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Original article

Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in

predicting well-being: A mixed method approach
Distinction entre authenticité et constance de personnalité dans la prévision du
bien-être : une approche de méthode mixte
A. Sutton
School of Psychology, The University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Introduction. – The relationship between role personality consistency and well-being is somewhat
Received 6 April 2017 ambiguous, with past research relying on methods confounded by social desirability or role stereotypes,
Received in revised form 14 May 2018 or conflating consistency with authenticity.
Accepted 1st June 2018
Objective. – This study uses a robust mixed method approach to establish the distinct impacts of authen-
ticity and personality consistency on well-being.
Keywords: Method. – In the quantitative phase, 191 participants completed questionnaires assessing contextualised
Authenticity
personality, well-being and authenticity. In the subsequent qualitative phase, a stratified sample of 22
Contextual personality
Well-being
participants completed a series of six open-ended reflective questions.
Mixed methods Results. – Findings demonstrated significant work-home personality differences at the individual, but
not group, level and revealed that authenticity, but not personality consistency, predicted well-being.
Thematic analysis demonstrated that authenticity was understood as acting in line with personal values
rather than demonstrating behavioural consistency across situations. In addition, while both personal-
ity differentiation and inauthenticity were seen as functional, their associations with well-being were
substantially different: differentiation was associated with both positive and negative feelings and inter-
pretations, while authenticity was exclusively a positive experience.
Conclusion. – Authenticity, not personality consistency, is the key contributing factor to well-being. People
who feel authentic, regardless of the extent of their contextual personality differentiation, are less stressed
and more satisfied.
© 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

r é s u m é

Mots clés : Introduction. – Le rapport entre constance de personnalité et bien-être recèle une certaine part
Authenticité d’ambiguïté, avec des recherches passées s’appuyant sur des méthodes faussées par des biais de désir-
Personnalité contextuelle abilité sociale ou de rôle ou confondant constance avec authenticité.
Bien-être Objectif. – La présente étude fait appel à une approche de méthode mixte solide pour déterminer les
Méthodes mixtes
impacts distincts de l’authenticité et de la constance de personnalité sur le bien-être.
Méthode. – Lors de la phase quantitative, 191 participants ont rempli des questionnaires évaluant la
personnalité contextualisée, le bien-être et l’authenticité. Lors de la phase qualitative ultérieure, un
échantillon stratifié de 22 participants a répondu à une série de six questions réflexives ouvertes.
Résultats. – On relève d’importantes différences entre la personnalité au travail et celle à la maison et on
montre que l’authenticité, et non la constance de personnalité, permettait de prévoir le bien-être. Une
analyse thématique a fait apparaître que l’authenticité était perçue comme agissant en conformité avec
les valeurs personnelles plutôt que démontrant une constance de comportement au travers de situations.

E-mail address: anna.sutton@waikato.ac.nz

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
1162-9088/© 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
G Model
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2 A. Sutton / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée xxx (2018) xxx–xxx

De plus, alors que la différenciation de personnalité et l’inauthenticité étaient perçues comme fonction-
nelles, leurs associations avec le bien-être étaient substantiellement différentes : la différenciation était
associée à des sentiments et à des interprétations à la fois positifs et négatifs alors que l’authenticité était
exclusivement une expérience positive.
Conclusion. – L’authenticité, et non la constance de personnalité, est le facteur-clé déterminant du
bien-être. Les personnes possédant un sentiment d’authenticité, quelle que soit l’importance de leur
différenciation de personnalité contextuelle, sont moins stressées et plus satisfaites.
© 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. Tous droits réservés.

Well-being is an increasingly central component of psycho-
logical, medical, economic and interdisciplinary research (Linton,
Dieppe, & Medina-Lara, 2016). While both authenticity and per-
sonality consistency have been shown to influence well-being, the
research on this relationship is somewhat contradictory. Consis-
tency in personality traits across situations has shown positive
relationships with well-being (Bleidorn & Ködding, 2013), but
including moderators or correcting for methodological flaws in the
measurement of personality consistency reduces or even reverses
this relationship (Baird, Le, & Lucas, 2006). In addition, while per-
sonality inconsistency is often associated with lower well-being
and even considered pathological (see for example, Baird et al.,
2006), there is also clear evidence that ‘normal’ personality can
and does change without negative impacts on individuals: whether
in different contexts or throughout adult life (Roberts, Walton,
& Viechtbauer, 2006; Scollon & Diener, 2006). Authenticity also
appears to be positively associated with well-being (Kernis &
Goldman, 2006) but the evidence here too is somewhat opaque
due to the frequent conflation of authenticity measures with per-
sonality consistency. When defined as a subjective feeling of being
true to oneself, authenticity can in fact be a source of personality
change (Sheldon, Ryan, Rawsthorne, & Ilardi, 1997).
This paper attempts to refine our understanding of these
concepts using a robust and integrated multi-method approach,
in order to more accurately identify the relationships between
authenticity, personality consistency and well-being. First, this
paper discusses the concept of authenticity and demonstrates its
relevance to well-being. Next, personality consistency is defined,
distinguishing it from authenticity and evaluating its relationship
with well-being. Here, the utility of social roles as a means for
capturing personality (in)consistency is explored. Finally, some
significant methodological challenges in the study of contextual
personality and authenticity are noted. The two phase, mixed
method study reported in this paper attempts to overcome these
challenges, providing a more robust foundation for establishing
the relationship between authenticity, personality consistency and
well-being than has hitherto been possible.
Authenticity is a complex concept, which has its origins in philo-
sophical considerations of what it means to be human (Kernis
& Goldman, 2006). Providing a concise historical review of the
authenticity concept, Kernis and Goldman (2006) argue for a
conceptualisation of authenticity as including awareness, unbi-
ased processing, behaviour and relationship orientation. Measured
using this approach, authenticity has been shown to be related
to reduced defensiveness, improved coping, better self-concept,
better social role functioning and pursuit of goals, and increased
well-being. Wood, Linley, Maltby, Baliousis and Joseph (2008)
argue for an alternative approach in their model of authentic-
ity, which is based in Rogers’ person-centred psychology and
consists of three elements: lack of self-alienation (a sense of
identity that is consistent with underlying beliefs and values),
living authentically (behaving in line with this identity) and
resisting external influence when it contradicts these beliefs and
identity.
Despite these distinctions in definition, the positive relationship
between authenticity and well-being appears to be robust across
different models and measures (Kernis & Goldman, 2006; Lenton,
Slabu, & Sedikides, 2016; Sheldon et al., 1997; Wood et al., 2008).
Authenticity is also positively related to psychological adjustment.
For example, it is negatively correlated with verbal defensiveness,
perhaps because it indicates a greater tendency or willingness
to engage with self-relevant information in an open and non-
defensive manner (Lakey, Kernis, Heppner, & Lance, 2008). In this
paper, Sheldon et al.’s (1997) simple definition of authenticity as
‘being true to oneself’ is adopted.
Unfortunately, authenticity is sometimes conflated with the
concept of personality consistency, based on the assumption that
higher consistency across situations indicates a higher level of indi-
vidual authenticity. Sheldon et al. (1997) noted this potential for
confusion. Does being true to oneself involve striving for consis-
tency in personality or does the struggle for self-expression in
different contexts mean that inconsistency is more appropriate as
a sign of authentic behaviour? Their view was that felt authentic-
ity can be an underlying source of personality differentiation and
their research demonstrated that well-being was positively related
to authenticity and personality consistency as well as low inter-role
conflict.
Personality consistency is often highly valued in our society, as
seen for example in the axiomatic belief in trait theories that con-
sistency across situations is personality. If personality is defined
as patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviour that are consis-
tent across situations, as in the trait approach (e.g. McCrae & Costa,
1990), then flexibility in these patterns is seen as error, a threat
to the construct of personality or even pathology. An alternative
view is to see that very situational variability as an indication of
a hidden, but deeper underlying organisation of the personality
system (Shoda & Mischel, 2000): a sign that the way personality
is structured includes adaptation to different situations. Changes
in personality across the lifespan also indicate the importance of
individual interactions with the environment rather than simply a
general maturation process (Scollon & Diener, 2006).
There is substantial evidence for inconsistency or differentia-
tion in personality across different situations and social roles, of
which ‘work’ and ‘home’ are identifiable examples. One of the most
consistent findings is significantly higher levels of conscientious-
ness in the work role than other roles (Donahue & Harary, 1998;
Daniel Heller, Ferris, Brown, & Watson, 2009a; Sheldon et al., 1997)
though other trait differences tend to vary. For example, Heller et al.
(2009a) reported that people were less extraverted at work than
home while Donahue and Harary (1998) found that extraversion
was higher in the work role than roles such as spouse or child but
lower than in friend or sibling roles.
This variability in personality can only be understood if we
can elucidate the when and why of personality differentiation.
There were early calls for such a contextualised understanding of
the Big Five traits (Van Heck, Perugini, Caprara, & Fröger, 1994)
as a detailed and comprehensive understanding of personality
necessitates a knowledge of both stability and dynamism in the

Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
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personality/situation/behaviour system (Bleidorn, 2009). Social
roles provide a summary of the perceived situation (Bleidorn,
2009): they capture the expectations, constraints and affordances
for behaviour and are a way of operationalising contextualised
personality. They are relevant to understanding the influence of
traits on behaviour for two reasons. First, a social role represents
a group of situations with shared expectations and behavioural
patterns. There is strong evidence that people perceive differ-
ent situations as having different affordances for trait-relevant
behaviours (Church, Katigbak, & del Prado, 2010), i.e. certain
situations allow greater expression of a trait than others. For
example, a high level of extraversion will be more easily expressed
in a group situation than when the person is alone.
Second, social roles offer behavioural guidance: that is, there are
rewards for conforming to the social expectations. An individual’s
goals are essential in understanding behaviour as they direct and
influence behaviour. This recognises an agentic view of individuals:
we do not simply passively express certain traits in responding to
situations, but actively engage in behaviours designed to achieve
specific desired outcomes. Goal-directed behaviour is central to
a concept of personality that allows for and recognises change
(Hennecke, Bleidorn, Denissen, & Wood, 2014). This active view
of the individual is just as important in contextualised personality
research as it is in generalised personality research. According to
Dunlop (2015), individuals should be viewed as actors, agents and
authors who actively construct contextualised personalities.
Contextualised personality, therefore, provides a promising
avenue of research in understanding the complexities of person-
ality change and stability and how they may relate to well-being
for three reasons:
• the social role can be viewed as a class of situation;
• contextualised personality is closer to the contextualised goals
that are a key component of agentic behaviour;
• individual differences are an important source of understanding
personality that is distinct from general maturation processes.
We now turn to consider the relationship of personality consis-
tency with well-being and the critical role of measurement method
in determining how these relationships are conceptualised.
In their meta-analysis of personality differentiation and psycho-
logical adjustment, Bleidorn and Ködding (2013) note that there are
two opposing suggestions for the role of differentiation in psycho-
logical adjustment. The first claims that flexibility and adaptation
is beneficial to the individual and that the ability to adapt or modu-
late behaviour is a sign of maturity and psychological adjustment.
The competing view sees differentiation as a sign of a divided self
or fragmentation and consistency rather than flexibility is a sign of
maturity and adjustment. Their meta-analysis showed a negative
correlation between personality differentiation and psychological
adjustment, thus providing support for the second view. This would
indicate a fairly solid, replicable finding, yet when culture was
included as moderator, the relationship between differentiation
and psychological adjustment reduced significantly for collectivist
cultures.
The apparently clear link between personality differentiation
and reduced well-being is further called into question by Dunlop
(2015), who notes serious methodological in replications. These
flaws were demonstrated convincingly by Baird et al. (2006) who
showed that when mean-level variance in the measures was cor-
rected for, variability in personality was unrelated to well-being or
even slightly positively related. Following this up with an expe-
rience sampling method, they again found that mean levels of
personality traits were responsible for the negative association
between variability and well-being and that when this was cor-
rected for, the relationship reduced.
Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
3
In fact, much of the research on contextual personality uses an
approach epitomised by Sheldon et al. (1997), whereby participants
(usually undergraduate students) fill in personality questionnaires
for several roles at the same time. These roles are given general
names such as ‘student’, ‘friend’ and ‘employee’ and personality
differentiation is measured as the average correlation between per-
sonality trait ratings in different roles. The only elicitation of the
social role therefore is in the instructions given to the respondents
as they complete essentially the same measure several times in
a row. Respondents may well try to appear more consistent (in
line with the consistency equals psychological maturity hypothe-
sis) or more flexible across situations (to demonstrate their ability
to adapt to different situations). This approach is further flawed in
that it cannot control for social desirability effects.
There is a clear need for research in contextual personality,
authenticity and well-being to use more robust methods and this
study aims to meet that need in two ways. First, by measuring con-
textual personality while respondents are actually occupying the
relevant role (stronger elicitation of the role) and second, by adopt-
ing a mixed method approach which can evaluate both general
trends and individual experiences.
A further methodological issue concerns the extent to which
direct comparisons between contextual personality scores can be
made. Comparisons are complicated by the fact that it is a common
approach to distinguish between several different out-of-work
roles such as friend, child, romantic partner or parent, yet to con-
ceptualise ‘work’ as a single role. It could be argued that there are
as many work as non-work roles, for example, colleague, boss, sub-
ordinate, work friend or client-facing roles and that not specifying
work roles at the same level makes comparisons with the finer-
grained non-work roles misleading. For the sake of consistency in
comparison in this study, therefore, only two ‘meso-level’ roles are
used: work and home. There is evidence that this distinction in role
is understood by respondents and requires little further explana-
tion to them (Daniel Heller, Perunovic, & Reichman, 2009b) and it
provides a level of analysis that is more detailed than macro-level
general personality while still maintaining an approach which is
parsimonious and not overly-arduous for respondents (Fig. 1).
Overall then, this paper seeks to evaluate individual experiences
of authenticity and personality differentiation and their impact on
well-being, using robust and innovative methods to address some
of the challenges identified in previous research. This framework
is represented visually in Fig. 1. It uses a two phase mixed method,
longitudinal approach with respondents in full-time employment
within the contexts of ‘work’ and ‘home’ roles.
1. Method
This research uses a mixed method approach. There are fre-
quent calls for applied research to use mixed methods designs in
order to provide depth of understanding and increased general-
isability of findings (e.g. Biron, Karanika-Murray, & Cooper, 2012)
and mixed methods can prove particularly valuable in research on
complex, contextualised phenomena such as personality and self-
awareness (Sutton, Williams, & Allinson, 2015). As a true mixed
method study, the two phases of research reported here were intri-
cately interconnected, rather than representing two independent
studies on related topics. The two phases were designed to provide
generalisable nomothetic conclusions in tandem with an individ-
ualised, in-depth understanding of the concepts’ impacts in lived
experience.
Accordingly, a first phase of quantitative research was designed
to determine the extent to which individuals differentiate between
work and home personality, the relation between differentiation
and felt authenticity, and the impact of both on well-being. A
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Fig. 1. Conceptual framework.
quantitative approach was considered to be best suited to evaluat-
ing these relations for three reasons. First, it is important that the
findings from previous quantitative studies can be directly com-
pared to a study using more robust methods of eliciting contextual
personality. Second, a quantitative approach allows the develop-
ment of generalizable relations between the variables. And third,
the quantitative approach enables the researcher to identify and
test precisely defined relationships between variables of interest.
The first phase was followed up with a second longitudinal,
qualitative phase, which addressed the detailed, day-to-day expe-
rience of workers managing the affordances and expectations of
the two contexts. This second qualitative phase was carefully built
on the first by using a stratified subsample from the first phase
and the construction of prompt questions to further explore the
findings and implications of the first study. A qualitative approach
was chosen for this second phase in order to provide an in-depth,
richer account of authenticity and personality differentiation as
experienced by full-time workers, providing a more complex,
contextualised understanding of the concepts of interest. Fig. 2 pro-
vides a visual representation of the research design and samples at
each stage.
1.1. Phase 1
1.1.1. Sample
Participants in full time employment (defined as 37.5 hours a
week or more) were recruited through adverts in professional body
newsletters (e.g. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Develop-
ment), the researcher’s personal contacts, Linkedin, and word of
mouth. In return for their time, participants were offered a small
Amazon voucher and individualised feedback on their personality
questionnaire. Volunteers made initial contact with the researcher
by providing demographic data including a work and home email
address, job title, current employer and working hours per week.
This was used to verify respondents and exclude any who did not
meet the requirements of the study. Two hundred and thirteen par-
ticipants completed the first questionnaire, with 191 going on to
complete the second. The analyses reported here are based on par-
ticipants who provided a complete data set. Mean age was 36.8
years (SD = 10.5), 69% of the sample were female and mean job
tenure was 4.49 (SD = 5).
1.1.2. Procedure
Participants were randomly allocated to two groups. The first
group completed a series of online questionnaires contextualised
for work and then, after a delay of two weeks, completed the same
series contextualised for home. This was reversed for the second
group, who completed the home questionnaire first and the work
questionnaire second, ensuring that administration was counter-
balanced across the sample to combat order effects. The two week
delay is common in psychometric studies establishing test-retest
Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
reliability (Furr & Bacharach, 2013) and considered effective in mit-
igating against memory effects.
A unique link to online questionnaires (hosted on Surveymon-
key) was emailed to each participant. To ensure, as far as possible,
that participants completed the questionnaire while in the appro-
priate context, the following steps were taken:
• participants provided both a work and a home email address.
The work-context questionnaire was sent to the work email
address and the home-context questionnaire emailed to the
home address;
• the emailed invitation as well as the introduction to the online
questionnaire stated that participants should only complete the
survey while in the appropriate context (i.e. work or home);
• invitations and reminders were emailed at times which would be
most likely to reach participants while they were in the appropri-
ate work or home context. That is, work-context emails arrived
during the working week and home-context emails on Friday
evenings.
1.1.3. Measures
Demographic information including working hours, job tenure,
sex and age was collected, along with the following scales.
Personality was evaluated using the IPIP 50-item Big Five per-
sonality inventory (IPIP, 2001) with 10 items per trait and a 5-point
Likert-type response scale. Psychometric properties of this measure
are good, including reported alphas for each trait > 0.75 and robust
and replicable factor structure (Buchanan, Johnson, & Goldberg,
2005). Scores were calculated as a mean for each trait across all
10 items.
Three different measures were created from this inventory. First,
work and home role personality trait scores were calculated. Sec-
ond, differentiation scores were calculated for each individual using
the absolute difference between the trait scores for each role (i.e.
the magnitude of the difference in trait scores regardless of the
direction of the difference). Third, an overall personality differen-
tiation score was calculated for each participant from the mean of
these five differentiation scores. This overall differentiation score
was used for the stratified sampling of participants for the second
phase of the research, which is described in phase two.
Negative well-being was assessed using the 4 item Perceived
Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983, reported
alpha > 0.8) which asks participants about their thoughts and feel-
ings over the past month. Example item: in the last month, how
often have you felt that you were unable to control the important
things in your life? Responses are made on a five point scale from
1 (never) to 5 (very often) and reverse scored where necessary so
that a higher score indicates greater stress. Scores were calculated
for the work role and home role as well as an overall mean for each
participant.
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Fig. 2. Summary of research design and samples.

