How A Desire For Information Explains Preferences For Authenticity Across Domains

In Defense of Authenticity:
How a desire for information explains preferences for authenticity across domains.
October 2020
Yana Litovsky
Department of Social and Decision Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3706383

IN DEFENSE OF AUTHENTICITY 2
Abstract
From restaurants to handbags to political candidates, authenticity is valued in many different
contexts. Yet we lack a comprehensive way of understanding what authenticity means and why
we seek it. This interdisciplinary essay, drawing on research from multiple fields such as marketing
and sociology, proposes that while a unified definition of authenticity may be elusive, our
motivations for seeking the authentic can be explained by a desire to learn information that reveals
some valuable truth. Though the desire for authenticity is easily manipulated (often by commercial
interests), I argue that it is not primarily a socially determined and superficial drive but guided by
an adaptive desire for knowledge. I outline four related motives for valuing authentic entities, all
connected to the search for valuable information. And I show how these motives can explain what
authenticity means in the domains of art, food, culture, consumer goods, lifestyle and people.

Introduction
What is authenticity?
What does it mean for a person, an object or an experience to be authentic? For decades,
thinkers from a wide range of disciplines – from philosophy to psychology to marketing – have
been trying to define the elusive concept of authenticity, usually by focusing on distinct, individual
domains in which it may be assessed. An authentic person, for example, has been defined as one
marked by congruence between what he feels and what he says, and an authentic life as one that
is free of artifice and affectation. A work of art or a consumer good has been considered authentic
if it is what it appears, or is claimed, to be – such as “genuine” Swiss chocolate or an ancient relic
“authenticated” by an archeologist. Alternatively, an artwork or product can be considered
authentic if it is an honest, uncorrupted manifestation of its creator’s background, passions or
beliefs. And a cultural expression – be it food, ritual or folklore – may be thought to deserve the
label if it is a product of a deeply rooted and naturally evolving tradition.
While some of these criteria may seem to effectively define authenticity within the strict
parameters of a certain domain, a holistic theory of authenticity, complete with distinct boundary
conditions that remain stable across concepts, cultures and time, has yet to materialize. The reason,
as many have already suggested, is that authenticity is a socially defined and reference-dependent
phenomenon which takes different shapes in different contexts. Even certain seemingly
uncontroversial definitions of authenticity that were developed within circumscribed realms, such
as fine art, fall apart under careful scrutiny. The philosopher of art Denis Dutton (2003), for
example, calls into question the possibility of considering any work of art to be an objectively
authentic creation. While most would regard a forged Vermeer as irrefutably inauthentic, he writes,

others might value the fact that the forgery is an authentic van Meegeren – the notorious forger of
the Dutch painter. Similarly, if a verifiably authentic Vermeer is displayed or interpreted in a way
that was unintended by the artist, one might argue that viewing the work under those conditions is
effectively an inauthentic experience. The same artwork can therefore be seen as either authentic
or inauthentic depending on our reference point for authenticity which, in turn, is dependent on
what we value. Cultural authenticity is a similarly malleable, reference-dependent and even
evanescent label. Ethnologist Regina Bendix (1997) describes a case in which it was proven that
an ancient Balkan celebratory custom was actually only a few centuries old, causing the custom to
be promptly downgraded from a cherished folk ritual to a corrupted cultural affectation (Kindle
Location 292). Likewise, the meaning of truly “authentic cuisine” can be questioned when we
consider that some of the most defining ingredients of many country’s culinary traditions – like
the tomato in Italy or the potato in Ireland – were relatively recent introductions from distant lands.
Authenticity is, therefore, a highly fuzzy concept, which is, at best, possible to define only in a
restricted context relative to an explicit reference point. The goal of this paper is to propose a more
unified way of understanding why we value authenticity.
When is authenticity relevant?
It is perhaps futile to try to determine what authenticity is, but possible, and likely more
valuable, to consider under what conditions the idea of authenticity is relevant. I propose that there
are a couple of necessary conditions that must exist in order to label something as authentic or
even provoke the issue of authenticity. The first requirement is the presence of contrast. It has been
said that the idea of authenticity can only be understood and will only be considered in
juxtaposition to the inauthentic (Potter, 2010; Peterson, 2005). One does not defend the truth of a

statement unless there is a possibility that it is untrue. One does not ask if a thing is “an original”
if that thing could never be copied. Indeed, as something becomes increasingly diluted or
threatened by an inauthentic expression of itself, the notion of authenticity becomes increasingly
relevant (Trilling, 1972). For example, one takes note of the cultural authenticity of a restaurant –
such as a “proper French bistro” – in New York, where it seems rare, rather than in Paris, where it
is taken for granted. Sociologist Priscilla Ferguson (2004) points out that efforts to promote and
celebrate authentic local food specialties, “come into being precisely when those traditions are felt
to be imperiled” (Kindle Locations 419-420). In fact, the notion of authenticity is not simply “best
understood negatively,” as Potter (p.6) writes, but, I propose, is utterly irrelevant absent the
perceived threat of the inauthentic.
The second prerequisite for perceiving authenticity is that it must be in response to some
good or advantageous attribute. Given the valence of most words associated with authenticity –
genuine (vs. fake), natural (vs. artificial), pure (vs. contaminated) – it is uncontroversial to suggest
that authenticity is often considered a positive property, but I would go further and argue that the
notion of authenticity is only invoked as a fundamentally positive descriptor. Building on the idea
that authenticity requires contrast and threat, something will only be regarded as authentic if
something valuable can or has been lost. While some see farming before the advent of chemical
pesticides as more authentic, no one would likely make the same claim about dentistry before the
advent of anesthesia. That is because while organic farming offers benefits – whether real or
imagined – over conventional farming, pain-free dentistry offers only advantages over arguably
more “traditional” methods of dental care. As with organic farming, something does not need to
be entirely better than its inauthentic counterpart, but it must offer at least some advantage for us
to even consider, much less confer, the label of authenticity. In fact, something deemed authentic

– like a meal at that proper French bistro – can even be utterly disappointing, but we may still
reflect on the perceived authenticity of the cooking or atmosphere as a kind of silver lining, telling
ourselves that while the service was rude, the chef slovenly or the cooking careless, the experience
still felt somehow “typically French.” It is of course theoretically possible for someone to
acknowledge that a bad meal was authentic without taking any comfort in this, but, unless
externally prompted, the idea of the meal’s authenticity or lack thereof is unlikely to come up in
the absence of some kind of positive association.
My argument, therefore, is that something will be appraised as authentic only in contrast
to an inauthentic and, in some respect, inferior state. This of course raises the question: in what
way is inauthenticity inferior? Or, put another way, what sort of negative properties prompt us to
categorize something as inauthentic, rather than otherwise disadvantageous or flawed? To answer
this question, I will inch as close as possible to a unified definition of authenticity: Something is
deemed authentic when it contains and offers to reveal some valuable truth or information about
the world; it is deemed inauthentic when it lacks or threatens to obscure that truth. The advantage
of authenticity is, therefore, in a broad sense, related to learning and information. To return to the
previous example, while I may not have enjoyed that French meal, I may approvingly consider it
authentic if I perceive that during the experience I learned something interesting or otherwise
valuable about French culture or confirmed a socially valuable stereotype. Similarly, while I may
bristle at the unbridled expression of someone’s anger, I may deem it authentic if I perceive some
value in learning who this person really is.
To summarize, I propose that we will only consider something to be authentic if we believe
that there exists a less true and consequently inferior alternative. Such an assessment may
sometimes be guided by relatively stable social standards – American consumers may

unanimously consider a knock-off Louis Vuitton to be inauthentic – but careful consideration
shows that these criteria exist only in the eye of the beholder. We can conclude, therefore, that
authenticity is not only a relativistic concept but a wholly subjective one. The truly crucial question
then becomes not what authenticity is or even when it is perceived but why do we value authenticity
and gravitate toward the authentic?
Why is authenticity preferred?
To answer this question, I will make a few critical assumptions. The first is that we do
value – and always have valued – authenticity. “Whatever authenticity turns out to be,” Potter
(2010) writes, “it is something that people definitely want” (p.6). But while Potter believes our
hunger for authenticity is a perverse outgrowth of the modern era — a misguided backlash against
the rise of things artificial, commercial or fake combined with a hunger for the supposedly
“honest,” “simple” and “natural” products of yesteryear — it is certain that some concept of the
notion of authenticity has always existed. While its definition may change and its relevance ebbs
and flows, I contend that authenticity is by no means a novel notion and its pursuit is by no means
a novel drive. In as much as authenticity can refer to basic verifiability – is this an authentic liquor
or a dangerous moonshine? – it is clear that it has always guided human behavior. And in as much
as authenticity encompasses the very idea of truth – an argument that I will develop in this paper
– it seems undeniable that it has always occupied a space in the human psyche. It should also be
noted, however, that while we undoubtedly value authenticity, it is not a criterion that guides all
or even most of our decisions. Even if all the conditions for considering authenticity are in place,
we often find an experience pleasurable or valuable in ways that have no bearing on this attribute.
Furthermore, we may sometimes actively prefer the inauthentic (although we would not think of

it in those terms). For example, we may value authentic people but, when we are at work, prefer
inauthentic professional reserve. Likewise, while we may value the authentic taste and production
method of unpasteurized milk, we will normally opt for the safer pasteurized variety. The question
therefore should not be “Why is authenticity always preferable to the inauthentic?” but rather
“Why are we motivated to pursue it at all?”
Before answering this question, I will make a second assumption: We will often be misled
or will willingly choose to accept the inauthentic because it has the halo of authenticity. Potter
points out that the very things often touted as being “authentic” – like politicians or consumer
products – are the ones most likely to be deceptive or fake. And many researchers study the way
in which cultural authenticity is unabashedly fabricated and commoditized for a gullible audience
(Peterson, 2013). But the fact that we live in a world where authenticity is often constructed and
effortfully projected only emphasizes the strength of our motive for pursing it in the first place. In
other words, authenticity is staged precisely because we seek it. It is also true that authenticity is
by no means a binary concept; we will always be willing to make tradeoffs in our search for
authenticity. Sometimes we will gladly accept inauthenticity if it is the closest we will get to
experiencing the authentic. This is something that characterizes the experience of tourism, which
is often criticized for its inauthenticity (Gaytan, 2008; Potter, 2010). But I propose that we may
tolerate the charade of even the most artificial touristic experience precisely because it moves us
closer to experiencing something authentic that might be otherwise inaccessible given a
cultural/language barrier or a financial/time constraint. In fact, rather than just tolerate it, we may
even delight in blatant inauthenticity, such as Elvis look-alike contests, as a tribute to, rather than
a perversion of, the original. We will also make tradeoffs depending on whether we value an
authentic process or an authentic result. A return to authenticity may sometimes require

