'Staying true' will release you from the guilt of 'impurity'

There is an old saying that "one should be true to himself" and a new study has backed it.

A research conducted by the Kellogg School of Management suggests that this drive for authenticity that is living in accordance with the sense of self, emotions and values may be so fundamental that people actually feel immoral and impure when they violate their true sense of self and this sense of impurity, in turn, may lead us to engage in cleansing or charitable behaviors as a way of clearing our conscience.

Scientist Maryam Kouchaki said that their work shows that feeling inauthentic is not a fleeting or cursory phenomenon as it cuts to the very essence of what it means to be a moral person.

The researchers speculated that inauthenticity may have similar psychological consequences as immoral behaviors like lying or cheating since both types of behaviors are a violation of being true, whether to others or oneself.

The research found out that people who wrote about inauthenticity were more likely to fill in missing letters to spell out cleansing-related words for example, completing w-h as 'wash' instead of 'wish' than those who wrote about authenticity and they even showed less charitable behavior.

The researchers said that in order to be responsive to various demands from customers, co-workers and upper management, individuals may find themselves behaving in ways that are not consistent with their true self.

The findings are published in journal Psychological Science.