Does the goodness in authenticity extend to psychopathic and sadistic people?: considering morality-based prosociality and wellbeing

Authenticity is frequently conceptualized as beneficial to the self and society, but do its positive implications generalize to everyone? We investigated this matter in the context of sadism and psychopathy. Prior work has linked authenticity to greater prosociality and wellbeing; presumably, because most people regard the authentic self as moral/good, being authentic implies being prosocial and incurring benefits of prosociality on wellbeing. However, because psychopathic and sadistic people regard the true self as less moral/good, authenticity may relate more weakly or not at all to prosociality for them. U.S. adults (N = 446) completed questionnaires assessing authenticity, psychopathy, sadism, prosociality, and indicators of wellbeing. The associations between authenticity and greater prosociality or wellbeing were reduced as a function of sadism or psychopathy. Additional analyses revealed that the authenticity*sadism or authenticity*psychopathy effects on wellbeing could be partly attributed to prosociality; however, we also found that the authenticity*sadism or authenticity*psychopathy effects on prosociality could be partly attributed to wellbeing. Such evidence seems suggestive of reciprocal relations between prosociality and wellbeing. The present data are the first to show that authenticity may do less to “brighten up” the behavior of those who are more vs. less antagonistic, which could have implications for wellbeing.