What Eminem Teaches Us About the Psychology of Authenticity

When you arrive at an award show, you typically dress up a bit. And usually, that means something more than jeans and a plain white T-shirt. But then again, there typically aren’t 100 of you wearing the same exact outfit.

This was the experience of being a “Slim Shady extra,” in Eminem's iconic performance in the 2000 VMAs. Rapping to his chart-topping “The Real Slim Shady,” he led his 100 Slim Shady look-alikes from the Manhattan streets into the halls of a star-star studded Radio City Music Hall. With his bleach blonde lemmings in tow, he rapped down the red carpet, before hopping on stage for a performance of “The Way I Am.”

In short, the night belonged to Slim Shady.

His perennial alter ego, Slim Shady drove Eminem (or should we say Marshal Mathers?) into stardom. While he may be one of the most memorable, the celebrity alter ego is not a rarity. From Beyonce’s “Sasha Fierce” to Sascha Baron Cohen’s “Borat,” there are countless examples of stylized personas.

From the perspective of us in the audience, we get it. We know that they aren’t the ‘real’ person. When on stage, you’re a performer.

But in our day to day interactions, we have very different expectations. We don’t like people acting, or performing. We value genuine people who are behaving in accord with their true selves.

And not only do we demand this of others, but ourselves as well. Wherever we look, authenticity is a value held in the highest regard.

But what is authenticity? What's the difference, psychologically, between Slim Shady the persona, and Marshal Mathers the person?

The Psychology of Authenticity

George Orwell famously said, “Man wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.” The idea is that, beneath all these layers of style and act is the true self. This aligns with our intuition about authenticity: Just like Slim Shady can walk off the stage and be Marshall Mathers, we should also have a layer to peel back and be our true, authentic self.

The science of authenticity asks the question: When we step "off stage", who is left?

Source: Photo by Karsten Winegeart via UnSplash

But when we zero in, what does authenticity really mean? Is this authentic, true self different and somehow more centered than our other ‘selves’? Where does style end, and authenticity begin?

To begin with, authenticity is treated as an inherently positive concept. In a series of studies, researchers asked people to describe their true selves. Overwhelmingly, people use very positive attributes, describing themselves as “kind,” “warm-hearted” and “empathetic.” True selves, it turns out, are pretty great.

Of course, no one acts this way all of the time. So when we are “mean”, “cold-hearted,”or “distant," we feel as though someone or something made us act this way. There's a sharp asymmetry. This suggests that what we feel to be our “true self” may be closer to our “best self:" the way we like to think of ourselves.

Social Influence and the Psychology of The Authentic Self

In addition, the social context plays a big role in shaping our ideas of this "true self." The sociologist Erving Goffman discussed this idea in his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956). Goffman likens us to actors, contorting ourselves to create an impression on our audience.

But if being ‘authentic’ means anything, it's that it’s who we are outside of the social context. Authenticity should mean how we are when left to our own devices: lifted from social influences, pressure, and expectations of others. We can’t be acting if there isn’t an audience, right?

If this were the case, people would feel their most authentic when they’re alone and the least authentic when they’re around others. However, this is the opposite of what research finds: It’s when we’re in large social groups that we feel most authentic. People feel most inauthentic when they are socially isolated.

We might expect that we'd feel MOST authentic when we're alone, away from social influence. But the opposite is true.

Source: Photo by Zachary Nelson via UnSplash

In a similar vein, research finds that we also feel most authentic when we are acting in accordance with social norms, and not against them. The rebellious true self, bucking convention, and going against social expectations doesn’t feel as authentic as we might think. If being authentic means acting independently, we’d again expect the opposite.

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As Goffman described, “All the world is not, of course, a stage, but the crucial ways in which it isn’t are not easy to specify.” This idea has been echoed in more modern times from the humanistic psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman. He distills this idea the following way, “While people spend so much time searching for their real self, the stark reality is that all of the aspects of your mind are part of you.”

All in all, the idea of a ‘true’ self beneath the layers of performance and style does not hold up to scrutiny.

Instead, the research suggests that what we’ve come to think of as our authentic self is actually our idealized self. And since we are social creatures who seek the approval of others, this idealized self is heavily informed by being socially desirable. We want our ‘true self’ to not only be our best self for us, but for others as well. Ironically then, when we’re acting most authentically, we may be catering the most to our social environment.

Final Thoughts on Eminem and The Psychology of Authenticity

Acting and performance is one way to think about the psychology of identity. But we can also think about it like an onion, with each layer is a different aspect of our personality. Politeness is a layer. Family expectations are a layer. Your sense of style is a layer. We imagine that when we peel back all the layers it’s our ‘true, authentic self.’

When we peel back all the different layers of our personality, is there a core in the middle?

Source: Photo by K-O via UnSplash

In reality, though, the only “real you” is the onion in its entirety. In any situation, certain “layers” - that is, different aspects of your personality and identity may be more heavily weighted than others. But there’s no “real you” apart underneath all of the layers.

As the French Naturalist, Georges-Louis Leclerc distilled, “Style is the man himself.”

Marshall Mathers himself ultimately came to a similar recognition. While Slim Shady drove him to prominence in the early 2000s, the character is now seen as more integral. As he wrote in his memoir, “Slim, Em, and Marshall are always in the mix… I’ve found a way to morph them so that it’s sort of all me.”

Or put another way, The “Real” Slim Shady has always been Marshall Mathers from the start.

This post also appears on the marketing psychology blog MJISME