Positive well-being was measured using two questions on sat-
isfaction with and preference for the role, based on Sheldon et al.
(1997) and contextualised as appropriate: how satisfied are you
with your work/home life as a whole? and would you prefer to
spend more or less time in your work/home role. Responses were
made on a 7-point scale with higher scores indicating greater sat-
isfaction and preference for the role. Scores were calculated for
the work role and home role as well as an overall mean for each
participant.
Authenticity was measured using the Sheldon et al. (1997)
authenticity scale, which evaluates participants’ feelings of authen-
ticity within each role. It consists of 5 items (e.g. I have freely chosen
this way of being) scored on a 7 point scale from 1 (strongly dis-
agree) to 7 (strongly agree), with a reported alpha > 0.7. Scores were
calculated from this scale in two ways: a role authenticity score was
calculated for each role using the mean of the 5 items and an overall
self-integration score from the mean of the two role authenticity
scores.
1.2.1. Sample
In order to more clearly identify and explore participants’ expe-
rience of authenticity and personality differentiation, a stratified
sampling technique was employed which allowed the selection
of 12 participants from each of 4 different ‘strata’ representing
the most extreme (high or low) scores on the two scales of self-
integration and personality differentiation. If participants’ scores
made them eligible for membership of more than one subgroup
(e.g. high self-integration and low personality differentiation), they
were allocated to the subgroup based on their most extreme score.
This was only the case for three respondents.
The final sample consisted therefore of four subgroups of 12
participants each: low self-integration (M = 3.32, SD = .48), high
self-integration (M = 6.61, SD = .21), low personality differentia-
tion (M = .70, SD = .1) and high personality differentiation (M = 4.1,
SD = .31). Mean age was 36.8 years (SD = 9.7) and 70% of the sample
were female. Respondents had a mean tenure of 4 years in their
current jobs (SD = 4.6).

1.2. Phase 2
The second part of the study was designed to provide a
detailed, in-depth understanding of the personal experiences and
implications of authenticity and personality differentiation, par-
ticularly within the work context, which built on the findings
from the first phase. It used a longitudinal, diary-type approach
where respondents gave written discussions in response to open-
ended questions. This longitudinal approach enabled participants
to develop their reflections over time and providing further depth
than a single data collection point would allow.
1.2.2. Procedure
Respondents completed a series of six open-ended reflective
questions in an online questionnaire, one per week, as shown
in Table 1. The questionnaire consisted of a front page, which
explained the purpose of the study along with assurances of confi-
dentiality and anonymity for both the respondents and any others
they might mention in their responses and a second page contain-
ing the prompt question and a free response text box. A reminder
email was sent three days after the original invitation for each week
and participants were able to ‘unsubscribe’ or withdraw from the

Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
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Table 1
Weekly questions.
Week Topic Prompt question
1 Personality The title of this research project is “Work
differentiation and Home Personality”. How different do
you personally feel you are in the two
different contexts? Is this how you would
ideally like to be? Why or why not?
2 Experience of We all take on different roles in our normal
inauthenticity lives, whether at work, with friends or
family. Sometimes this can mean “playing
a part” or acting in a way that suits the
situation rather than a way that feels like
the “real you”. Can you think of a time you
did this at work?
3 Experience of In the last questionnaire, we asked you to
authenticity write about a time when you behaved in a
way that seemed to suit your work role but
was not necessarily your “natural” or
preferred way of doing things. This time,
we would like you to think of a time when
you felt able to really “be yourself” at work
and were not just taking on a role
4 Efforts towards In the last couple of questions, we were
self-integration talking about what it’s like to play a role or
at work to behave in a way that feels more “you”.
This week, we’d like you to think about
how important it is to you to “be yourself”
at work
a) Some people want their work to be an
extension of who they are, while others see
work as just something they do and are
happy to behave in whatever way suits the
situation best. How do you personally view
your work? How important is it to you to
“be yourself” at work?
b) And finally for this week, what does it
mean to you to “be yourself” at work? Is it
just about how you behave, or is there
more to it?
5 Authenticity in Over the past few weeks you’ve been
work reflecting on how you behave in different
relationships roles and what kind of impact this might
have on you and your work. This week,
we’re asking you to think specifically about
your relationships with people at work.
These people could be colleagues,
managers and customers/clients
Please consider the following questions:
How authentic do you feel in your
relationships at work? (By authentic we
mean: able to be yourself, honest with
others about who you are and how you
feel)
Do you think this level of authenticity in
your work relationships is about right for
you or would you prefer more or less?
Have you had any positive experiences as a
result of being honest and open about
whom you are with people at work? Have
you experienced any drawbacks or
negative results?
6 Reflection on Having been thinking about your home
the process and work personality over the last several
weeks, to what extent do you think they
are different now? Have you noticed any
changes?
Is this how you would ideally like to be?
Why?
study at any time. Participants were offered an additional Amazon
voucher for completing phase 2 of the study.
In week 2 and 3, participants were guided through a critical inci-
dent technique reflection (CIT) (Flanagan, 1954) using additional
prompts. Originally developed within the organisational psychol-
ogy literature as a means for gaining a detailed description of an
Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
activity, it has since developed into a useful technique for examin-
ing psychological experiences, especially retrospective self-report
and reflections (Butterfield, Borgen, Amundson, & Maglio, 2005).
Remaining within an organisational psychology context and in line
with these more recent developments in its use, CIT is used in this
study primarily as a data collection tool to encourage participants to
recall incidents in a structured and comprehensive manner, rather
than the combined collection and analysis approach first proposed
by Flanagan.
Of the original sample, 22 participants completed all 6 question-
naires and in total 159 individual responses were collected across
the 6-week period. Responses were analysed using thematic anal-
ysis. Although some have suggested that thematic analysis is a tool
to be used across or within different qualitative analysis methods,
there is strong argument for it being an analytical method in its
own right which has the advantages of flexibility, theoretical free-
dom and accessibility (Braun & Clarke, 2006). These advantages
make thematic analysis well suited to the current realist mixed
method study, allowing the researcher to reflect and report on
the experiences, meanings and reality of the participants and pro-
viding greater richness and detail to contextualise and extend the
statistical analysis.
1.2.3. Analysis
Inductive thematic analysis was undertaken on the text
responses from each week by the author and a research assistant,
following the general steps outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006).
After familiarisation with the data (step 1) by both researchers, ini-
tial coding and searching for themes (step 2 and 3) was conducted
by the research assistant aware of the study’s aims but blind to the
participants’ group membership. This was done in order to intro-
duce a level of objectivity into the analysis, attempting to reduce
the influence of preconceived notions about which groups might
have particular views or understandings of the concepts. While
subjectivity is an inherent part of the qualitative approach (and,
it could be argued, any analytical approach), it has been recog-
nised that attempts to increase objectivity in qualitative methods
where possible can increase the credibility of qualitative research
(Jonsen & Jehn, 2009). Step 4 (reviewing themes and generating an
initial thematic map) and 5 (defining and naming themes) were car-
ried out by the author and included comparative analysis by group
membership.
2. Results phase 1 statistical analysis
The statistical analysis of phase 1 is presented first, followed
by the thematic analysis of the longitudinal reflective diary study
of phase 2. Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations and
bivariate correlations for all measures, along with the alpha reliabil-
ities for all scales. All scales showed high reliability (˛ ≥ .75). Within
role, authenticity was positively correlated with the majority of the
contextualised personality traits, the exceptions being agreeable-
ness in the work context and conscientiousness and openness in the
home context. In addition, within each role, higher levels of authen-
ticity were associated with greater satisfaction and preference for
that role as well as lower stress.
2.1. Personality differentiation and authenticity
Work and home personality traits were significantly and
strongly correlated across roles (r = .6 to .7, p < .01), as expected from
an understanding of trait personality as capturing cross-situational
consistency. In order to evaluate whether this consistency exists
alongside role differentiation, paired t-tests were conducted on all
five traits. The only trait to demonstrate a difference across roles
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Table 2
Descriptive, alpha reliabilities (given in brackets on the diagonal) and bivariate correlations for all scales.

Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Work role
Extraversion 3.45 .65 (.83)
Agreeableness 4.15 .54 .356** (.84)
Conscientiousness 3.87 .55 .047 −.024 (.75)
Emotional stability 3.18 .81 .176* −.049 .345** (.89)
Openness 3.74 .52 .333** .092 .012 .060 (.75)
Stress 2.53 .75 −.153* .124 −.206** −.595** −.094 (.76)
Satisfaction 5.12 1.55 .217** .063 .205** .470** .071 −.562**
Preference 2.98 1.23 .011 .008 .175* .298** .052 −.355** .483**
Authenticity 4.92 1.11 .336** .124 .226** .550** .159* −.533** .659** .438** (.79)
Home role
Extraversion 3.48 .65 .658** .260** .102 .157* .138 −.148* .164* −.019 .256**
Agreeableness 4.15 .54 .283** .697** .055 −.013 .137 .065 .055 −.032 .073
Conscientiousness 3.48 .71 .052 −.041 .618** .236** −.132 −.146* .016 .181* .184*
Emotional stability 3.14 .82 .114 .021 .200** .628** .035 −.349** .266** .125 .317**
Openness 3.72 .57 .268** .038 −.081 .068 .718** −.026 −.038 .022 .036
Stress 2.33 .81 −.050 .043 −.130 −.401** .085 .283** −.199** .013 −.173*
Satisfaction 5.60 1.54 .088 .058 .167* .344** −.032 −.161* .163* −.004 .181*
Preference 5.26 1.37 −.009 .015 .061 −.033 −.034 .107 −.084 −.341** −.070
Authenticity 5.55 1.13 .153* .162* .177* .351** .066 −.194** .196** −.032 .263**

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Home role
Extraversion (.83)
Agreeableness .392** (.83)
Conscientiousness .148* .122 (.82)
Emotional Stability .266** .157* .206** (.89)
Openness .173* .187** −.039 .119 (.78)
Stress −.143* .006 −.077 −.617** −.006 (.83)
Satisfaction .192** .141 .069 .474** .013 −.665**
Preference .014 .097 −.052 .121 −.011 −.293** .321**
Authenticity .294** .219** .096 .645** .116 −.723** .642** .376** (.81)

Alpha reliabilities are given in brackets where relevant.

*
Indicates p < .05.
**
Indicates p < .01.

Table 3 Table 4
Differentiation between work and home personality traits (i.e. absolute differences). Regression analyses: predicting overall well-being from self-integration and per-
sonality differentiation.
Mean SD T value (df = 190) Effect size (d)
Stress Satisfaction Preference
Extraversion .41 .35 16.18* 1.17
Agreeableness .32 .27 15.90* 1.19 Model 1
Conscientiousness .53 .45 16.26* 1.18 Self-integration (␤) −.64** .69** .39**
Emotional stability .51 .48 14.79* 1.06 R2 .41** .48** .15**
Openness .30 .28 14.41* 1.07 F 131.21** 174.14** 33.12**
* Model 2
Indicates p < .001.
Self-integration (␤) .69**
Differentiated conscientiousness (␤) .12*
R2 .02*
was conscientiousness, which was significantly higher at work than F 91.82**
home (t190 = 9.39, p < .001, d = .71). *
Indicates p < .05.
These minimal differences in contextual personality scores at **
Indicates p < .001.
the group-level were, however, not reflected in the analysis of indi-
viduals’ absolute differences in trait scores. Differentiation scores
for each trait (i.e. the absolute value of the difference between for the emotional stability trait, with differentiation in this trait
home and work traits for each individual) were tested against a positively correlated with self-integration (r = −.16, p < .05). This
null hypothesis of zero difference using a one-sample t-test. Highly indicates that while authenticity is unrelated to the degree of
significant differences were revealed (Table 3), all with large effect differentiation in the majority of the Big Five traits, those with
sizes (d > 1.0). greater levels of similarity in their work and home emotional
Participants’ role authenticity scores were significantly pos- stability also feel a greater sense of self-integration.
itively correlated (r = .26, p < .01), demonstrating that people
reporting high levels of authenticity in one context also felt they 2.2. Effects on well-being
were being authentic in the other. It should be noted, however that
this correlation is not strong enough to indicate that felt authentic- Work authenticity was positively correlated with satisfaction
ity is independent of the context. There is clearly some variability (r = −.66, p < .01) and preference for the role (r = .44, p < .01) and
in how authentic people feel across different situations. negatively correlated with stress (r = −.53, p < .01). A similar pat-
Differentiation scores were then correlated with self- tern emerged for the home role, with satisfaction and preference
integration scores (i.e. mean authenticity across the two roles) positively correlated with authenticity (r = .64 and .38 respectively,
to examine the extent to which personality differentiation was p < .01) and stress negatively (r = −.73, p < .01). Overall, authenticity
related to authenticity. A significant correlation was found only in each role was associated with higher well-being in that role.

Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
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To further explore the effect of authenticity and personality
differentiation on overall well-being, multiple linear regression
was conducted. The step-wise entry method was selected as
this enables a comparison to be made between the effect of
self-integration scores (the measure of overall authenticity) on
well-being in Model 1 and the added effect of personality differen-
tiation on well-being in Model 2. Results (Table 4) demonstrate that
self-integration is a major contributor to well-being, predicting 41%
of variance in stress and 48% of variance in satisfaction, as well as
15% of the variance in role preference. Personality differentiation, in
contrast, had limited effect on well-being, with only differentiated
conscientiousness emerging as a significant predictor (accounting
for an extra 2% of variance in satisfaction).
The relationships between personality differentiation, authen-
ticity and well-being were addressed in further detail through
phase 2 of the study and the following qualitative results provide
both context for the quantitative findings and delve further into the
detail of the respondents’ experiences to explore the complexity of
this issue.
3. Results phase 2 thematic analysis
Four main themes were identified from the data and they
are represented with their first- and second-order sub-themes in
Fig. 3. Each of these main themes is described and developed in
the following sections with illustrative quotes and discussed with
reference to comparisons and similarities with the quantitative
results.
3.1. Personality differentiation
3.1.1. Differentiation is a conscious experience
The majority of respondents (20 out of 34) reported that they
felt they had clear differentiation between their work and home
personality. This theme was most common (emerging in 75% of
responses) for the high personality differentiation group, and least
common (25%) for the low personality differentiation group, pro-
viding triangulation support for the findings in the quantitative
analysis: the personality differentiation captured by those scales
represents a consciously felt experience on the part of the respon-
dents. It was also common for both high and low self-integration
groups to report experiencing a differentiation in personality (70%
and 57% respectively), providing further evidence that authenticity
is distinct from personality differentiation.
Four sub-themes were identified within this personality dif-
ferentiation experience. For about two thirds of the respondents,
maintaining a distinction between work and home personality was
reported as being like putting on an act at work, with the ‘real
self’ at home being more natural and in line with participants’ real
interests.

Fig. 3. Data structure and themes.

Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
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At home I feel more true to myself, as I am able to enjoy what
really interests me [. . .] At work, I feel as if I am acting – doing
what is expected of me to fulfil my role, rather than doing what
I would naturally prefer to do (P20).
However, for the remaining respondents, the work or pro-
fessional personality was valued as giving expression to aspects
of themselves that were important and well regarded. People
reported feeling more confident, committed and conscientious at
work than at home, as well as reflecting on their professional per-
sonality as a better version of themselves. These specific comments
reflect the higher level of conscientiousness trait that is the most
robust statistical group-level difference between work and home
personality.
I feel more alert and motivated at work than at home [. . .] I try
to be a better person (P2).
[I am] more confident dealing with people and situations at
work [. . .] more motivated and organised at work [. . .] I will
overcome obstacles to meet work commitments, but not neces-
sarily personal ones (P12).
In these first two sub-themes, a clear contrast was identified
between respondents in the high self-integration group, where per-
sonality differentiation was exclusively seen as putting on an act,
and those in other groups, where there was a mix of experience. This
indicates that those who have a high sense of authenticity may be
creating this work personality more consciously in response to the
requirements and expectations of work, but also recognising that
it does not necessarily reflect what they believe to be their ‘true
self’.
The positive associations with personality differentiation were
captured by the third sub-theme of enjoying duality, where respon-
dents expressed enjoyment of the variety it brought, as well as
the importance they ascribed to maintaining a distinction between
the two arenas. This sub-theme was almost exclusive to the high
personality differentiation group and supports the notion that
personality differentiation or consistency is agentic, goal-directed
behaviour (Dunlop, 2015).
I do like the fact that I am different in/out of work and that not
everything is the same (P3).
. . .I just want to keep the 2 things separate [. . .] To me home
and work are separate, and I like it that way (P14).
The negative side of maintaining differentiated personalities
was captured in the fourth and final sub-theme of personality dif-
ferentiation as a coping mechanism. This may provide an insight
into the interpretation of the findings in the quantitative phase,
where personality differentiation did not make a substantial con-
tribution to stress or well-being. Responses here demonstrate that
personality differentiation did not necessarily cause stress, but
rather was a response to stress or a way of mitigating the impact
of stressful environments. Creating a clearer demarcation between
work and home personality could be a way of dealing with a nega-
tive work environment. Indeed, respondents suggested that lacking
flexibility in personality traits could in itself be a cause of stress.
Sticking by your traits when they don’t really fit with a job is
stressful, self-inflicted stress (P47).
I feel very different when at home compared to when at work.
At home, I would say I am more relaxed and less frustrated. . . .
At work, I don’t feel that what I do is worthwhile, and I have little
time for most of my colleagues. I’m appalled and dismayed by
the waste and inefficiency at work – this has made me feel rather
embittered. . . . I feel I’d be a lot happier if at work I could see
‘light at the end of the tunnel’, and some opportunity for career
progression and job satisfaction. Yes – I’m looking for a new job!
(P19).
Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
9
Again, this sub-theme emphasises personality differentiation as
an agentic process in which individuals engage in an attempt to cre-
ate boundaries for themselves and possibly even maintain a sense
of felt authenticity: work may require traits which are not ‘really
me’, but I am more than just my work personality. Responses here
also raise the important organisational issue that differentiation
can signal severe dissatisfaction and turnover intent.
The relationship between personality differentiation and stress
at work was further detailed where respondents gave their reasons
for modifying their personality. The first factor involved accounts
of the respondents’ previous work experience, which had made
them realise that they needed to behave differently. The second
involved the style and culture of the respondents’ working envi-
ronment, which did not allow them to behave as they would like
to:
It might be a reaction to the 17 years I spent in IT in Financial
Services. It was so stressful I practically burnt myself out. I lived,
breathed, ate work, and it was the only thing I had to talk about
(P14).
. . .my line manager does not share the same values as me. . .[. . .]
to better secure my position in the future of the organisation at a
time of deep financial cuts, tactically I perceive that it would be
useful for me to come more into alignment with her approach
(P15).
This again indicates that individuals engage in personality dif-
ferentiation as a means of reducing stress: providing something
of a buffer to a negative environment or adapting to the require-
ments of the situation in order to reach a later goal (such as career
advancement).
3.1.2. Consistency as essential
A substantial minority of respondents (10 out of 43) reported
that they experienced little if any personality differentiation
between work and home, describing instead an experience of
essential consistency across the two contexts. These responses
were limited to the high self-integration and low personality differ-
entiation group, indicating that when it comes to an experience of
consistency, it is both the felt authenticity and the personality con-
sistency that contribute. An important feature of this sub-theme
was that the respondents felt that consistency was important for
their lives and relationships.
I am happy with how I behave because it helps me get along
well with my work colleagues as well as my family and have a
good relationship with both (P26).
I am fairly similar both at work and at home [. . .] it is important
to reflect your normal personality at work (P37).
3.2. Felt authenticity
3.2.1. Expression of self at work
When considering what it meant to be authentic at work, a num-
ber of respondents said that they view their work as an expression
of who they are. It was important to them to remain authentic
in their working environment as a matter of integrity as well as
personal and psychological stability.
I do view my work as an expression of my personality, of my
being, of who I am [. . .] We spend a lot of time at work so it
seems important to me that it expresses something of who we
are (P47).
I completely see work as an extension of myself. I am here for
longer than I am at home and I think if I had to behave in a
particular way, I would find it really hard (P25).
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In contrast, other respondents noted that their work did not
define who they were and talked about being paid to play a cer-
tain role: they referred to the need to respond to work tasks by
suppressing their true self, as something that needed to be done to
remain professional and earn a living.
Work is the way I earn a living to pay the bills and help you to
enjoy your life. I behave in a way that keeps my job and people
off my back (P6).
I see it as an aspect of who I am not everything I am or something
that defines me (P44).
A prominent sub-theme in discussions of authenticity related
to the tension between recognising the importance of authentic-
ity alongside the restrictions of professionalism, highlighting that
authenticity was not simply about behaving however the individ-
ual wanted but could represent a personally valued yet appropriate
response to the situation.
It is important to be myself as much as possible, situation
permitting, whilst retaining the standards of professionalism
required (P34).
This tension and the primary role of values were emphasised as
respondents argued that authenticity was about more than simply
the way people behave at work. Authenticity was a matter of a
certain mind-set, values and behaving in line with their own morals
and ethics.
There is more to being yourself than just about how you behave
at work. The values/morals you have also play a key part (P3).
To ‘be yourself’ at work [. . .] can well be expressed in the way
you behave, but it is desirable that your values at work corre-
spond to your own personal values (P19).
Participants were guided through a critical incident technique
to describe an experience of being authentic and inauthentic at
work. Respondents described how in certain events at work they
felt forced to play a part and construct a role, which implied a lack
of authenticity in their personality. While there was some cross-
over in how respondents discussed personality differentiation and
authenticity, which can be expected from the layperson unfamil-
iar with the more technical definitions we use here, there was one
distinctive difference: inauthenticity was overwhelmingly experi-
enced negatively and authenticity positively, in contrast with the
more balanced feelings about and experiences of simple personality
differentiation.
3.2.2. Inauthenticity as a functional necessity
Inauthenticity was perceived as a ‘functional necessity’ with
a wide range of negative psychological outcomes, again reinforc-
ing the view that authentic behaviour is goal-driven. Respondents
noted that playing a part like this was generally effective in that
they managed to remain professional and either avoid conflict or
keep other people in their job satisfied, but the associated effects of
behaving inauthentically on the individuals were wide ranging and
generally negative, centred around the sense that they were playing
a part which was unnatural to them. The most common effects were
stress, damaged self-esteem, a sense of discomfort, lower produc-
tivity at work and feeling detached from work. Illustrative quotes
are given below:
It’s effective, up to a point, but not particularly satisfying and
creates its own strain. It’s very tiring (P7).
Leave me feeling stressed at my lack of voice (P15).
I found it incredibly stressful and emotionally exhausting as this
role was a complete opposite to my natural way of being (P28).
It felt very undermining and disempowering [. . .] it felt humil-
iating to play the ‘just be compliant’ role (P15).
Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
It might be wondered why many people behave inauthentically
when they find it such a psychologically difficult process. There
were three main motivations identified in this dataset:
• acting professionally: respondents often reported a sense that
they were expected to display a professional image (consisting
of appearing serious and unemotional) in order to create a good
impression and to effectively manage others at work.
I feel I need to maintain a professional image and cannot show
personal opinions for fear of it affecting the image I portray at
work (P9);
• avoiding conflict: the majority of respondents discussed their
attempts to maintain good working relationships and a harmo-
nious climate.
Acting in this way was most effective for not antagonising
the situation or causing further problems or an uncomfortable
atmosphere (P34);
• keeping the job: some respondents reported the belief that con-
cealing their authentic self was an element of the job and a
concern that there could be negative consequences if they were
to act more authentically.
I felt pressured myself to give the ‘correct’ answer, rather than
create any fuss or upheaval, which could cause more detri-
ment to my role (P13).
It should be noted that the low PD group was unique in
not reporting negative experiences related to inauthenticity at
work, though they still identified reasons why they behaved in
an inauthentic manner. This suggests that the low PD group
may experience these ‘inauthentic’ moments simply as pragmatic
adjustments rather than as an internal tension, and given the sim-
ilarity between their role personalities, are perhaps simply less
likely to experience inauthenticity at work.
The quantitative results indicated a large negative impact of
inauthenticity on well-being, and this was supported by the qual-