inauthentic transformation. A high-tech medical procedure, for example, may be necessary to
return the body to what we might consider its more authentic state. Similarly, farmers may need
to use artificial systems and human intervention in order to preserve rather than upset the natural
ecology of the land (Barber, p. 269-270). In short, I agree that authenticity is often an illusion and
that in our striving for the real we may be sold and convinced to settle for something fake. But this
only testifies to the strength of that striving and the value of understanding why it occurs.
To review, I will assume that the pursuit of authenticity is, first, enduring and universal,
and, second, easily exploited. My third and final assumption is that, in evaluating any individual
person, object or experience, this preference for authenticity may be used as a heuristic — an easy,
sometimes faulty rule of thumb meant to help us evaluate various complicated attributes like
quality or worth. It may perhaps even constitute an irrational bias. For example, we have empirical
evidence that consumers will ignore valuable information about a producer’s reputation or
expertise and instead make purchase decisions based on an “authenticity is better” heuristic
(Doonan, 2007). But this overgeneralization about the value of authenticity only emphasizes our
inherent preference for authenticity and brings me back to the question: Why do we value
authenticity in the first place?
Several motives have been proposed to answer this question. I will review a number of
them before proposing my own. The first is that authenticity is seen as a marker of quality and
legitimacy. In their book Soul of the New Consumer: Authenticity - What We Buy and Why in the
New Economy, Lewis and Bridger (2000) write that “authentic” products and services are often
seen as “offering the best value for the money since they are superior in quality, more reliable in
use and likely over time to maintain their value, or even increase it” (p.28). But, they add, this is
not always the main consideration since inauthentic products are often of verifiably equal or higher

quality. The Leica camera, for example, which achieved an aura of authenticity due to its
association with celebrated photographers, costs hundreds of dollars more than modern Japanese
alternatives despite being of comparable quality and lacking many common high-tech features.
The quality motive is therefore a highly limited explanation. Not only is it mostly irrelevant to
domains outside of consumer decision making, such as the authenticity of people, lifestyle or
culture, but it is not even predictive of all consumer behavior.
A second frequently cited explanation for our authenticity drive is the desire for meaningful
or symbolically-rich experience. Visiting a historical heritage site, an example of geographic
authenticity, may offer a more visceral and transportive experience than visiting a museum
(Chronis & Hampton, 2008). Viewing the work of a self-taught artist, an example of expressive
authenticity, may seem more evocative than that of someone who is consummately and classically
trained (Fine, 2004). And using a Leica, an example of product and producer authenticity, may,
through magical thinking, enrich the experience for a novice photographer who seeks inspiration
from the camera’s storied past. An authentic experience can therefore be seen as more valuable
without being of higher quality or greater worth in any objective, verifiable way.
The third authenticity motive touched on by some social scientists and cultural critics is
that authentic products and experiences are sought only inasmuch as they confer greater social
status. For Potter, the main problem with authenticity is not that it does not exist but that the
competitive nature of the quest for authenticity turns it into a constantly moving target (p.115).
While we may convince ourselves that this quest is motivated by an intrinsic desire for better
quality goods and richer personal experience, Potter is convinced that it is nothing more than a
conspicuous social gambit. Carroll and Wheaton (2009) similarly propose that seeking authentic
food and dining experiences may be a pursuit of status. Because many allegedly authentic food

products are subtle, complex and inherently difficult to evaluate, they suggest that displays of
esoteric knowledge about these products may “accord an overall image of sophistication and
refinement.”
In short, our mysterious longing for authenticity could stem from its association with
greater value, greater meaning or social gain. None of these motives, however, offer a blanket,
first-order explanation of our drive for authenticity and may in fact be nested under more complex
but perhaps more encompassing motives. The status motive is perhaps the least informative. For
starters, this motive is directly related to both quality and meaning and as such is, at best, a second-
order motive, emerging from more primary drives. In as much as authenticity is associated with
higher quality (e.g. an Italian versus a Chinese-made espresso machine), owning the authentic
product signals greater wealth and sophistication. And in as much as authentic consumption is
symbolically meaningful (e.g. drinking fair trade coffee), it sends a clear social message about our
values and priorities (Elliott & Wattanasuwan, 1998). Consequently, status generation may not be
particularly enlightening when considering our essential psychological drive for authenticity.
Secondly, the association of authenticity with status is highly dependent on cultural context.
Today, buying organic produce is a praiseworthy marker of an authentic lifestyle, but as little as
two decades ago it was seen as an esoteric habit of a select cultural sub-group, at best marginal, at
worst alienating and confusing (Potter, p.128). If, in the future, we were to somehow shift to
exclusively organic agriculture, it would again lose its social cachet by eliminating the visible
counterexamples of inauthentic consumption. Authentic consumption, therefore, can only confer
social status if it is not too marginal, not too mainstream and is in line with the often arbitrary and
quickly shifting trends of the day. And while we may sometimes seek the authentic for its social

benefits, there are many instances in which we seek the authentic knowing full well that our
consumption will remain private or, even if revealed, will not curry favor with the cultural elite.
The quality and meaning motives also fail to comprehensively explain our authenticity
drive in all its iterations. Clearly, an inference about quality, worth or explicit value is simply
irrelevant in many cases. For example, it cannot explain the appeal of a restaurant with an
idiosyncratic origin story, one pathway for recognizing authenticity in food and dinning (Carroll
& Wheaton, 2009). Could it be said, in these instances, that what we seek is not quality but a more
meaningful, enriched or enriching experience? Perhaps, but both anecdotally and scientifically,
the notion of meaning is highly vague and, as such, an unsatisfactory explanation of our
authenticity drive. Instead of answering the question ‘Why is authenticity valued?’, this
explanation simply poses another question: ‘Why is authenticity meaningful?’ Moreover, there are
many instances – like our admiration of authentic people – where neither quality nor even the
nebulous desire for meaning seems to justify an expressed preference for the authentic.
I propose that there is another set of more primary motives to which we can attribute our
authenticity striving. Ultimately, the authentic is something that is, in one way or another, truer
than the inauthentic or contains within it information that promises to provide utilitarian or
affective benefits. We may value this information because it identifies the product as being of
higher quality (explaining the quality motive), because it provides a context that enriches our
experience with the authentic (explaining the meaning motive) or simply because we have an
inherent preference for truth and an equally inherent distaste for being deceived. I propose that the
opportunity to learn a valuable truth or reveal some underlying reality is the explanation for why
we value authenticity or, conversely, that those things that contain such truth are valued and
ultimately called authentic. In the rest of this paper, I will first explore the relationship between

authenticity and truth. Then I will outline four proposed motives for authenticity. Finally, I will
review six domains in which authenticity is a relevant and commonly used term – art, cuisine,
culture, consumer products, lifestyle and people – and argue that many examples of authenticity
within these domains can be attributed to one of the four authenticity motives.
Truth and Authenticity
Throughout history, many thinkers have proposed that a search for higher knowledge is
one of life’s central conflicts and that the pursuit of authenticity is the recognition of this conflict
and the attempt to resolve it by learning and living some valuable truth. For Plato, higher truth
could only be found by gaining awareness about the perfect forms residing beyond the mundane,
physical phenomena which we experience as life. He thought of these phenomena as just fleeting
shadows of essential knowledge and believed pessimistically that they were all most of us are ever
destined to know. Later thinkers, from Romanticists to Transcendentalists to Existentialists,
similarly focused on the difficulty of gaining clarity about our world and ourselves but were more
optimistic about our chances of learning the authentic truth and endeavored to provide a road map
to an authentic existence. Rousseau thought that a gap between appearance and reality was an
inevitable consequence of the limits of perception, but argued that the gap between natural and
artificial living was a negotiable product of society. He advocated for an authentic lifestyle as a
way to bridge that gap and return man to a more honest state. Thoreau also lamented our alienation
from truth, and argued that authenticity could be achieved by confronting the essential facts of life
while simultaneously rejecting materialism and social striving (Thoreau, 1854).
In short, many philosophers have identified the search for truth as a central human struggle.
For some, like Plato, “truth” referred to the universal and permanent reality undergirding all of our

perceptions while for others, like Rousseau, it referred to the emotional, expressive instinct alive
in every individual. The quest for truth, therefore, can be both rational and emotional. But in as
much as the imagined can sometimes contradict the real, the two interpretations of truth may not
always be in line. And it is here, perhaps, that the value of the notion of authenticity becomes clear.
The way to reconcile our quest for both rational and emotional truth is to replace truth with the
notion of authenticity (Bendix, Kindle Locations 716-718). The search for authenticity is therefore
the search for any truth that illuminates an aspect of our reality. It is the acknowledgment that truth
may lie beyond the material world but can be revealed through it. T.S. Eliot once wrote that reality
is a convention (Habib, 1999), and perhaps there is nothing strange about authenticity being a
convention, too. It is this that accounts for its relativistic and malleable nature, but at its core, the
search for authenticity is the expression of a fixed, universal and eternal recognition that a valuable
truth about our world or ourselves is worth learning.
To put it in economic terms, truth is a property of information and possessing or interacting
with authentic entities can reveal information perceived to be characterized by this property. Such
information may have instrumental utility by aiding either decision and/or sense-making, or – in
as much as knowledge is socially valued – serving as a resource in itself. Otherwise, it may have
affective utility, in as much as it is rewarding to discover and possess information about something
that we consider to be meaningful or essential. Basically, an attraction to the authentic is rooted in
a desire to learn some valuable or pleasurable truth that the authentic contains. It may be a truth
about what I will call the authentic exemplar – the specific entity that is being called “authentic”
– or about what I will call the authenticity-referent, that which the authentic exemplar is an
authentic example of. Below I will review four proposed motives for seeking authenticity. The
first three fall under the umbrella of “learning motives” because they are based on the utility of

learning valuable information about the authentic exemplar or the referent. The fourth, the “trust
motive,” falls slightly out of this category as it does not rely on learning but simply on the belief
that the authentic is truer and therefore more trustworthy than the inauthentic.
Motives for authenticity
I. Appraisal and Forecasting Motive
The first type of learning motive that may account for the authenticity drive is what I will
call the appraisal and forecasting motive. This motive often applies to the most straightforward
definition of authenticity – whether something is what it appears or is claimed to be. Yet it can
also account for the appeal of less objective or verifiable interpretations of authenticity, such as
the expression of someone’s or something’s unadulterated, essential nature. One reason that we
may value both forms of authenticity is because the authentic (vs. the inauthentic) facilitates our
decision making. It does so in two ways. First, authenticity facilitates our appraisal of our
environment. Knowing that something is an authentic exemplar (e.g. an authentic painting) of
some known authenticity referent (e.g. the painter’s body of work) allows us to evaluate that
exemplar based on preexisting knowledge of that referent. This can be thought of as deductive
valuation. It is especially useful when such worth is dependent on arbitrary, social standards, as is
often the case with fine art and luxury consumer products. If I know that my bag is an authentic
Louis Vuitton then I can decide how much I value the bag based, at least in part, on how much I
value the brand. Conversely, I can use the exemplar to evaluate the authenticity-referent. This can
be thought of as inductive valuation. If I visit what I am told is an authentic French restaurant and
I know little about French cuisine, I can use my valuation of the individual dining experience and

