The Authenticity of the Person (AUTPER)<\/strong> scale is a specialized psychometric instrument introduced by Rosanna K. Smith, Michelle R. VanDellen, and Ari Ton (2021)<\/a> to assess third-party attributions of personal authenticity. Developed within experimental consumer psychology and interpersonal perception research, the scale quantifies the degree to which an observer\u2014such as a consumer, evaluator, or general perceiver\u2014judges a focal target individual to be self-directed, true to their core values, motivated by personal conviction, and resilient against external social pressure or instrumental compromise. Composed of four standardized items (three positively keyed and one reverse-scored), the instrument utilizes an adaptable target-insertion stem format, facilitating its seamless deployment across diverse evaluative contexts, including examinations of corporate founders, celebrity endorsers, political figures, artistic creators, and organizational leaders.<\/p>\n Psychometrically, the AUTPER scale demonstrates robust internal consistency, with Cronbach\u2019s alpha<\/a> coefficients consistently exceeding .85 across multiple empirical investigations. Confirmatory factor analyses support a unidimensional latent structure characterized by strong, invariant factor loadings ranging from .76 to .91. The scale exhibits rigorous convergent validity with constructs such as perceived moral integrity, intrinsic motivation attributions, and behavioral trustworthiness, while maintaining discriminant validity against general likability, perceived competence, physical attractiveness, and brand-level category authenticity. By capturing the perceived alignment between an individual’s outward actions and presumed internal values, the AUTPER scale provides scholars with an empirical tool for evaluating social judgment, consumer decision-making, and source credibility.<\/p>\n Authenticity of the Person, AUTPER, perceived authenticity, interpersonal perception, consumer psychology, source credibility, moral integrity, self-determination theory, person perception, psychometrics<\/p>\n The Authenticity of the Person scale was developed by a team of researchers in consumer behavior and social psychology:<\/p>\n The primary purpose of the AUTPER scale is to capture observers’ attributions of personal authenticity toward a designated social actor. While historical psychological research has extensively explored felt<\/em> or subjective authenticity\u2014the subjective state of feeling aligned with one\u2019s own internal self (e.g., Kernis & Goldman, 2006; Wood et al., 2008)\u2014the AUTPER scale measures perceived<\/em> authenticity. It addresses how external perceivers deduce whether another individual is behaving in genuine accordance with an internal moral compass or is merely executing a calculated, superficial, or socially conforming performance.<\/p>\n In consumer behavior, organizational behavior, and political psychology, evaluating another person’s motives is a fundamental cognitive task. When consumers encounter brand founders, corporate executives, or sponsored influencers, they routinely ask whether the spokesperson genuinely believes in the product or is motivated solely by extrinsic financial gain. Prior to the publication of Smith, VanDellen, and Ton (2021), researchers frequently conflated the perceived authenticity of a person with related, yet distinct, constructs: brand authenticity (the fidelity of a product to its historical heritage or category conventions), source attractiveness, or general consumer affinity. The AUTPER scale was established to isolate the psychological essence of person-level<\/em> authenticity: intrinsic conviction, steadfastness of identity, and resistance to opportunistic accommodation.<\/p>\n From an applied perspective, the AUTPER scale is utilized across a wide array of empirical settings:<\/p>\n The psychological construct assessed by the AUTPER scale is perceived personal authenticity<\/em>\u2014defined as an observer’s attribution that a focal individual\u2019s behavior originates from internal values, beliefs, and core identity rather than external incentives, social pressures, or strategic posturing. This construct operates as a socio-cognitive attribution comprising three primary facets:<\/p>\n At the center of perceived personal authenticity is the belief that the target possesses an authentic core self and that their overt actions, verbal communications, and choices correspond directly to this inner core. Rather than presenting a contrived facade tailored to the immediate audience, the authentic actor is perceived as transparent and self-consistent. In interpersonal perception, when observers detect inconsistencies between an individual’s public statements and their private actions, authenticity perceptions plummet, triggering cynical attributions of hypocrisy.<\/p>\n A second dimension embedded within the construct is conviction-driven agency. Observers credit an actor with high authenticity when their conduct reflects intrinsic values and personal principles. This dimension draws upon the psychological distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. An individual acting out of deep-seated ideological, moral, or creative conviction is perceived as authentic, whereas an individual performing identical actions primarily in pursuit of extrinsic rewards (e.g., money, public acclaim, political expediency) is categorized as instrumental and inauthentic.<\/p>\n The third facet involves perceived autonomy and counter-conformity. In the psychological framework of Smith et al. (2021), authentic persons are perceived as resilient against social coercion, market trends, or peer pressure. Conversely, the reverse-scored dimension of the scale targets chameleon-like behavioral plasticity\u2014the tendency to alter one’s self-presentation to appease others or avoid friction. Actors who conform easily to situational demands are perceived as lacking a stable internal anchor, diminishing their perceived authenticity.