1. Introduction
Who is the real me? Am I true to myself? As a foundation for human growth and healthy psychological development [
1], authenticity and its involvement in the positive development of the individual have been largely ignored by researchers. Adolescence is a time of searching for authenticity, and the sense of being one’s true self is the most important concern. Middle school is a crucial stage of life development, and middle school students are more sensitive. They feel more determined and self-aware. Thinking about the meaning of life has entered a new stage. In this period, middle school students may constantly clarify the goal of life, pursue the meaning of life, or feel empty and meaningless, and the goal is more unclear. The authentic self may provide them with a unique philosophy of life to look at relationships as well as important events, life goals, etc. [
2]. People who feel authentic experience a fuller and richer life [
3].
Previous studies have focused on the function and significance of the sense of meaning of life, but the formation mechanism of its antecedent variables needs to be further explored. Authenticity as a positive quality in participation in youth development has been largely ignored by research on adolescent psychology. With the rise of positive psychology, the theory and practice of life education with the theme of “calling for life and caring for life” is developing rapidly around the world. It advocates to treat everyone’s potential from a perspective of appreciation, adhere to a positive evaluation orientation of human nature, study how people can better develop and live, and stimulate their inherent constructive strength and positive qualities. Let people learn to share happiness, create happiness, make life more meaningful. Therefore, from the perspective of cultivating positive personal qualities, there are insufficient studies on middle school students’ sense of meaning of life, which need to be further explored. In addition, studies on the sense of meaning in life need to be further explored from the perspective of daily life, and the situation of daily fluctuations and stability have not received sufficient attention. The advantages of daily investigation methods lie in the following: They allow for mental activity to be analyzed within a specific time frame and in the natural context in which it occurs [
4]. Therefore, in order to understand the inner and psychological state of middle school students and promote their positive development, we can explore the relationship between the state authenticity of middle school students’ daily life and their sense of meaning in life.
Authenticity refers to people’s subjective feelings of knowing and expressing their true selves, i.e., who they think they are reflects the judgment that a person is acting according to his true self-concept [
5,
6]. Wood proposed three dimensions of authenticity: self-alienation, authentic living, and accepting external influence [
7]. “Self-alienation” refers to the subjective experience of not knowing who you are, not being able to truly understand your own nature, and being detached from your true self. “Real life” refers to the consistency of an individual’s consciousness, belief, and behavior expression, representing that an individual believes that he or she can express and act in accordance with his or her own beliefs and values in various situations. “Acceptance of external influences” refers to the degree to which an individual accepts the ideas of others and feels obligated to conform to their expectations. Generally speaking, individuals with high authenticity have a low sense of self-alienation, are able to practice real life, are less affected by external influences, and will not distort their self-cognition and hinder their true expression and behavior due to external pressure [
8]. Authenticity can be further divided into trait authenticity and state authenticity. Unlike the stability and continuity of trait authenticity, state authenticity is a transient experience that can occur anytime, anywhere. It will change due to changes in the external environment, emphasizing a sense of the present [
9] and the immediate [
10]. In other words, one’s behavior is consistent with one’s core values and abilities at a certain moment, resulting in an emotional experience of becoming one’s true self [
11].
A growing number of studies have proved that authenticity is positively correlated with many positive indicators of mental health, such as life satisfaction, subjective well-being, positive emotions, self-esteem, etc. [
12,
13,
14]. People like and value authentic self-concepts more than other types of self-concepts. Studies have shown that the real self has a significant predictive effect on mental health: individuals with a high level of authenticity have higher positive mental health indicators, while they have lower negative mental health indicators, such as less anxiety and depression [
15]. Some studies have confirmed that the real self can meet the basic psychological needs of individuals [
16], especially the needs of individuals for autonomy and promote people’s sense of well-being based on self-realization and meaning [
17]. The higher the level of satisfaction of basic psychological needs, the more conducive to the improvement in happiness and life satisfaction [
18]. Individuals whose basic psychological needs are fully satisfied will have more happiness and sense of value, as well as a better psychological state [
19]; make independent behavioral decisions according to their own wishes, emotions, values, etc.; maintain a healthy relationship with the world; have competent ability; and realize self-worth. Existing studies have confirmed that authenticity is positively correlated with life satisfaction [
5,
20,
21], and the presentation of an individual’s real self has a positive impact on life satisfaction [
22]. The higher the level of authenticity of an individual, the higher the level of life satisfaction and mental health [
23]. Life satisfaction is not only a reflection of an individual’s acquired mental state but also has an impact on individual behavior and mental state. Compared with the positive self, the presentation of the true self has a better effect on improving life satisfaction [
24].