knowledge that it is somehow emblematic to inform my valuation of French cuisine or French
restaurants in general. The second and closely related way in which authenticity facilitates decision
making is by facilitating forecasting. Returning to the restaurant example, I may prefer to try what
has been touted as an authentic French restaurant as opposed to one that is either not rooted in
tradition or is an inaccurate representation of a tradition because my preexisting knowledge of the
authenticity-referent – French restaurants in general – will allow me to predict the nature of this
individual experience. Conversely, if I know nothing about French restaurants, I may prefer to dine
in the authentic restaurant because it will allow me to predict future experiences with this cuisine.
Although, as I have argued, authenticity is not primarily motivated by status seeking, the value of
the authenticity referent may be socially determined. The only reason we would likely wish to try
an authentic exemplar when knowing little of the referent is because that referent is an important
cultural reference point that we would benefit from understanding.
The appraisal and forecasting motive may, at least partially, also account for the appeal of
more emotive and expressive forms of authenticity, such as the authenticity of character. In as
much as an authentic person is simply an honest person, authenticity is clearly conducive to our
appraisal of that person. If we believe that what someone does or says (the authentic exemplar) is
not a product of calculated artifice but an authentic expression of their inner self (the authenticity
referent), we can then more accurately evaluate that person and arrive at an informed opinion. And
in as much as an authentic person is someone who honestly expresses his or her core values and
beliefs, we can perhaps assume that this person will continue to remain faithful to these beliefs and
act consistently in the future.
In short, a critical feature of authenticity is that an authentic entity is connected to some
other feature of our reality and as such can be thought to contain more truth than the inauthentic,

which either lacks or falsifies this connection. An authentic entity is appealing, therefore, because
learning this truth has explicit instrumental utility: it facilitates information-relevant decision
making. One may argue, of course, that everything is connected to some authenticity-referent and
therefore everything in one way or another facilitates information-relevant decision making,
ostensibly invalidating this motive. For example, by most contemporary metrics, Starbucks may
be widely regarded as an inauthentic coffee chain relative to smaller, privately owned coffee shops
operating in its shadows. But a given Starbucks café is nevertheless an authentic exemplar of the
Starbucks brand. Moreover, the proliferation and consistency of the brand would suggest that each
individual experience in a Starbucks should have far more deductive and inductive predictive value
than an experience in an independent coffee shop since, by knowing one Starbucks, we can
essentially know them all. This counterargument, however, ignores two critical conditions that
must exist for the concept of authenticity to be relevant. First, there must be a threat that an
inauthentic version exists. If suddenly imposter Starbucks cafes start to appear to profit from the
company’s reputation, then we will indeed start considering whether or not a Starbucks is
authentic, and will choose the authentic version at least partially in order to better predict our
experience with the product. Secondly, authenticity must be viewed as a positive attribute — it
must contain some advantageous truth that the inauthentic lacks for a given person and in a given
context. That means even if Starbucks imposters begin to crop up, if we do not value the brand,
then the authenticity of any given Starbucks will be irrelevant.
II. Desire-for-Knowledge Motive
The appraisal and forecasting motive for seeking authentic things or experiences is based
on the recognition that 1) the authentic contains some valuable information that the inauthentic

does not and 2) that learning this information has instrumental value in that it helps us make better
decisions about the authentic entity in question or the authenticity referent to which it is linked.
But this information may also be valuable even if it does not serve as an input into decision making.
For one, it may provide another kind of instrumental utility by serving as a social asset, as is often
the case in art, culture or luxury consumer goods. In fact, we can often determine what has social
capital — as Bourdieu called it — by asking what things are commonly assessed for authenticity.
While we speak of authentic restaurants, we do not speak of authentic jails. Furthermore, in
domains of food and culture, authenticity often diminishes as we transport something away from
its point of origin. For example, “the more local or idiosyncratic a style of cooking and the more
dependent upon strictly local produce, the less likely that cooking will ‘travel’” (Ferguson,
Locations 337-338). As a result, experiencing something that is authentic by virtue of its distance
from our home may earn us social status by winning us relatively rare knowledge that others with
fewer resources may not have access to.
Such knowledge may also have non-instrumental and intrinsic value. If something that is
authentic is something that is true relative to some reference point, then we may want to extract
that truth in the form of knowledge for the simple pleasure of learning it. Our motive, then, may
be to simply satisfy our curiosity. As Bendix writes, “authenticity quests easily slip into
justifications of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, an assertion of science’s quasi-religious hold on
the modern imagination” (Locations 4606-4608). Scientific inquiry is driven by the desire to
understand our world and perhaps uncover universal laws that explain everything. Similarly, the
drive for authenticity is rooted in a broader desire to uncover some essential truth, whether it is
objective or subjective, whether it is permanently or momentarily relevant.

In as much as all knowledge may contribute to our personal and social store of capital, it
may be difficult to disentangle the social and intrinsic desire to learn information about the
valuable truth which characterizes the authentic. However, we may also be motivated by the desire
to discover (or consume) the information, even if we do not store and retain it – a purely non-
instrumental and intrinsic drive. In other words, there is value not just to possessing knowledge
but to the act of uncovering it. Because authenticity requires contrast and is more salient when it
is threatened, those things that qualify as authentic may be older, scarcer or more hidden. To return
to the example of that proper French bistro, its authenticity will only strike us if it stands out against
a backdrop of inauthentic French restaurants or is simply the only French restaurant around. The
scarcity of similar restaurants not only makes authenticity more relevant, but it makes the
discovery more satisfying, suggesting that such pleasure may be one of the motives for authentic
experiences.
The preference for authenticity may therefore be motived by a desire for knowledge
because 1) it can be used as a social commodity, 2) it is pleasurable to accumulate, or 3) it is
pleasurable to discover, regardless of whether or not it will be retained.
III. Context Motive
A recently proposed unified definition of authenticity is based on the concept of
psychological essentialism (Newman, 2016). Newman writes that “when people evaluate
authenticity they are really verifying (or evaluating the truth of) a valued essence. In turn, an item
is deemed ‘authentic’ if it is seen as being true to that essential characteristic.” But why, according
to this definition, is something authentic more appealing? Why do we seek the essential? Newman
posits that this preference may be rooted in some form of magical thinking, arguing that “an

essentialist view of authenticity does not require that individuals know what the essence is before
evaluating authenticity; it simply requires that they believe that there is some unobservable essence
and that the essence, rather than observable properties, is the primary source of value.” This
suggests that there is no practical utility to the authentic. However, if we reframe “essence,” as
“context,” I propose that there is utility to verifying whether or not something is authentic. Essence
can be thought of as something valuable that lies beyond an object, giving that object identity and
integrity, allowing us, as Wordsworth wrote, “to see into the life of things.” It can also be thought
of as the connection of the object to some greater truth. Freud thought of truth as just “fiction with
a lengthy pedigree” (Perl, 1991). Perhaps this pedigree is what contributes to the sense that
something has an essence and, more importantly, provides context for our experience with the
object in question.
Unlike essence, context provides a number of clear, practical, and not at all magical
advantages. First, context enhances appreciation by linking an authentic exemplar to an
authenticity-referent, thereby informing our understanding of the single object by framing it in the
context of what we know of the greater category. As such, context is the difference between
knowing the name of something and truly knowing what it is. In Plato’s cave, context is what gives
depth to the shadows on the walls. This is especially relevant to our ability to appreciate art, the
coherent evaluation of which requires critical contextual clues, such as who painted it and when.
Context may also explain why reproduction seems to reduce the aura of art (Benjamin, 1936).
Perhaps when something is reproduced, valuable contextual information about who painted it is
qualified, thereby diminishing its informational value. This will be discussed in more detail in the
section on authenticity in art.

Establishing context also enhances our ability to integrate into our memory what we learn
from our interaction with an authentic entity. Authentication establishes context by linking an
authentic exemplar to an authenticity referent, thereby linking a physical object or transient
experience to its deeper reality. We know from memory research that forming multiple
associations with a certain concept provides more paths for retrieving that concept from memory
(Smith et al., 1978). Similarly, forming an association between a single object (such as a painting)
with some features of its reality (such as the painter, the historical era in which it was painted or
any other aspect of its unique history) serves as a mnemonic device. Not only does the added
information create more routes for recall about the particular object, it also helps us construct a
coherent narrative about the object, further aiding memory of the discrete entity. If, as I argue,
something is considered authentic when it contains some deeper and valuable truth, then one of
the benefits of this truth is the construction of a context or narrative around the entity in question.
Trilling posits that narrative is actually an inherently inauthentic device since it artificially
simplifies and consequently betrays the reality it seeks to convey (p. 135). I am not, however,
arguing that the imposition of narrative makes something more authentic but that we seek
authenticity because it reveals information that we can structure into a narrative to help us
understand, however reductively, the world around us. And in as much as context enhances
appreciation and strengthens recall it may also contribute to that ineffable sense of greater meaning
which authentic objects seem to possess.
IV. Trust Motive
Contrary to the theory of authenticity based on psychological essentialism, I am suggesting
that it is not enough to know that something is authentic or somehow essential, but that the value

of authenticity is based on knowing how something is authentic. For example, if I am told that I
will be eating an authentic meal perfectly representing the cuisine of a certain culture, but I am not
told what this culture is and will have no way (or take no pleasure) from guessing, then I propose
that simply knowing that this experience is “authentic” will not be enough to make it appealing.
Only by linking the experience to the referent, in this case the culture of origin, will I be able to
reap the benefits of authenticity by learning valuable or pleasurable information that will facilitate
future decision making (the appraisal and forecasting motive), adding to my store of valuable
knowledge (the desire-for-knowledge motive) and creating the context needed to appreciate,
remember and find meaning in the meal (the context motive).
But, there is one other important motive for authenticity which does not fit in with the
learning motives because it does not depend on learning anything about the exemplar or the
referent. In as much as authenticity is representative of purity or truth, it is sometimes enough to
simply know that something is authentic. Unlike Newman’s theory, however, this motive does not
apply to all domains in which authenticity is assessed. It is particularly relevant to questions of
food, where authenticity is often equated with the lack of scientific intervention. If, for example,
our authenticity-referent is nature, then we may find a food product more authentic if it is a pure
expression of nature (e.g. something made with “real cheese”) and inauthentic if it results from
multiple transformations between its natural and final state. In this case, we do not need to learn
anything about the referent or the exemplar. It is enough to establish the link between the two in
order to find the exemplar appealing. Essentially, this motive is based on trusting that which is
more honest, more natural or more true. As such, I refer to this as the trust motive and will develop
it further in the appropriate sections.

