Assessing Congruence as a Central Aspect of Rogers’ Positive Notion of Authentic Becoming: Further Support for the Single-Item Congruity in Self Scale in Accounting for Well-Being and Ill-Being in Adults

Abstract

Although authenticity has been considered from diverse existential and humanistic perspectives, the present study focuses on a positive conceptualization of authenticity based on Rogers’ novel concept of congruence as measured by the Congruity in the Self Scale (CiSS). Specifically, this study examined the extent to which the CiSS represents a distinct and useful measure over an existing measure of authentic personality (viz. authentic living, accepting external influence, and self-alienation) in accounting for psychological well-being (positive mood, subjective happiness, and amor fati) and ill-being (negative mood, worry, and depression) in a sample of 256 adults. Results of conducting a hierarchical regression analysis indicated that, beyond the variance in well-being and ill-being accounted for by authentic personality, congruity in the self (using the CiSS) accounted for significant amounts of additional unique variance in health outcomes. Overall, the present findings indicate that congruity in the self is distinct from authentic personality, and that it has incremental validity over these dimensions in accounting for diverse indices of both well-being and ill-being in adults. Thus, the CiSS might represent a useful tool for researchers and practitioners who might be interested in a quick and accessible measure of authenticity based on Rogers’ notion of congruence.