One of the functions of authenticity is to create meaning for people’s lives. People use their true self-concept as a guide for various important decisions, thus enhancing the meaning of life direction. Choices that are consistent with their true self-concept may be evaluated as more meaningful life pursuits. Studies have shown that authenticity is positively correlated with a sense of meaning in life (MIL), but there is a lack of causal evidence between the two [
9]. Research has shown that the impact on the sense of meaning in life depends on people’s attitudes towards their true selves [
2]. People who feel authentic experience a fuller and richer life [
3]. Authenticity predicts the existence of greater meaning between people in life [
25]. Li believes that the real self can play a positive role in promoting middle school students’ sense of meaning in life by meeting their basic psychological needs and improving their self-esteem [
26]. However, high life satisfaction will bring individuals a higher sense of meaning in life, and studies have found that college students’ life satisfaction can positively predict their sense of meaning in life [
27].
To sum up, authenticity can meet the basic psychological needs of individuals, achieve a satisfactory state of life, realize the sense of value, feel the value of life existence, and stimulate the motivation to pursue life goals. Therefore, it can be inferred that authenticity affects the sense of meaning of life through basic psychological demands and life satisfaction. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis, and the hypothesis model is shown in
Figure 1:
Hypothesis 1. Basic psychological needs and life satisfaction play a chain mediating role between state authenticity and sense of meaning in life.
Compared with trait reality, state reality reflects the real self-differences of individuals in different environments and roles. State authenticity varies from person to person. State authenticity reflects the real feelings of an individual in daily life, which can further and comprehensively reflect the relationship between authenticity and sense of meaning in life. Some longitudinal studies have further explored the relationship between state authenticity and sense of meaning in life. When people feel real, they will improve themselves [
28]. Self-improvement can bring the satisfaction of basic psychological needs and happiness and improve mental health. Activating the true self can enhance the meaning of life [
29]. When specifically exploring the relationship between the internal three dimensions of authenticity and sense of meaning in life, the study found that authentic life predicted a higher level of sense of meaning in life, while self-alienation and acceptance of external influences predicted a lower level of sense of meaning in life [
30]. In an experimental study on authenticity, Guenther found that the authenticity-enhanced group reported a higher sense of meaning in life through enhanced manipulation of authenticity levels [
31]. In summary, Hypothesis 2 and Hypothesis 3 are proposed, and the hypothesis model is shown in
Figure 2.
Hypothesis 2. The authenticity of the previous day’s state predicts the meaning of life the following day.
Hypothesis 3. Under experimental conditions with enhanced levels of authenticity, middle school students will report higher levels of meaning in life.
The object of this study is middle school students, because the authentic experience is especially important in the group of teenagers aged 12–17, who attach great importance to the experience of the real self in life. Most of the previous studies on the relationship between the true self and the sense of meaning in life were cross-sectional studies, so the causal prediction relationship between the two could not be revealed. This study attempts to solve this problem through two studies: the daily diary method and authenticity experiment.