Authenticity in Context
I. Authenticity in Art
Art is a good domain with which to begin an analysis of the authenticity drive. For one, the
role of authenticity may be more valuable in art than it is in other domains, such as food or
consumer goods, because it allows us to coherently appraise works of art despite the highly
arbitrary nature of aesthetic standards. Moreover, unlike the authenticity of culture or of character,
it is often possible to establish the authenticity of an artwork firmly and objectively by
authenticating discrete features such as authorship or provenance. This is known as nominal
authenticity and it is simply, according to Dutton (2003), a matter of “ensuring, as the term implies,
that an object of aesthetic experience is properly named.” Any real and verifiable fact that helps to
meaningfully establish the identity of such an object can be thought to contribute to its nominal
authenticity. As such, the appeal of nominally authentic art is easy to understand and can be
accounted for by all three learning motives. For one, establishing nominal authenticity aids
appraisal and forecasting, satisfying the first learning motive. For example, knowing the true
author or origin (the authenticity-referent) of a painting (the authentic exemplar) allows us to
assess the painting’s social or financial value or to use our experience with the exemplar to draw
conclusions about the referent. Establishing a link between the referent (the artist) and the
exemplar (the artwork) also allows us to make inductive and deductive predictions about each one.
Secondly, in establishing the authenticating information about a particular work of art, we are also
gaining valuable knowledge about the exemplar and/or the referent in a way that may have nothing
to do with the practical value of that knowledge, satisfying the desire for knowledge motive.
The third learning motive perhaps best explains the appeal of nominally authentic art.

Knowing that a work of art is nominally authentic and, importantly, knowing how it is authentic,
establishes an important context for the experience of that individual work and allows us to better
appreciate that work. As it pertains to art, nominal authenticity is often a matter of revealing and
authenticating some information about how the work of art came to be, such as its historical,
geographical or authorial provenance, and this, according to Dutton (2003), is essential to
understanding any human product, especially art. He writes that the drive to establish the nominal
authenticity of a work of art “comes from a general desire to understand a work of art according
to its original canon of criticism: what did it mean to its creator? How was it related to the cultural
context of its creation? To what established genre did it belong? What could its original audience
have been expected to make of it?” The correct answers to these questions are the building blocks
of nominal authenticity and the guidelines for how we interpret and appreciate the work. For one,
our appraisal of the quality of art and what we interpret as artistic achievement is deeply reliant on
what we know about its origins. A sculpture may be seen as a relatively sophisticated depiction of
the human form if it is thought to have been sculpted in the Paleolithic era or by a young child, but
crude and amateurish if it is the work of a formally trained adult sculptor. Our appraisal also relies
on what we know about the format or materials used to create the work. For example, hearing an
aurally identical but electronically synthesized version of a complex piano sonata will fail to
mesmerize us because, Dutton writes, “while sound synthesizers can play as fast as you please,
pianists cannot.” In fact, Dutton continues, some copies of older original artworks may be
aesthetically better than their older prototypes, but their “value and meaning can be rightly assessed
only against a background of correctly determined nominal authenticity.”
Essentially, nominal authenticity is the revelation and certification of a critical human
and cultural context needed to understand, evaluate and appreciate art as anything more than a

perceptually pleasing experience of inherently arbitrary value. Additionally, context also helps us
integrate our experience with a work of art into our memory. The visual components of a painting
or sonic makeup of song may be too arbitrary to recall without a mnemonic association that links
our perceptual experience to a deep well of knowledge about its genre, author and background. As
such, nominal authenticity may contribute to a more meaningful experience with art by both
guiding and enhancing our appreciation while simultaneously strengthening our memory of the
experience.
Of course, any information about a work of art can be seen as providing context for that
experience and we certainly may seek and benefit from that context (i.e. any information about a
work connecting it to something beyond it) without raising any issues of nominal authenticity. If
I am shown a sketch and told that it was drawn by my neighbor’s daughter, for example, this
information may provide context about the work, but without the possibility that the sketch was
forged and absent any further interest in learning about the artist, establishing her identity as the
author of the work fails to nominally authenticate it. Nominal authenticity is only a relevant feature
when it connects us to a deeper reality about the referent, a connection to a valued past or to a
valued person whose identity is important enough to prompt the question of authenticity in the first
place.
To review, nominal authenticity allows us to appraise, appreciate and absorb a work of
art by establishing relevant facts about its origin and physical features, linking the work, whose
value is inherently subjective, to the far more intelligible and objective context of its history. But
we can also contextualize a work of art by linking it not to the creator’s external but to his internal
reality. Dutton refers to this second form of authenticity in art as expressive authenticity.
Something may be seen as expressively authentic if it is an honest manifestation of the artist’s

resources and limitations, emotions and imagination, values and beliefs. While anything can be
nominally authenticated, depending on our reference point for authenticity, expressive authenticity
is seen as something that is infused into the work during the process of creation. An example of
the type of work that is often seen as infused with expressive authenticity is the work of self-taught
artists. By never having been classically and formally trained, their work is seen an honest
expression of who they are, unadulterated by artistic conventions and cynical career goals. It is
this quality of “naiveté” that gives the art an aura of authenticity, of creativity without the
sophistication that comes with art training or general education” (Fine, 2004). The example of the
self-taught artist also shows how the two notions of authenticity are sometimes deeply intertwined.
Knowing an artist’s biography may be seen as nominally authenticating information, but if the
work is defined by a passionate and idiosyncratic expression of that background, then this will
contribute to the sense that the work is also expressively authentic. And, in fact, self-taught artists
often gain prominence precisely because they are seen as emissaries of their social or cultural in-
group (Fine, 2004).
Although the appraisal and forecasting motive is more relevant to nominal authenticity,
knowing that a work of art is an authentic expression of the artist’s true self does have practical
implications for our ability to assess both the work and the artist. For one, since an expressively
authentic work can be seen as a physical manifestation of the artist’s character, it is a more effective
way of learning about the artist than a work that ignores, obscures or misrepresents the artist’s true
feelings and intentions. Secondly, if we believe that these feelings and intentions are integral to
the artist and deeply felt, we may believe, rightly or wrongly, that we can better predict the artist’s
creative trajectory and consequently anticipate the social and financial value of their body of work.
Essentially, both nominal and expressive authenticity can be seen as establishing the identity of

the artwork and the artist and, as such, inform our decisions regarding both.
As with nominal authenticity, the value of what an expressively authentic work can teach
us about the art and the artist extends beyond practical considerations, such as the current or future
market value of the work. It is also attractive because it links a single, discrete work of art of
subjective or even questionable aesthetic value to a well of information residing beyond the
confines of a canvas or vibrations of a song. If a work is considered authentic because it is a pure
expression of the artist’s psychic state, then we may feel that the art teaches us something about
human nature, about the emotional experience of other people. If instead the work is seen as
authentic because it is an expression of the artist’s background and biography, then we stand to
learn about the experience not just of that artist but the entire social and cultural milieu from which
he emerged. This motivation is particularly evident when we consider our fascination with self-
taught artists. We have evidence that people consider a self-taught artist to be more authentic when
they come from a more exotic, marginalized and unfamiliar background (Fine, 2004). We are
appealed by the primitive artists, the outsider, the product of a fascinating community which we
know nothing about. Not only is an artist a window into a new world, a self-taught artist is a pure
expression of that world since he has not been corrupted by the cosmopolitan ideas and universally
shared techniques touted in art school. In fact, the motive here may not be to simply know about a
new culture but to revel in the experience of learning about a new culture. We may be motivated
not by the fruits but by the process of discovery. Because a self-taught artist is by definition outside
of the artistic establishment and out of the spotlight, learning about her and experiencing her work
may be especially pleasurable. In fact, Fine writes that the work of self-taught artists is not even
considered “art” until it is discovered (2004), suggesting that with our gaze we may not only
appreciate the work but contribute to its existence.

I argued, based on Dutton’s ideas, that nominal authenticity is valued because it
generates and authenticates a contextual relationship between the work of art and other external
features of reality, such as its authorship, its origins and its original canon of criticism. This allows
us to understand and appreciate the work in the appropriate social and historical context. Similarly,
expressive authenticity links a work to an artist’s internal state, influenced by his biology,
psychology and personal history. As with nominal authenticity, this too enriches our experience
and enables us to understand a work of art, especially if it is primitive or unconventional, in the
proper context.
In sum, the appeal of both nominal and expressive authenticity – the two notions that
account for our perception of authenticity in art – can be attributed to the three learning motives
proposed in this paper. There is however another important authenticity motive that does not
directly relate to what we can learn about the authentic exemplar or the authenticity-referent and
that is the trust motive. Essentially, something that is authentic is often preferred because it is seen
as truer than the inauthentic. Unlike the other learning motives, this does not rely on learning what
that truth is and benefiting from that knowledge directly or indirectly, but it is simply based on a
preference for greater truth. We may prefer something that is truer either because we have a natural
desire for truth or because it minimizes our chances of being fooled or taken advantage of. In the
case of art, the trust motive may explain the appeal of expressive authenticity in as much as such
authenticity is associated with a lack of ulterior motives, such as profit. Of course, a desire for
profit may very well be someone’s true, core motivation for creating a work of art, making it, by
definition, expressively authentic, but, unless it is somehow valuable to learn this about an artist,
knowing that someone is openly motivated by money would simply not trigger questions about
authenticity – unless perhaps this surprising honesty is intriguing and counterintuitively authentic.

