (c) People generally believe authentic, or “true,” selves are morally good, and (d) Authenticity judgments are guided by cognitive tendencies related to psychological essentialism. Despite this progress, many basic questions about authenticity remain unresolved including (a) What is the best way to define the construct? (b) Why do people care so much about whether something or someone is authentic? and (c) Why is personal authenticity so strongly related to psychological well-being? This special issue presents articles aimed to shed light on some of these basic questions. Although each of the articles offers a unique perspective to understanding authenticity, these collections of articles provide a generative framework to help researchers continue to explore this elusive construct.

中文翻译：

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特刊简介：真实性：对有价值但难以捉摸的概念的新颖见解

人们普遍认为，真实性在我们的日常生活中起着重要的作用。迄今为止，实证研究已经在理解这一重要结构的本质方面取得了进展。根据这项研究，我们确定了关于真实性的四个概括性结论：（a）人们在自己的行为和其他领域（例如生活经验，消费产品）中重视真实性，（b）个人真实性的自我报告与心理健康相关。 （c）人们通常相信真实或“真实”的自我在道德上是好的，并且（d）真实性的判断是基于与心理本质主义有关的认知倾向的。尽管取得了这一进展，关于真实性的许多基本问题仍未解决，其中包括：（a）定义构造的最佳方法是什么？（b）为什么人们那么在乎某物或某人是否真实？（c）为什么个人真实性与心理健康如此紧密相关？本期特刊提供旨在阐明其中一些基本问题的文章。尽管每篇文章都为理解真实性提供了独特的视角，但这些文章集提供了一个生成框架，可帮助研究人员继续探索这种难以捉摸的结构。