Constructing Credibility: How Aggrandizement Helps Perform an Identity of Legitimacy and Self-Worth in a Creative Industry

This study contributes to an understanding of the role of aggrandizement in constructing a credible identity within an industrial context characterized by uncertainty and risk-taking, the popular music industry. Specifically, this paper focuses on the extent to which creative personalities draw on real and imaginary justifications to portray themselves as having attained greater success than they have actually achieved in order to construct a credible identity both to themselves and to others. As a positive self-illusion lends psychological benefits as well as the means to achieving self-fulfilling high performance, we conclude that aggrandizement may enhance the individual’s performance both professionally and personally. Although the extant literature highlights how positive self-illusions can influence identity construction, the role aggrandizement plays in this process within a creative context does not appear to have been researched.