In the case of art, it is also important to show how the learning motives not only account
for the appeal of authentic art but can explain our acute anxiety about inauthenticity. It is easy to
see how the appraisal and forecasting motive accounts for our distaste for nominal inauthenticity.
If we view art as a commodity, there is a clear disadvantage to forged, plagiarized or even
unintentionally misidentified art. But what explains our deeply ingrained preference for an original
over a copy when deception is not involved? Potter disparagingly attributes our bias for originality
to magical thinking about the “aura of an object” (p.96). But I propose that this bias can be
explained by far more rational, if evolutionarily outdated, learning motives. The flip side of our
desire-for-knowledge motive is the fear of misinformation, even if it has no practical ramifications.
Perhaps copies are inherently feared as containing informational glitches or gaps that may not be
perceptible but inevitably alter and adulterate the truth. While today, technology has made it
possible to create exact molecular replicas of biological organisms — to say nothing of paintings
— our value system for art developed long before identical copies were possible. So perhaps one
of the reasons we so deeply devalue a seemingly perfect replica of a painting is because, on some
level, we fear that we are missing some truth that existed in the original – a brushstroke, a color –
that was not captured in the copy.
Simply put, our reptilian brain may be shouting: “A copy is bound to have errors!” But,
of course, this raises the question: what constitutes an error? An error, perhaps, is anything that
was not part of the natural trajectory of the artwork’s development and existence. Anything that
was not intentionally introduced by the artist (a marker of expressive authenticity) and not a
documented consequence of the work’s unique history (an aspect of its nominal authenticity) will
be seen as having no informational value for the audience. Worse still, it may be seen as corrupting
the contextual information imparted by the work, suggesting that the context motive may also

explain our fear of the inauthentic. Context is particularly important because, as discussed, it
allows us to critique art, which is especially hard to do in the age of copies, where the ability to
physically create has been devalued. Benjamin (1936) writes that by virtue of their replicability,
photography and film have nullified the concept of authenticity, but I propose that they have simply
forced us to modify the type of authenticity we seek. In these domains, we may care more about
expressive authenticity than nominal authenticity and reinterpret a “copy” as something reductive
or derivative of someone else’s style. In any case, a copy is basically lacking context or, what
Benjamin calls the “presence in time and space.” Our desire for context and fear of losing it links
up with one of the most holistic theories of authenticity in art: that authenticity is a recognition of
essence. Newman and Bloom (2012) found that original paintings were more valuable as a function
of direct physical contact with the artist and argued that this invisible essence or contamination
was driving the preference for these paintings. But perhaps this magical thinking is based on the
rational fear of losing critical information and valuable context? If the work was not created by the
artist but by his students, perhaps it is seen as adulterating the expressive authenticity by diluting
the personal intentionality of each brushstroke?
In sum, we care about the authenticity of art because of what establishing that
authenticity (be it nominal or expressive) can teach us. The tradeoffs we are willing to make
to experience such authenticity ultimately comes down to what we want to learn and how badly
we want to learn it. If a film is based on true events then we will seek nominal authenticity; if the
story is purely fictional we may value expressive authenticity and grant the filmmaker poetic
license. If we wish to “remove of all interfering traces of time and history” (Bendix, Locations
1399-1400) then natural deterioration in the color of a painting or any changes to a song’s original
recording may be seen as a perversion of nominal authenticity (Dutton, 2003). On the other hand,

some may argue, expressive authenticity may be best served if we use modern technology or apply
modern conventions to try to experience a work as the artist might have conceived it but could not
achieve in his lifetime – such as by staging Shakespeare’s plays with women in female roles, as
was not allowed in his time.
II. Authenticity of Food
In matters of food, questions of authenticity arise in two distinct areas: ingredients and
cuisine. I will begin by exploring the authenticity of cuisine because of its parallels to the
authenticity of art. As with art, cuisine is determined by and judged in the context of greater social
and cultural forces but may also be influenced by a single entity, be it a dining establishment or a
chef. We have evidence that people enjoy culturally authentic dining experiences (Gaytán, 2008;
Lu & Fine, 1995) and are willing to pay more for historically or geographically authentic food
products (Beverland, 2005), but, as in all other domains where authenticity is relevant, there is
little research into what truly drives this preference. In this section, I will review a comprehensive
conceptual framework for assessing authenticity in contemporary food and dining proposed by
Carrol and Wheaton (2009) and show how the appeal of each of the four categories of authenticity
that they propose can be accounted for by the learning and trust motives.
Carrol and Wheaton build off of the basic concept of nominal authenticity, which they refer
to as “type authenticity,” and expressive authenticity which they refer to as “moral authenticity.”
Type authenticity simply means that something is true to its genre or category, such as a true
French restaurant or a true American steakhouse. If a restaurant – the authentic exemplar –
adequately reflects the platonic version of the category to which it belongs – the authenticity
referent – it will be considered authentic according to this metric. When that referent is not a type

of establishment or institution but, rather, a process of preparation, such as molecular gastronomy
or artisanal cheese production, the authors label this subtype of type authenticity as “craft
authenticity,” as it is marked by a cultivation of certain products, use of certain tools or reliance
on a skill or a craft with an established pedigree. Like expressive authenticity, moral authenticity
conveys the goals and principles of the creator. If these are communicated through a certain type
of establishment or the use of certain ingredients or techniques, then moral authenticity will
overlap with type and craft authenticity, but it will ultimately be judged as an expression of
personal values rather than a social category. A subtype of moral authenticity is “idiosyncratic
authenticity,” and this is assessed when we evaluate an entity’s origin story or narrative rather than
its values.
I will begin by exploring the appeal of type authenticity. As with any form of authenticity,
type authenticity will only be perceived if there is an existing or feared proliferation of inauthentic
exemplars and if the authenticity referent is valued and desired. As such, each cookie-cutter
Starbucks café is not hailed for its type authenticity because perfect replica branches are neither
rare nor coveted. But, assuming that the schema does have some social import and is not taken for
granted, why do we value exemplars that fit the mold? Why is the perfect, platonic steakhouse or
our proper French bistro such a treat? The appraisal and forecasting motive is one easy answer. As
Ferguson writes, “all cuisines turn on questions of identity” (Kindle Location 1776) and, as with
nominally authentic art, it is valuable to accurately identify that the establishment in which we will
eat and spend money is the “real deal.” There are certainly many ways to learn what to expect from
an establishment, such as seeing photographs or reading reviews, but the most efficient way may
be to link the discrete exemplar to an overarching genre which we know well. This is what type
authenticity provides. It allows us to predict our experience with a discrete exemplar of a restaurant

genre or, if we know little of the genre except that it is culturally relevant, to use our single
experience to form an opinion of the category as a whole.
The desire-for-knowledge motive is similarly relevant here. As with art, there is both social
and personal value to knowing about dining culture. As with nominal authenticity in art, type
authenticity in restaurants establishes a valuable link between a single dining experience and a
broad, culturally relevant genre that we may want to know more about. What we learn does not
need to be important or practical and can just serve to satisfy our curiosity about the world.
Moreover, when type authenticity rests on the embodiment of a certain ethnic restaurant, such as
that proper French bistro, we learn something not only about that country’s restaurant culture but
about its culture on the whole. Importantly, we explicitly anticipate that, according to Ferguson,
"food and foodways afford a singular insight into any culture,” explaining why the learning
motives encourage us to seek authentic experiences.
The context motive is also relevant in the domain of food. Just as nominal authenticity
links a single work of art to art history as well as to the artist and his or her culture, type authenticity
similarly roots a single eating experience in a broader cultural and historical context. This is
enriching beyond the value of new information, as accounted for by the first two motives. An
eating establishment’s authentic expression of a cultural or historical identity may guide our
appreciation by priming us to expect certain flavors or presentation. It may also enhance our
experience by turning the quotidian ingestion of food into a form of travel, be it through space or
time. Gaytán (2008), for example, found that Americans dining at a Mexican restaurant were put
off by the non-Mexican staff because it impeded their ability to feel “transported.” Finally, as with
art, context creates a narrative that embeds the fleeting experience of eating dinner in our memory.
The appeal of authentic expressions of one’s own culture, such as a classic American steakhouse,

may be rooted in our desire to “redefine the individual act of eating into the collective act of dining”
by contextualizing our individual act of consumption in a beloved social tradition (Ferguson, 2004,
Kindle Location 173). In fact, type authenticity may be particularly appealing to Americans
because, in as much as cuisine depends on formalization and codification, “there is no American
cuisine” and therefore there is little cultural context in which to root our dining experiences
(Ferguson, 2004, Kindle Location 170). Linking our dining to a rich social and cultural context
also has the added benefit of legitimizing our pleasure, which may otherwise seem indulgent and
short-lived.
Broadly speaking, both type and craft authenticity are a form of cultural authenticity and
can be explained by similar motives, so I will more quickly review how these motives apply to
craft authenticity. Again, it is worth pointing out that not every traditional process is elevated to
craft status. But just because it is social consensus that may elevate a certain process to craft does
not mean that we mainly seek craft authenticity because we are motivated by status. Though this
may be a second-order drive, at bottom, experiencing something true to a craft offers clear learning
advantages. As with type authenticity, craft authenticity facilitates the appraisal and prediction of
the specific product of that craft or — if we encounter the product without preexisting knowledge
of how it was made — of the craft itself. Admittedly, this motive may just as easily explain our
patronage of consistent chain restaurants, so the desire-for-knowledge and context motives may
be more relevant. Experiencing the product of craft authenticity not only illuminates the process
itself but may provide interesting information about any number of related features – such as the
craft’s historical or cultural origins. An example which links each of the three learning motives as
well as type and craft authenticity is the appeal of foods, such as wine or cheese, which emphasize
their connection to a historic tradition or physical terrain. Not only can we better evaluate such a

product based on what we know of its place of origin, but we can also potentially learn about the
place from which it comes and use that knowledge to guide our appreciation of the taste
(Beverland, 2005). 
As with art, learning motives may not fully explain the appeal of type or craft authenticity.
The trust motive may explain why something that we are told is authentic or true to its category is
preferred even if we do not learn anything else about that exemplar or its referent. Usually,
restaurant categories or craft processes become authenticity referents because they are linked to
some valued historic tradition. Consequently, there may be the sense that if something has deep
historical roots and is an authentic outgrowth of that tradition then it has been tried and tested for
a long enough period of time to be safe or worth trying, even if we cannot or do not want to learn
anything about the context. For example, in The Art of the Restauranteur, Lander (2012) writes
that the appeal of walking into a historic Italian restaurant “is the immediate realization that you
are in the hands of experienced professionals.” The fact that the term artisanal – which originally
meant connected to a craft or artisan tradition – has lately been applied to many mass-produced
and ready-made products only goes to show that marketers recognize the appeal of craft
authenticity and use it to mislead consumers.
The motives for moral authenticity are similar to the appeal of expressive authenticity in
art, in as much as we are interested in the intent and values of the creator. If, however, we only
care about these values because we ourselves share them, then our motive may have nothing to do
with learning and everything with trust in the safety or goodness of the product we will consume.
This second motive is related to authenticity of ingredients and will be discussed further in the
next section. Although Carrol and Wheaton categorize idiosyncratic authenticity as a subtype of
moral authenticity, our motives to pursue it may be more in line with our motives for type and