<\/p>\n The AUTPER scale is grounded in three major theoretical frameworks within social and cognitive psychology:<\/p>\n The foundational bedrock of the AUTPER scale rests upon Attribution Theory<\/a> (Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1967) and the Correspondent Inference Theory<\/a> formulated by Jones and Davis (1965). According to these theories, social perceivers act as intuitive psychologists, observing actions and inferring whether they stem from internal dispositions (dispositional attributions) or external situational constraints (situational attributions). When observers identify strong external incentives (such as financial compensation for endorsing a brand), the discounting principle dictates that confidence in dispositional sincerity decreases. The AUTPER scale measures the net result of this attributional calculation: the extent to which the observer concludes that the target\u2019s behavior is an uncompromised reflection of their true dispositions.<\/p>\n Developed by Deci and Ryan (1985, 2000)<\/a>, Self-Determination Theory asserts that human functioning ranges from autonomous (actions endorsed by the self) to controlled (actions driven by external contingencies or internal pressures). In applying SDT to observer judgments, perceivers categorize others’ actions along this self-determination continuum. Observers reserve the label of authenticity for agents who appear fully autonomous. The AUTPER scale translates SDT\u2019s internal psychological experience of autonomy into an external attributional assessment.<\/p>\n Psychological essentialism suggests that people view social categories and individuals as possessing deep, underlying, unobservable essences that dictate identity (Gelman, 2003). Newman, Bloom, and Knobe (2014) demonstrated that lay observers universally conceptualize a “true self” that is inherently moral, stable, and benevolent. In the framework of Smith et al. (2021), perceptions of personal authenticity require observers to believe that the actor\u2019s observable behavior flows directly from this essentialized “true self” rather than from calculated adaptation to shifting environments.<\/p>\n The psychometric validity of the AUTPER scale has been confirmed across several laboratory and field studies involving varied demographic cohorts, stimulus materials, and evaluative contexts.<\/p>\n The scale demonstrates substantial convergent validity when correlated with conceptually linked social perception scales:<\/p>\n To verify that the AUTPER scale captures a distinct psychological construct rather than diffuse positive valence (a generalized “halo effect”), Smith, VanDellen, and Ton (2021) conducted discriminant analyses:<\/p>\n The scale reliably predicts behavioral intentions and economic decisions:<\/p>\n The reliability of the AUTPER scale has been evaluated using classical test theory and internal consistency metrics across multiple samples:<\/p>\n Factor analytic procedures substantiate the structural validity of the AUTPER scale as a robust unidimensional measure.<\/p>\n Initial exploratory factor analyses conducted on calibration samples utilizing principal axis factoring and maximum likelihood estimation consistently yield a single-factor solution:<\/p>\n Confirmatory factor analysis conducted on independent validation samples verifies that the single-factor model provides an exceptional fit to the empirical data:<\/p>\n Competing two-factor models (splitting positive vs. reverse-coded items) produce negligible, statistically nonsignificant improvements in model fit, confirming that the reverse-scored item functions as an intentional counter-bias indicator rather than an independent latent dimension.<\/p>\n The AUTPER scale is structured as an efficient, self-administered survey tool suitable for paper-and-pencil, online experimental, or field intercept methodologies:<\/p>\n The Authenticity of the Person (AUTPER) scale was developed and published in 2021<\/strong> in the Journal of Consumer Research<\/em> (Oxford University Press \/ Journal of Consumer Research, Inc.):<\/p>\n An in-depth psychometric review of the Authenticity of the Person (AUTPER) scale developed by Smith, VanDellen, and Ton (2021), examining construct validity, factor structure, reliability, and consumer perception applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[1076,2,79],"tags":[902,4662,18782,2275,241,35,2599],"class_list":["post-5834","psych_scale","type-psych_scale","status-publish","hentry","category-consumer-psychology","category-psychometrics","category-social-psychology","tag-attribution-theory","tag-authenticity","tag-autper","tag-consumer-behavior","tag-psychological-assessment","tag-scale-validation","tag-source-credibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/5834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/psych_scale"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/5834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2. Keywords<\/h2>\n
3. Authors<\/h2>\n
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4. Purpose<\/h2>\n
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5. Psychological Construct<\/h2>\n
5.1. Fidelity to the Core Self (Self-Alignment)<\/h3>\n
5.2. Conviction-Driven Agency<\/h3>\n
5.3. Resistance to External Conformity (Autonomy)<\/h3>\n
6. Theoretical Framework<\/h2>\n
6.1. Attribution Theory and Correspondent Inference<\/h3>\n
6.2. Self-Determination Theory (SDT)<\/h3>\n
6.3. The True Self and Essentialist Cognition<\/h3>\n
7. Validity<\/h2>\n
7.1. Construct and Convergent Validity<\/h3>\n
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7.2. Discriminant Validity<\/h3>\n
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7.3. Predictive and Criterion Validity<\/h3>\n
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8. Reliability<\/h2>\n
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9. Factor Analysis<\/h2>\n
9.1. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)<\/h3>\n
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9.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)<\/h3>\n
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10. Instrument \/ Measurement Tool<\/h2>\n
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11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year<\/h2>\n
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12. References<\/h2>\n
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13. Items of the Scale<\/h2>\n