itative analysis, which further extends the findings by identifying
the important reasons that people engage in inauthentic behaviour
despite its high costs.
3.2.3. Authenticity as a productive and positive experience
While inauthenticity was a functional but negative experience,
authenticity was identified as both functional and overwhelmingly
positive for the respondents. Being authentic at work contributed to
their work relationships and interactions with different stakehold-
ers, such as colleagues, customers, other staff and even managers.
Respondents argued that being authentic was effective because it
helped them to present a more light-hearted, happy, confident and
productive self and to have better and more effective relationships
at work.
I felt really confident, enthusiastic, involved and invigorated
(P2).
I felt as though I was talking to an old friend rather than a cus-
tomer [. . .] We have a definite rapport going now (P25).
Many respondents expressed a desire for a work environ-
ment where they could be authentically themselves without being
unprofessional. Responses here often recognised that this was a
tricky balance for many organisations and that it might not be easy
to accomplish, but also that it was vitally important to some of the
respondents, even to the extent of being more essential to them
than the type of work or pay they earned.
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The ideal would be a work place that gives us space to be truly
ourselves (P47).
I would prefer a greater level of authenticity at work, and feel
strongly that this being true to oneself is – for me – more impor-
tant than my line of work or remuneration (P20).
Greater authenticity was also perceived as being beneficial to
productivity, supporting stronger, more successful and support-
ive relationships through developing trust and communication.
Respondents believed it contributed to better well-being and sat-
isfaction.
When I am able to be authentic, I find that I can motivate and
inspire others more convincingly. I also find that I can be more
productive myself and that I end up enjoying my working day
more (P20).
3.3. Safety and trust
3.3.1. Pre-requisite for authentic behaviour and workplaces
Respondents distinguished between genuine relationships,
where they felt they could be authentic, and constructed rela-
tionships, which were more guarded. Authentic relationships were
mostly with peers and close colleagues where they felt free from
the fear of being judged and able to express their true feelings. Here,
authenticity can be seen to be in a virtuous circle with trust: it is
based on trust and it builds trust.
With peers/team, colleagues, being myself help to form trusting
relationships as they also tend to be open and honest with me
(P22).
Constructed relationships in contrast were generally with
clients or those at a different level in the organisational hierarchy,
where the respondents’ behaviour was shaped by certain feeling
and display rules like professionalism and respect. For some peo-
ple, this type of guarded relationship was how they experienced
work in general and they preferred to maintain that distance even
from team colleagues.
With the people I manage, I feel that I am not myself and 100%
honest about who I am as I have to maintain professionalism
and respect with them (P9).
The incidents described by participants which allowed them a
greater level of authenticity at work involved incidents of when
they were given more autonomy or tasks they really enjoyed and
feel confident about. A role for autonomy in authenticity has been
demonstrated in a study which noted that the relationship between
social power and authenticity was mediated by personality differ-
entiation (Kraus, Chen, & Keltner, 2011). In addition, there was a
significant role for pleasant interpersonal relations, being with peo-
ple they could trust and communicate well with, in helping them
to reveal their authentic selves.
I worked on a project creating training sessions [. . .] It enabled
me to “play” rather than work [. . .] I had the freedom to laugh
and be silly and allowed to throw out ideas and explore them
(P14).
There are many people I work with who I would consider trusted
colleagues and therefore, I feel able to “be myself” with (P22).
Feelings of safety and security are clearly essential to authentic
behaviour. As demonstrated above, reasons for behaving inauthen-
tically include fear of losing a job and conflict avoidance, while
authentic behaviour is encouraged by trust in relationships.
Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
11
3.3.2. Cautionary tales
Alongside, these optimistic views were a recognition that
authenticity involved a certain level of vulnerability that might
not be appropriate or wanted in the workplace. For example, one
respondent noted how he did not feel he could share anything about
his mental health because it might adversely affect his career:
I can’t admit to my team that I have mental health issues as
they may lose respect for me or think that I cannot do my job
[. . .] I wouldn’t want to jeopardise my career by talking about
anything too personal (P3).
There were also cautionary tales of when respondents felt that
their attempts to be authentic at work had resulted in negative
outcomes.
I’ve had experiences where I’ve confided in someone about how
I’m feeling and they have not respected my privacy. I’ve felt hurt
and disrespected by that, and disinclined to repeat the experi-
ence! (P14).
This recognition of the vulnerability which may be associated
with being authentic emphasises the importance of trust and safety
as prerequisites for an authentic workplace and parallels the recog-
nised issue of vulnerability in attempts to develop self-awareness
found in previous research (Sutton et al., 2015).
3.4. Flexibility vs consistency
The vast majority of respondents expressed a desire to be able
to show their true selves, to be honest about who they were at
work and home. For many, this meant they wished for greater con-
sistency and to be able to be similar in the two contexts, believing
that this would build stronger relationships and bring more positive
results at work.
In an ideal world, I would like to be exactly the same at home
and work (P13).
I think it is important to show your true personality in order to
build more trusting relationships with people at work (P37).
I would ideally like to be honest and true to myself and to my
colleagues and clients. . . Everyone works best when they can
be themselves and it brings out the best in everyone (P39).
This was sometimes expressed as a desire to bridge the gap:
having a consistency of personality in the two contexts where dif-
ferences would not be too large or they could feel and act the same
in the two roles.
I would ideally like to balance the work me and the home me
more so that I am a similar person in both environments (P22).
Some respondents were hoping for or working towards this
more balanced or consistent approach, while others felt they had
already achieved this happy medium:
I believe that the level [of consistency] is fine. It keeps the right
image with my boss and the wider population in the company,
at the same time in my day-to-day work relationships is rea-
sonably authentic and strong (P6).
Others however, rather than expressing a desire for greater
consistency, wished for a greater flexibility, believing this would
reduce the amount of stress they put themselves under and help
them maintain boundaries.
There are considerable rewards in being able to be flexible, ulti-
mately it can be less stressful which is reason enough in itself
but also it can help you to actually be truer to yourself and your
own values, to express who you really are to others, both at work
and at home (P47).
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12 A. Sutton / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée xxx (2018) xxx–xxx
I think there also has to be an element of difference as well. The
roles we perform at work are not the same as the roles we are in
at home, and so we are used to wearing different hats. If there
were no boundaries, I think I would feel rather lost (P25).
With all these responses, the aim seemed to be for respondents
to feel comfortable with whom they were, whether this was in
maintaining their current differentiated or consistent personalities
in different roles, or in attempting to change and bridge the gap.
4. Discussion
This study aimed to develop our understanding of the rela-
tionships between personality differentiation and authenticity in
accounting for well-being, using more robust and innovative meth-
ods than have been used in previous work and drawing on a
sample of full-time employed respondents. The use of a longitudi-
nal diary study enabled the development of respondent reflections
over a six week time period, resulting in deeper qualitative find-
ings than are possible with a single data collection point. The
findings emphasised the unique individual differences in contex-
tualised personality and authenticity that may be hidden in less
robust methodologies, as well as confirming the agentic nature
of personality differentiation and the strong relationship between
authenticity and well-being. The following discussion is organised
around the three themes of the study: personality consistency,
authenticity and well-being.
A common approach in investigating contextualised personality
is to instruct respondents to complete several personality ques-
tionnaires at the same time, each marked for a different context
(Sheldon et al., 1997). In addition, these studies are also often con-
ducted with student samples rather than full-time employees and
Shen et al. (2011); in their review of applied psychology research
encouraged the use of samples, which more closely match the aims
of the research. This study therefore took the more robust approach
of delivering each contextualised personality questionnaire to full-
time employed respondents while they were in the appropriate
context (work or home), including a time gap of two weeks between
completions and analysing results at both group and individual
level.
At the individual level, there were highly significant absolute
differences between work and home personality on all five traits.
This finding emphasises the centrality of the individual’s context in
any consideration of personality consistency or flexibility, further
evidence of the flexible nature of personality even as measured by
traits. It also provides some support for Bleidorn’s (2009) sugges-
tion that social roles can be considered summaries of the situation
as perceived by the individual, enabling researchers to capture
some of the personality-situation interactions in a parsimonious
way.
The findings here also suggest that contextual personality differ-
ences at the individual level effectively cancel out when considered
at the group level: for example, some people are more extraverted
at work than at home, while others are more introverted, resulting
in a null group difference. In fact, the only group-level difference
found in this study was a higher level of conscientiousness in the
work context compared to the home context, which is also the most
consistent finding in previous research (D Heller, Watson, Komar,
Min, & Perunovic, 2007; Sheldon et al., 1997). Other differences
found in previous work failed to replicate when using this more
robust methodology. It seems likely therefore, that previous meth-
ods may have encouraged participants to respond from generally
held stereotypes or schemas rather than capturing true differences.
Felt authenticity is positively correlated across contexts, though
there remains some variability in the levels of authenticity indi-
viduals experience in the work and home contexts. This shows
Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
parallels with Lenton et al.’s (2016) study of state authenticity,
which demonstrated significant changes in feelings of authenticity
across a wide range of different situations. However, authenticity
is still measured as a trait rather than state in the present study,
just as contextual personality is, as participants were responding
based on their perceptions of themselves generally within that role
rather than experience sampling across the day.
There are individual differences in felt authenticity and to some
extent these differences are associated with an individual’s contex-
tual personality. Those who are more extraverted and emotionally
stable within each context report a greater level of authenticity