craft authenticity. An idiosyncratically authentic establishment is one which has a salient and
interesting story. As such, it provides a context to our dining experience, which may teach us about
a collective past or provide a narrative to root the experience in our memory.
While I began the conversation about the authenticity of food by focusing on cuisine, food
is, first and foremost, a matter of nourishment, not culture. Another way in which some may judge
the authenticity of a meal is by evaluating the provenance and quality of the ingredients. It is in
this context that buzz words like “organic,” “seasonal” and “local” are used to indicate that a food
is somehow better, safer and more authentic. The authenticity of cuisine does touch on questions
of ingredient quality, in as much as place and culture can be a referent for evaluating the
authenticity and, in turn, the appeal of certain individual products, like wine or cheese. Therefore,
I will limit the scope of the discussion below to issues not of culture, but of agriculture or the
physical process by which food comes to our table. I will proceed with two assumptions: first, that
there is in fact a widespread preference for food that is produced naturally and, second, that, for
some, this food is considered more authentic.
Unlike authenticity of art and even of cuisine, the idea of authentic foods has many
detractors, and it is perhaps best to start with their arguments in order to understand how the same
basic motives may explain why some people shrink away from industrial food production and
gravitate toward what they see as a more natural way to eat. Potter, that feisty critic of authenticity,
attributes the preference for local and organic foods among a segment of the population to a
misguided fear of progress and to a tendency of “fetishizing the premodern past” (p.13). In his
ultimate strawman argument, he compares the suspicion of some elements of modern life — like
our reliance on pesticides — to a full-blown rejection of modern civilization by fanatics like the
Unabomber or Bin Laden (p. 254). His reasoning places a preference for organic apples on the

same spectrum as global terrorism and a fear of potentially harmful chemicals on the same
spectrum as the belief that the past 250 years of industrial innovation have been a tragic mistake.
My goal here is not to poke holes in Potter’s arguments or to claim that the use of the
“natural food is better” heuristic is always justified. Rather, I will simply argue that the preference
for more “natural” foods is an outgrowth of our preference for truth and not at its core a socially-
induced competition for status. Although there is no one universally accepted category under
which we can unite ideas such as local, seasonal, organic, non-GMO or raw food, I propose that
they are all characterized by a minimization of scientific or technological intervention. Foods that
fall under this category are perhaps less consistent and predictable than those that are controlled,
sterilized and homogenized by industrial processes and, as such, our preference for the former
category is not easily explained by the appraisal and forecasting motive. We may, however, be
motivated by the desire-for-knowledge motive in as much as natural foods carry in them interesting
and valuable information about land, climate and history. While some may rail against GMO foods
because of health concerns, others may be interested in the flavor that a certain plant had before it
was transformed to suit the needs of an industrial food system. In The Third Plate, Barber (2014)
tells the story of a farmer who unearthed a corn variety dating back from the 1600s. Not only did
it produce the most delicious polenta Barber had ever tasted but, by planting it, the farmer saw
himself as resurrecting the long-lost flavors of the past (p.1). Similarly, some consider wine from
a single vineyard to be more authentic and more appealing than the product of blending different
grapes from different parcels of land to achieve precise consistency from vintage to vintage.
Though the preference for more natural wine is, in some circles, influenced by social trends, it may
also be accounted for by the desire-for-knowledge motive since its taste can, in theory, reveal, with
greater clarity, information about the grape, the climate and the soil or terroir (Beverland, 2005).

Of course, as with all questions of authenticity and learning, if we do not value knowing what corn
tasted like centuries ago or what kind of wine is produced, say, from the pinot noir grapes grown
in the hills of Burgundy, then the appeal and relevance of authenticity disappears.
Another component of the desire-for-knowledge motive is the desire for discovery, and
this may equally account for our attraction to so-called authentic foods, which tend to be
characterized by unchecked natural variation. The means of scientific intervention and the will of
the industrial food economy all conspire to reduce any harmful or unprofitable variation in our
food. Though we have access to many more types of foods in our supermarket than we would if
we were limited to what was seasonal and local, we actually produce far fewer varieties of fruits
and vegetables than we once did, limiting production to those crops that are most efficiently grown,
preserved and transported. As such, it is easy to see how a trip to a local farmers market may offer
more unanticipated experiences, linking authenticity to the pleasure of discovery. Discovery may
also partially account for the growing popularity of “natural” wines – a low-intervention,
organically grown, nothing-but-the-grape approach to wine making that would certainly inspire
Potter’s ire and derision. When describing the value of these wines, as compared to the chemically
manipulated and additive-laced wines lining the shelves of most of our liquor stores, the New York
Times wine critic Eric Asimov does not just excuse but revels in the inconsistency. He writes that
“good wine is, by nature, fleeting, mysterious, ever-changing, subject to the imperfect,
unpredictable nuances of weather, place and human judgment. It is beyond reproduction. Those
who love wine live for the thrill of the surprise, the sense of discovery, the pleasure of knowing
that the best wines can take you places that you never anticipated.” The last line also hints at the
value of context provided by natural foods. Eating seasonally, for example, links our food to our
community and to local terrain. Drinking unpasteurized milk from a dairy farm rather than the

supermarket may enhance our appreciation for the taste and for the source of our nourishment.
And, in all cases, associating the fleeting and hedonistic experience of eating with an age-old
process of farming or animal cultivation may cement memory and add meaning. Ultimately, we
seem to consider food more authentic if we detect minimal intervention or transformation caused
by a force that we do not value and the greatest degree of influence from a force that we do.
Admittedly, the learning motives cannot account for perhaps the most obvious reason why
people prefer natural food: the desire to minimize harm. Perhaps more than any other form of
authenticity, the desire to eat authentic foods can be accounted for by the trust motive, which is
rooted in a core human preference for truth. While some blindly fetishize and conspicuously
consume natural foods in the interest of “keeping up with the Jonses,” this trend is also, perhaps
primarily, driven by our attempt to manage the risks of participating in the quickly changing
industrial food system. If we accept Freud’s notion that something is truer if it has been true longer,
then a preference for authentic foods can be seen as a simple expression of trust in older and
therefore truer methods and materials. After all, if something has been grown, prepared and
consumed in certain way for hundreds of years, it may not be optimally healthy or efficient, but it
can perhaps offer a basic guarantee of safety. In describing what he prefers about various
agricultural practices that some may considered “authentic,” Barber (2014) often points to their
cultural longevity. In defense of polyculture, he writes that "raising only one breed, and raising
only chickens at the expense of other animals, is an entirely new concept, and an industrial one at
that” (p. 147). And in defense of whole farm cooking, he adds, “the more I thought about it, the
more I realized that [it] is what peasants around the world figured out thousands of years ago” (p.
431). Barber approvingly quotes the motto of one critic of the industrial food system which perhaps
summarizes the trust motive best: “I prefer butter to margarine because I trust cows more than

chemists” (p. 96).
Potter views any preference for natural food as an unjustified fear of progress, but it is not
inconceivable that while advances in food production have brought immense benefits they have
also introduced many new problems which can be surgically addressed without rejecting the entire
system. Just as Rousseau though of nature as a regulative idea (as cited in Potter, p. 65), the appeal
of authenticity in food is also a regulative notion, not meant (by most) as an affront to all scientific
progress. Rather it is limited to what is attainable and desirable, a way of opting out of the
conventional foods system when we detect risk and opting back in when it is advantageous. Even
a natural-food advocate like Barber agrees that it is hopeless and naive to believe that farmers
markets can feed the world (p. 330) but he also argues that some products of what Potter would
consider “progress” should be questioned and corrected. “Fixtures of agribusiness such as five-
thousand-acre grain monocultures and bloated animal feedlots,” he writes, “are no more the future
of farming than eighteenth-century factories billowing black smoke are the future of
manufacturing” (p.9). The trust motive for authenticity in food is, therefore, a perfectly reasonable
drive that may explain our occasional suspicion of unchecked progress. We fear it because it may
be harmful, not because, as Potter writes, it is “something that many people find unpleasant and
even alienating” (p. 21). It is also perfectly consistent with our willingness to make tradeoffs in
seeking the safety of authenticity depending on which modern ill we are trying to cure. If
authenticity is defined as the product of natural transformation, then the industrial food system
may be seen as a perfectly authentic outgrowth of modern society. But, if we seek biological rather
than sociological authenticity, we will be entirely willing to inorganically intervene to shift our
agricultural habits and reorient society in what we see as the truly authentic direction.

III. Authenticity of Culture
In discussing the authenticity of art or of cuisine, I have frequently referred to the broader
notion of cultural authenticity but have not yet tried to define it. That is because cultural
authenticity is a far more ineffable notion. While art and food can easily be reduced to specific
authentic exemplars, such as a painting or a restaurant, cultural authenticity often defies such
objectification. Moreover, culture necessarily changes over time, meaning that to consider its
authenticity, we must always take both the process of transformation and the product of this
process into account. Nevertheless, researchers have not shied away from studying cultural
authenticity, often from the perspective of tourism – the process by which out-group members seek
and experience another culture. There is evidence that tourists seek what they view as authentic
cultural experiences, such as visiting culturally relevant sites (Chronis & Hampton, 2008) or
paying to dine with a local family (Martinelli, 2013). But, as with any demand that can be
commercialized, our preference for cultural authenticity is frequently exploited by the tourism
industry, which can very cynically and very easily create the aura of authenticity around even the
most contrived experience. As such, detractors of the search for authenticity, like Potter, argue that
any perception of cultural authenticity in the context of tourism is a mirage. Culture is a complex
and evolving set of values and rituals, that, he writes, cannot possibly be captured and coherently
presented to an outsider. The very attempt to do so fossilizes what is living and perverts what is
true, disqualifying, in his view, the very possibility of experiencing cultural authenticity as a
tourist, and, in turn, the value of pursuing it (p. 231).
It is certainly true that the tourism industry often warps the culture it peddles. It is also true
that tourists may be misguided or even cynical in their pursuit of cultural authenticity. For some,
that trip Machu Pichu may indeed be a social gambit – a way to get another stamp in their passport

or exotic background for their Instagram feed. But, at its core, the pursuit of cultural authenticity
is not as shallow as these examples suggest. Rather, as with art and food, it is driven by a universal
search for truth and curiosity about our world and it can easily be accounted for by the three
learning motives. In as much as we do learn something about the culture we are visiting as a tourist
or a traveler, our experience helps us appraise that culture and predict our future experience with
its members and institutions, which we may interact with at home or abroad. This may partially
explain why certain countries with large immigrant populations evaluate the cultural authenticity
of their in-group members. For example, a Mexican who has grown up in the US and has forgotten
Spanish may be referred to by someone from Mexico as a “pocho,” a term that easily categorizes
his level of cultural immersion and signals how to speak or interact with him. Tourism is also
motivated by the desire for knowledge: it satisfies our personal curiosity about the world but also
undeniably functions as social capital. Of course, the value of this knowledge depends on the depth
and direction of our curiosity. If we do not have a preexisting interest in a certain culture or a
general curiosity about our world, then the authenticity of our experience with that culture will not
satisfy the desire-for-knowledge motive or will do so only in as much as we feel that the
information we gain will be useful. Finally, tourists often credit cultural authenticity as infusing
their experience with some mystical sense of meaning, but this perhaps can be accounted for by
the context motive. As with food and art, a stamp of authenticity – such as the knowledge that you
are standing on the very location of a battlefield – links the physical experience of travel to a rich
narrative and perhaps makes that narrative more memorable than it would be if learned of far away
from the site of interest. As with diners preferring authentic restaurants, tourists seek “authenticity
as a form of fulfilment to escape to other places and times” (Reisinger and Steiner, 2006).
I have glossed over the three learning motives because it is perhaps not controversial and