4. Discussion
The contribution of this study is the investigation of the causal mechanism between authenticity and sense of meaning in life in middle school students. Middle school students are in the youth development period, with the need for self. They begin to pay attention to self-evaluation and improvement. During this period, students have great changes in physical and psychological aspects, and their self-awareness is enhanced. Many teens believe that they will perform best if they can successfully “take off the mask” and “be themselves” [
1]. In study 1, through the daily diary data tracking survey of middle school students in daily life situations, the results show that authenticity has a positive predictive effect on sense of meaning in life, and the basic psychological needs and life satisfaction within individuals have a chain intermediary effect between state authenticity and sense of daily meaning in life, indicating the impact of changes in authenticity within individuals. There is a mediating effect between the state authenticity and the sense of daily meaning in life, which indicates that there are differences between individuals. It was found that the level of state authenticity the day before predicted the level of sense of meaning the next day. The state of real life is usually a positive experience. Consistent with the results of previous studies, the authenticity helps to improve the basic psychological needs of individuals [
45] and the sense of meaning in life [
11], and the state authenticity is more likely to meet the psychological needs of individuals than the state inauthenticity [
46]. This conclusion also exists in the group of middle school students. Deci proposed that when individuals act according to their own will, they show autonomy and experience satisfaction, success, and meaning through independent choice [
47]. Authentic experience helps to improve the perception of the meaning in life, and when individuals make behavioral choices relying on their real self, they can better reflect the pursuit of life goals and values [
48]. Basic psychological needs and life satisfaction have a chain mediating effect between authenticity and sense of life meaning. Thomaes argues that real people have a sense of completeness and self-coherence [
49]. This sense of completeness and self-cohesion promotes satisfaction. Middle school students are in adolescence, they have a strong need for their real selves, and they hope to be able to do what they like without being controlled. Authentic experience is close to self-feeling in daily life, and the pursuit of authentic behavior can help them fully stimulate their internal motivation, so as to obtain the value of their existence and continuously improve, so as to meet their basic psychological needs, bring a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, and enhance the perception of the meaning of daily life. The results of this study reveal an internal path, that is, state authenticity can make individuals feel satisfied and valuable through the bridge of basic psychological needs, so that individuals can obtain a stronger life existence that is more valuable and meaningful. The results of study 1 also show that in the daily life environment, students’ sense of authenticity experience changes in different situations after learning life events, and this change will bring changes in the sense of meaning in life. At the same time, we found that in a short period of time, individuals’ state authenticity and sense of life meaning are relatively stable, and individuals with a high level of authenticity also have a high level of sense of meaning in life, and vice versa.
In addition, when we further investigate the change in the internal dimension of authenticity, we find that the level of authentic living has been significantly improved, followed by the acceptance of external influences, while the level of self-alienation has no significant change. This finding is consistent with conclusion that fulfillment of meaning in life is associated with a more authentic life [
45]. The reason may be that when individuals recall the relevant events of authentic experience, they mostly record the relevant events from the perspective of action. The authentic experience that students can understand is mostly related to their own behavior, and authentic behavior may be an important way for middle school students to experience the sense of meaning. Authentic living is a feeling of self-relaxation and positive emotional experience, which contributes to better self-cognition and ideal self-experience [
45], and thus has a stronger impact on the sense of meaning in life. The dimension of self-alienation is embodied in an individual’s self-awareness, whether he knows who he is or not, which is formed through long-term self-cognition. As middle school students, the ability to view their own thinking in this way is probably rare, and this experience cannot be improved in the short term by experiments with immediate recall of events.
Furthermore, the results reveal the causal relationship between state authenticity and sense of meaning in life. Study 2 examines the effect of state authenticity on the sense of meaning in life through a research paradigm in laboratory conditions. The results show that the manipulation of the experiment is effective. This method can improve the individual’s immediate sense of real experience and thus enhance the immediate sense of meaning in life. Consistent with previous findings, authentic living predicted higher levels of sense of meaning in life [
30]. This increase in authenticity can be seen as a kind of self-improvement, where the recall of past events of authenticity increases the individual’s reflection and thus enhances the sense of meaning in life [
31].
The experiment of enhancing the authenticity level has a significant impact on the improvement of middle school students’ sense of existence of life meaning, indicating that this experience can make them realize the value of the existence of life through memory and reflection, and has a positive impact on the current cognitive experience of life. However, this kind of experience and feeling is not closely related to the pursuit and transformation of life goals.
In summary, this study aims to investigate the mechanism of authenticity’s influence on the sense of meaning in life, expand the research perspective on the sense of meaning in life, and provide a new entry point for the intervention to enhance the sense of meaning in life. Measures should be taken to help middle school students find their true self, understand themselves, and gain a more meaningful, positive, and healthy life.
There are some limitations to this study that could be improved in the future. All the instrument scales used in this study have good reliability and validity, but there may be some bias in the form of self-report. In this paper, daily survey tracking using the diary method is used for short-term prediction, and the effect of long-term longitudinal tracking can be further investigated. In the future, authenticity can be taken as the entry point to further intervention programs to enhance the sense of meaning in life of middle school students, effectively improve their self-value recognition and pursuit of meaning in life, and maintain a positive mental health state.