for that context. In addition, at work, higher conscientiousness and
openness to experience are also associated with higher authentic-
ity; while at home; higher levels of agreeableness are associated
with authenticity. These varying relationships between contextual
personality and authenticity within that role may be interpreted
as providing further evidence that certain contexts may encour-
age the expression of certain traits and that those individuals who
express these traits also feel that they are being authentically them-
selves. For those who do not express these traits as highly, there are
associated feelings of inauthenticity. This again indicates the com-
plexity of the inter-relationships between situation and personality
in determining behaviour.
Authenticity predicted a substantial proportion of well-being,
confirming previous findings (Kernis & Goldman, 2006; Lenton
et al., 2016; Sheldon et al., 1997; Wood et al., 2008), while person-
ality differentiation was generally unrelated (the exception being
conscientiousness which accounted for a small proportion of vari-
ance in role satisfaction). These results provide some insight into
the debate as to whether personality differentiation indicates self-
fragmentation or mature adaptation to situations. Bleidorn and
Ködding’s (2013) meta-analysis concluded that personality dif-
ferentiation was negatively related to indicators of well-being.
However, the criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis included
only the requirement that self-concept differentiation (SCD) was
measured in “at least two different predefined social contexts”
(p. 548), rather than any requirement about how SCD was mea-
sured. In fact, of the 54 studies included in the meta-analysis, only
two (by Baird et al. (2006)) measured different role personalities at
different times and this was done via an experience sampling tech-
nique. These two studies demonstrated that personality variability
across situations was unrelated to well-being, which is in line with
the current study and provides support for the interpretation that
flexibility or consistency in personality is not in itself related to
well-being. It also further underscores the need for robust mea-
sures in assessing contextual personality: it is not enough simply
to ask participants to complete several questionnaires at once and
hope that the measures are accurately capturing their personality
in these different contexts. What is being measured in this kind of
approach is more likely to be the participants’ beliefs about how
consistent or flexible they want to appear, rather than their actual
consistency or flexibility.
In attempting to further delineate the role of contextual person-
ality in well-being therefore, we need to turn to authenticity, that
is, a person’s feeling of being true to self. The quantitative element
of this study demonstrated that being authentic predicts lower lev-
els of stress, higher sense of satisfaction and a greater preference
for a role, both within each role as well as across roles. But how
does this take place in people’s lived experience? And what does it
mean to them to be authentic at work and home? To answer these
questions, we turn to the qualitative analysis.
Personality differentiation as captured by the quantitative mea-
sure used here represents a conscious experience on the part of
the respondents and is distinct from felt authenticity. One of the
strengths of the integrated multi-method design is that these com-
plexities can be identified quantitatively and explored qualitatively
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within the same sample. The qualitative findings provide some
indication that those with higher authenticity were able to cre-
ate a work personality to suit their particular environment but that
it was recognised as not necessarily reflecting their ‘true self’. In
addition, personality differentiation was perceived as enjoyable
by those with high differentiation scores. Finally, differentiation
was also described as a coping mechanism for situations where an
individual perceived that his or her natural approach might lead
to negative outcomes. All these findings underscore the agentic
or goal-directed nature of contextual personality, as suggested by
Hennecke et al. (2014): differentiation is undertaken in order to be
a more effective worker, for the enjoyment of expressing a different
side of the self, to reduce stress, or even as a way of maintaining a
boundary between work and home. Personality differentiation as a
coping mechanism for stress may also help to explain the some-
times contradictory results in previous cross-sectional research
(Bleidorn & Ködding, 2013) about the relationship of differentia-
tion with well-being: there could well be a substantial element of
any population who will report higher stress alongside higher dif-
ferentiation because they are attempting to use the latter to cope
with the former, rather than because the former causes the latter.
It is important to note that personality differentiation is not
synonymous with authenticity: feeling authentic does not mean
one must behave in the same way across all situations. In fact, the
level of an individual’s personality differentiation across the work
and home contexts was generally unrelated to the level of self-
integration (i.e. mean authenticity). Those with high authenticity
were no more likely to have high or low personality differentia-
tion than those with low authenticity. The exception to this was
the emotional stability trait, where higher authenticity was associ-
ated with a lower difference between emotional stability at work
and home. In addition, the qualitative findings demonstrated that
people identify authenticity as involving values and behaving in
line with deeper morals rather than similarly in behaviour patterns
across different situations.
Significantly, personality differentiation was associated with
a range of feelings and interpretations, both positive and nega-
tive, while authenticity was exclusively identified as a positive
experience and inauthenticity negative. Both differentiation and
inauthenticity were described by participants as functional in some
way, underlining the agentic nature of both, but their associations
with well-being were substantially different.
One of the significant implications of this research is to empha-
sise the importance of the individual experience in personality
differentiation and authenticity. Personality differentiation simply
disappears when averaged across a group and there are distinct
differences in people’s personal experiences of differentiation: for
some, it is flexibility and adaptability that is an essential while for
others it is consistency. In addition, it is worth noting it was not the
case in this research that people only felt they could ‘be themselves’
at home. For some of those who made a clear distinction between
work and home personality, the home personality was more valued
and for others, the work personality was.
Just as personality differentiation was shown to be agentic and
goal directed, so too is authentic behaviour. Here, the goals tended
to be more internal, involving acting in line with one’s inner values
and moral code, rather than in order to meet external requirements
or material benefits (such as promotion). Inauthentic behaviour
was motivated by three aims: acting professionally, avoiding con-
flict and keeping the job, but was also reported as having negative
impacts on well-being, confirming the quantitative results.
An important finding for work organisations is that authenticity
is not only associated with higher well-being, but also high pro-
ductivity, confidence and effectiveness at work. In addition, many
respondents had a strong desire to be authentic at work. Taken as
whole, this research indicates that organisations could benefit from
Please cite this article in press as: Sutton, A. Distinguishing between authenticity and personality consistency in predicting well-being:
A mixed method approach. Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appl. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2018.06.001
13
promoting authenticity at work. Building a foundation of safety and
trust can allow each individual to engage with his or her work in
an authentic manner, developing a virtuous cycle of further trust,
better relationships and communication.
In seeking to make an internally consistent yet practically viable
distinction between contextual personalities, this study considered
the personality-situation interaction at a meso-level, making fairly
a broad-stroke distinction between work and home roles. This deci-
sion does limit the nature of these findings: there is likely to be even
further differentiation between more finely-grained social roles. A
more precise understanding of the personality-situation-behaviour
triad could be achieved by the use of further role descriptions and
an interesting line of future research could be the comparison of
roles such as work friend and non-work friend.
Secondly, although the mixed method approach reported here
attempts to use the complementary strengths of quantitative and
qualitative methods, there remains the fact that this necessarily
involves a certain degree of compromise in both. For example, the
use of a stratified sample for the qualitative phase based on the
findings from the quantitative phase, while ensuring that important
comparisons could be made, may well have excluded respondents
with very different experience and understanding of the concepts
under study.
Finally, although every effort was made to ensure that respon-
dents completed the questionnaires in the appropriate context,
there remains the possibility that this was not done and the elic-
itation of the social role was not as distinct for each respondent.
Future research could perhaps adopt an approach more similar
to experience-sampling, where respondents are asked to indicate
their context at the same time as responding to personality items.
5. Conclusion
Prior research into role or contextual personalities has utilised
methods, which are open to problems with confounding variables
such as role stereotypes or social desirability. This study used more
robust methods to reduce the impact of these possible confounding
variables. Specifically, contextualised personality was measured
while the respondents were in the relevant context and with a two
week gap between questionnaire completions. Another strength of
the design was the use of a sample consisting of a relatively mature
group of full-time employees rather than undergraduate students.
Finally, the utilisation of a six week qualitative diary design enabled
the collection of in depth, highly developed reflections on the con-
cepts under study.
Overall, the study supports the finding that, at a group level,
people are more conscientious at work than home. But these more
robust methods suggest that other differences found in previous
studies may be artefacts of the research design rather than reflect-
ing consistent differences in role personality. The studies reported
here find excellent quantitative and qualitative evidence that at an
individual level, employees actively adapt themselves to suit their
own particular work or home context. While previous research
in the area has proposed a link between personality differentia-
tion and lower well-being, this study indicates that it is in fact
authenticity rather than consistency, which is the key to well-being.
Employees who feel authentic, irrespective of the degree of differ-
entiation in their role personalities, report lower stress and greater
satisfaction in their roles.
Adapting to work and home roles by differentiating one’s
personality was recognised by many participants as a necessity,
helping them to maintain a harmonious working environment and
a sense of professionalism at work. However, the negative effect of
inauthenticity on productivity and well-being was also apparent. In
summary, personality differentiation is a functional response and
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14 A. Sutton / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée xxx (2018) xxx–xxx
can be experienced positively whereas inauthenticity, also engaged
in as a functional response to the environment, is universally expe-
rienced negatively.
Disclosure of interest
The author declares that she has no competing interest.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by grant number 1101 from the
Richard Benjamin Trust.
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