is indeed a truism to say that we seek information about other cultures in an effort to learn about
those cultures. What is in fact challenged by critics of authenticity is the notion that such learning
can be achieved by tourism. I argue, however, that despite its limitations, tourism can indeed be a
vehicle for true learning and, as such, may be motivated by the learning motives. I will begin by
pointing out that Potter’s reductive view of the tourism industry ignores the existence of a
sophisticated traveler who actively avoids staged authenticity. But, even if a traveler avoids
commercial traps advertising “authentic experiences,” Potter would argue that the very idea of
experiencing in-group culture as an outsider invalidates the possibility of an authentic experience.
What does it mean, for example, to authentically experience an opera at La Scala when the original
audience of this historic institution has transformed into a sea of tourists? This question, posed by
Dutton (2003), essentially asks, what kind of tradeoffs, if any, can be tolerated when seeking to
physically and personally engage in an authentic experience with a cultural outgroup, which
necessarily becomes less authentic by our very presence? Potter views our willingness to make
any such tradeoffs as a nail in the coffin of cultural authenticity, but I propose that our tolerance
for a simplified and digestible presentation of other cultures is an indication of our desire to get
even a glimmer of insight into their world.
One common tradeoff, made implicitly or explicitly by the tourist, is to be taught about or
experience a ritual that would not exist if it were not preserved and simplified for touristic
consumption. Potter rails against such fossilization of traditions as fundamentally inauthentic. But,
although it is certainly not the optimal way to learn about the present-day expression of that culture,
it is not necessarily less authentic. In fact, there are many reasons for slowing or stopping the
natural evolution of culture that do not have the same associations with inauthenticity, such as the
active preservation of a dying language or the funding of cultural centers that preserve folklore.

But even if we adhere to Potter’s strict standard that an authentic culture is one that constantly
changes and naturally evolves, then we can simply reconceive whatever dance or historical dress
the tourist is entertained with – as long as it has not been perverted beyond recognition – as
authentic relative to some prior point in that culture’s development. This may not satisfy our
curiosity about the culture as it exists today, but nevertheless provides useful and satisfying
information about the culture’s past.
IV. Authenticity of Consumer Goods
Since art, food and tourism can be monetized, the last three sections have already touched
on the authenticity of consumer goods. Therefore, I will limit the discussion to products whose
value is primarily commercial rather than cultural. A commodity may be deemed authentic if
features such as its origin, its creator or its production process can be revealed (Pratt, 2007). Of
course, just because we have this information about a product does not mean that we will consider
it “authentic.” Authenticity will only be assessed and ascribed if these features are symbolically
valuable and somehow under threat. For instance, an Italian-made espresso machine’s authenticity
becomes more salient when we consider the possibility of an espresso machine made in China
(Doonan, 2007).
Assuming the authenticating information does indeed carry value, the persuasiveness of
authenticity as a guide for our consumer decisions has been attributed to two disparate motives:
quality and meaning. First, authenticity is seen as a marker of quality or, perhaps more accurately,
the idea of authenticity becomes relevant when quality is thought to be compromised by
inauthentic competitors. The quality of products whose roots are associated with a specific region
of origin or a specific producer will be valued more when similar products from other regions,

other producers or less established production methods come on the market. This may of course
be attributed to irrational status quo bias in favor of traditional producers or processes, fear of
change and blind adherence to socially-determined positive associations of certain products with
certain pedigrees. But an inference about quality can also be partially explained by the appraisal
and forecasting motive. Because authenticity is deeply intertwined with tradition, we often know
more about the authenticating features of the authentic product than the inauthentic product. For
example, we likely know more about the tradition of drinking espresso and, perhaps,
manufacturing espresso machines in Italy (the authenticity referent) than in China, and therefore
have more information to appraise and predict our experience with an Italian-made espresso
machine (the authentic exemplar). Of course, it is not just about having more information but also
about having favorable information. As such, the assumption that authentic products are of better
quality can be attributed to the trust motive, which is often an expression of a preference for what
has been truer longer. For example, if a craft process originated in Italy, then we may assume that
producers from Italy have had more experience learning and perfecting that process and that
customers have had more time to vet the product than one manufactured in a country with no
relevant traditions (Dekhili, 2011). Authentic products may also be associated with higher quality
when we are responding to moral authenticity, as already discussed in the authenticity of cuisine
section, or if they are seen as somehow more natural, as discussed in the authenticity of ingredients
section.
As in every other domain, our preference for authentic goods may be misguided and
exploited. There is evidence that people favor authentic goods even when they are given clear
indication that the inauthentic good is of better quality (Doonan, 2007). This may be because we
are overgeneralizing the “authenticity is better” heuristic and not paying attention to the relevant

information about quality, a dimension in which we are indeed interested. But it is also possible
that quality is not always the main concern and that authentic products offer other advantages that
seem to produce an irrational preference for goods of lower or comparable practical value. As
exemplified by the Leica camera, authentic products may be seen as somehow more meaningful
independent of their quality. This has been attributed to magical beliefs about essence and the law
of contagion (Nemeroff & Rozin, 1994) but, as with art, it may also be explained by the context
motive. After all, the distinction between art and consumer goods is often a tenuous one and so the
same forces that enhance our appreciation of an artwork by contextualizing it in its rich narrative
may also enhance our experience with a camera or chair. When the authenticity referent is the
producer or the producer’s ethnic or cultural heritage, then the appeal of authentic consumer goods
may overlap with the appeal of expressive authenticity in art or cultural authenticity for tourists.
Also, as with art, we may simply not believe that perfect replicas are truly possible, and when
asked to choose between an expensive authentic bag or a seemingly perfect, cheaper knockoff, still
cling to the idea that that the construction of the counterfeit bag is hiding some flaw that either
tarnishes its quality or otherwise limits its informational value.
V. Authenticity of Lifestyle
So far, I have discussed authenticity from the perspective of discrete choices and appraisals.
When we assess the authenticity of art, food or consumer goods, it is usually by focusing on one
explicit exemplar and comparing it to its authenticity referent in order to determine if this object,
person or experience is indeed authentic. But when we zoom out to consider our decisions on the
whole, we can begin to evaluate whether or not an entire lifestyle is authentic. Much like cultural
authenticity, the concept of lifestyle authenticity seems to be resistant to a broad and stable

definition. One logical contender is that lifestyle authenticity is simply a function of the sincerity
and expressiveness of life choices. If, on average, what we say and do represents who we are, then
perhaps we are leading an authentic life? Culturally speaking, however, an authentic lifestyle is
different from an authentic life – which I will discuss in the context of the authenticity of people
in the last section – and it has sometimes been defined by its association with two distinct but
overlapping ideas: nature and nostalgia.
By “nature,” I am referring to the perspective that authenticity is achieved through natural
or simple living, accompanied by a rejection of social artifice and materialism. This view is rooted
in Rousseau’s belief that society is the antithesis of authenticity, and that an authentic life can only
be achieved by distancing ourselves from social structures and following our instinct rather than
socially imposed desires. Thoreau added an emphasis on anti-materialism and natural living,
economically summarizing his prescription for an authentic life in two words: “simplify, simplify”
(p. 51). Perhaps inspired by this advice, authenticity has more recently been evoked as one of the
key motives for the minimalist movement. Originally used as a pejorative term to describe art that
was austere and lacking in content, the idea of minimalism moved through the art world into
consumer culture, where it now describes the demand for anything from tiny houses to
monochromatic clothing to starkly decorated interiors (Chayka, 2016). Although, contrary to
Thoreau’s vision, this movement often relies on expensive technology to optimize functionality
and to be reliant on as few objects as possible – and, as such, has been commoditized and branded
to the elite – it is fundamentally just another way to remove excess and live, if not a more natural,
then a more uncluttered and perhaps a more authentic life.
The appeal of a more natural or simpler life heavily overlaps with the appeal of natural,
allegedly less contaminated foods and, as such, can be explained by similar drives as discussed in

the cuisine section, particularly the trust motive. Some may assume that the habits, hobbies and
crafts of older generations are somehow safer for our bodies and more satisfying for our spirit than
newer gadgets and lifestyle trends. Of course, far from everything that is older is better, and so the
second goal of simplifying one’s life is yet another attempt to reduce the harmful influence of the
trappings of culture. A simpler life may also satisfy some of the learning motives. For example,
opting out of complex and external social forces simplifies life and facilitates decision making by
forcing us to be content with fewer objects and superficial social realities. And the desire to do and
to own only what is essential can be reframed as a desire for memorable and meaningful context.
But there is perhaps another learning motive for streamlining life or returning to nature that has
not yet been discussed, and that is the drive to learn about who we are. In Sincerity and
Authenticity, Trilling cites Marx’s argument that socially-fueled consumption is not just a false
pursuit, it is a pursuit that robs you of your very being. The more we accumulate, the less we are,
Trilling writes, and “everything which the economist takes from you in the way of life and
humanity he restores to you in the form of money and wealth” (p. 123). If we believe this to be
true, then rooting out social and commercial influences in the interest of an authentic life may be
a way of learning our true identity when it is not artificially propped up and inflated by external
and unessential forces. Perhaps we believe, if we renounce what we own, we will know better who
we are.
A second common interpretation of an authentic lifestyle is one which honors older
traditions and life choices. While thinkers like Rousseau and Thoreau looked to a distant past for
inspiration, they were not sincerely advocating for a return to a pre-civilized lifestyle. Subscribers
to this second perspective generally look to a more recent historical era in search of direct lessons
about how to live. This form of lifestyle authenticity is most readily recognized as nostalgia – the

feeling that life was better and perhaps truer in an earlier time. Originally coined to describe
homesickness, the meaning of the term has shifted over the years to indicate a desire to return not
to a better place but to a better time. Nostalgia, in the modern sense, is therefore “an impossible
emotion, or at least an incurable one: the only remedy would involve time travel” (Reynolds, 2010,
Kindle Location 469-471). As such, nostalgia has many critics and one of them, not surprisingly,
is Potter. He views a longing for the past not only as impossible to fulfill but as foolish even to
entertain. As with other quests for authenticity, he believes that, at best, nostalgia is a refuge from
reality, a view that is supported by evidence that nostalgic reminiscence is an involuntary defense
mechanism which affirms meaning in response to negative mood or reminders of mortality
(Routledge et al., 2008). At worst, nostalgia is a cynical social ploy which leaves us pursuing
pointless, vestigial activities popularized by the idle and the privileged (Potter, 2010, p.16, p.120).
As a complex, secondary emotion which refers to one’s own past, nostalgia has been shown to be
universal (Tilburg, Igou & Sedikides, 2013) but as a broader cultural longing for better times, some
social critics believe that the affliction of nostalgia is particularly rampant in this day and age. In
Retromania (2010), Reynolds writes that “earlier eras had their own obsessions with antiquity,
from the Renaissance’s veneration of Roman and Greek classicism to the Gothic movement’s
invocations of the medieval. But there has never been a society in human history so obsessed with
the cultural artifacts of its own immediate past as our own” (Kindle Location 166-169).
Nostalgia has therefore been decried as escapist, socially motivated and a fad. My goal is
not to defend it against these accusations. I agree with critics that, for the most part, nostalgia is
not a rational, well-researched attempt to restore what was best about a different time but, rather,
the product of a romanticized and often inaccurate view of the past refracted through our
dissatisfaction with the present. But I propose that, even if it is branded and commoditized, even

if it is a fearful response to an imperfect reality, at its core, nostalgia may be rooted in the same
basic search for truth that undergirds the appeal of authenticity in every other domain. Specifically,
a longing for the past may stem from a desire to preserve valuable information about that past and
to brace ourselves against what we perceive – rightly or wrongly – as the frivolous, morally
bankrupt or harmful consequences of change. As such, the impulse to live anachronistically can
be explained by both the trust and learning motives. From a practical learning perspective,
nostalgia may be a response to the suspicion that we have lost valuable information about the past
which, if recovered, may make life better in the present. It prompts us to rummage through the
dust bins of history to check if any objects, ideas or traditions have been too hastily discarded.
When Potter criticizes Ostalgie – a nostalgia for Soviet life expressed in East Germany after the
fall of the Berlin Wall – as being a delusional and amnesic about the ills of communism, what he
forgets is that the Soviet system was associated with many cultural realities, from education to
public safety, that were thought to be good even by the harshest critics of the political system. It
may be foolish and dangerous to look back longingly at the entire historical era, but it is natural
and perhaps wise to turn back and consider which elements of a past life can be reclaimed.
As with cultural authenticity, nostalgia may also simply satisfy our curiosity and thirst for
knowledge, but instead of looking to a different place, we look to a different time. In some ways,
what we learn about the past may be more interesting than what we learn about the most remote
region of the planet, because the past is possible to reconstruct but never to revisit. Admittedly, we
can learn about the past without being afflicted by a sadness that we are living in the present. Good
historians, after all, are not nostalgic. But even if satisfying our nostalgic inclinations by infusing
our lives with the spirit of the past does not lead to (or is not pursued for) direct knowledge, it does
link our quotidian existence to a historical context that may help us understand or find meaning in

our present lives. It has been shown that nostalgia-imbued personal reminiscences can be induced
by boredom as mediated by the search for meaning (Tilburg, et al., 2013). Perhaps similarly, a less
personal and more cultural sense of nostalgia may be a way of bolstering our sense of existential
comfort by contextualizing our present in the past.
VI. Authenticity of People
Those who seek authentic lifestyles by borrowing from what they see as purer, truer
traditions – be it by preferring nature to culture or the vetted past to the unchecked progress of the
present – often do not have the explicit notion of “authenticity,” much less the word itself, in mind.
This is not the case, however, when we talk about authentic people – a concept which we often
invoke when speaking of others and of ourselves. It is the domain which is the hardest to integrate
into a discussion of authenticity that also includes art, food, culture, goods and even lifestyle.
Nevertheless, as this last section will attempt to show, it is equally reliant on ideas about truth,
trust and learning.
I began this paper by considering what it means for a work of art to be authentic and I will
end by considering what it means to be an authentic person. In both cases, authenticity can be
defined as a congruence between appearance and reality, between what is claimed and what is true.
This metric may allow us to indisputably establish the authenticity of art – for example, by
confirming the identity of a painter – but the authenticity of a person is only possible to establish
in as much as we have access to a person’s inner world. Trilling considered sincerity – the quality
of speaking and acting in accordance with what is actually felt – to be a precursor and critical
component of personal authenticity. As such, we can be thought to act inauthentically when we
explicitly lie to others. But, according Sartre, we also act inauthentically when we lie to ourselves,

specifically about the choices we are free to make as willful, self-determined agents capable of
transcending our past experience, our psychological limitations and our social circumstance
(Kernis & Goldman, 2006). Whether the method is deception or self-deception, many thinkers
considered society to be the primary source of inauthenticity. Trilling writes that culture is “a
complex of interacting assumptions, modes of thought, habits, and styles, which, because they are
not brought to consciousness, are unopposed in their influence over men’s minds” (p.
125). Rousseau and Thoreau believed that our authentic functioning could be augmented by tuning
in and then distancing ourselves from such social and cultural strictures. Goffman (1956), on the
other hand, considered the inauthentic appropriation of social roles to be an essential and inevitable
feature of the human condition. But regardless of the role of society, personal authenticity seems
to be regarded as a positive function of the expression of our true self and a negative function of
its suppression.
From Sartre to the self-help industry, being an authentic person has been touted as one of
the most valuable personal accomplishments. Conversely, inauthenticity, whether it is framed as
insincerity or hypocrisy, feigning or pretense, is seen as one of the “great moral transgressions of
our age” (Potter, p.10). There are many complex religious, social and cultural elements that have
conspired to elevate personal authenticity to such a vaunted status, but, fundamentally, an authentic
person has many of the same basic advantages as an authentic painting and, as such, a preference
for personal authenticity can also be explained by our basic, human drive to learn, to know and to
trust. I will consider the preference for personal authenticity from two perspectives: why we value
the authentic other and why we value the authentic self.
First, let us return to the notion that society is at the root of inauthentic behavior. Most of
us live by at least some rules of the social playbook and engage, to varying degrees, in artifice and

affectation in the interest of fitting in and getting ahead. Although we have many different roles to
choose from, once we choose one, we must fit ourselves into its particular shape. In the process of
doing so, we have to edit and obscure information about ourselves, inevitably misleading people
about who we truly are. Therefore, we may prefer that others are authentically themselves rather
than their social avatars for the very simple reason that it gives us more information about their
core character and their intentions, allowing us to appraise their character and predict their
behavior. If we agree that participation in society requires role-playing and that, behind every
social mask there is some stable, knowable, irreducible person, then this should not be a
particularly controversial perspective. However, I acknowledge that society and authenticity are
not cleanly and diametrically opposed and so the search for the “true” self behind the social self
may be a misguided one. Although Goffman makes a distinction between private and public selves,
he also acknowledges that the self is not so much presented as constructed via social interactions.
It is not the case that we are scheming the most advantageous way to present or conceal our true
selves, but rather that we are in fact a product of our front-stage performances and back-stage
strategizing and decompression. The question is, therefore, as Bendix writes, “whether, underneath
these demands of civilization, layers of uncorrupted selfhood could be found” (Kindle Location
375-377). If the answer is yes, then we may value seeing this authentic and uncorrupted self for
some of the same reasons that we value expressive authenticity in art. Evidence about someone’s
true, unadulterated nature may satisfy our desire for knowledge about the contours of human nature
or the inner life of others. As with self-taught artists whose background is at odds with the
conventional art world, we may similarly value people whose authentic self is at odds with social
expectations. Usually, this is only appealing if we approve of socially deviant behavior in much
the way that Trump supporters may approve of his unconventional style. Even distasteful

authenticity – such as the acts of a criminal – have value in as much as they show the person for
who he is and help others appraise him and forecast his future actions.
But, even if we do not believe that there is some integrated authentic self beyond the social
self, there is still informational value to other interpretations of human authenticity. For instance,
if authenticity simply translates to honesty, we can clearly benefit from it without having to draw
any conclusions regarding someone’s core nature. For example, an honest politician is generally
advantageous for the voter who hopes to make his decision based on accurate expectations about
what the politician will do. Unfortunately, this preference for authenticity is very easy to abuse,
and, as Potter, writes, the very people we want to be most authentic are the ones who are often the
most fake.
There are of course many instances in which the authenticity of others is unnecessary or
explicitly undesirable. When someone expresses themselves honestly, we may be able to better
know them and predict their behavior in a future situation, but at the same time, if someone is
unwavering in playing their social role, then their actions, although in some respects false, would
be just as predictable from moment to moment. Furthermore, if their true character is unsavory to
us, we would certainly rather them act according to script than according instinct. This especially
applies to the expression of beliefs that might be hurtful for us to know. But even if we do not
always want to read someone’s thoughts, knowing what they are truly made of does satisfy our
curiosity about others and perhaps helps us better understand ourselves.
Such self-understanding is also a motive for wanting to be authentic people ourselves.
Kernis (2006) writes that “authentic functioning is characterized in terms of people’s self-
understanding and openness to objectively recognizing their ontological realities (e.g., evaluating
their desirable and undesirable self-aspects).” As with the authenticity of others, there is a

difference between acting authentically and knowing our authentic selves. We do not necessarily
always want to be true to ourselves, but we do often benefit from knowing what it is we would be
true to if we so chose. Except of course for our documented desire to avoid unpleasant information
about our ourselves (Golman, et al., 2015), self-insight allows us to predict our reactions to the
choices we make and gives us control, either to pursue what will make us happy or, for whatever
reason, to strategically do otherwise. In the parlance of psychoanalysis, self-knowledge may give
us greater control over our superego or social censor which “stands between the consciousness of
the ego and the subversive libidinal energies of the id and prevents the latter from making
themselves directly manifest” (Trilling, p. 146). Essentially, learning about our authentic self has
direct advantages for how we regulate ourselves and, consequently, our lives (Deci & Ryan, 2000).
Conclusion
I will close this paper by reviewing some of my arguments and offering a few qualifications
and concessions. I have attempted in these pages to dismiss the notion that there exists a universal
and operationally useful definition of authenticity, but I have argued that the idea of authenticity
across domains can be unified by its association with truth and that the drive for authenticity can
be explained by our desire to learn or benefit from that truth. Many agree that, like the concepts of
good and evil or dark and light, the concept of authenticity relies on the existence of inauthenticity.
But I wish to take this notion further and propose that the drive for authenticity is not simply reliant
on the presence of contrast but is perhaps fueled by the attempt to locate the edge between the
authentic and the inauthentic. Perhaps the learning and trust motives can be reduced to the desire
to identify the dividing line between the critical concepts necessary to understand and navigate our
world: be it truth and falsehood, tradition or progress, civilization and instinct. The process of

deciding what is authentic is akin to dropping a curtain between these ideas, after which we can
choose to favor one side over another depending on what we value in any given context.
I have argued that authenticity is not primarily driven by status concerns, but of course, in
as much as society favors authenticity, we will sometimes favor it for purely social reasons. I have
argued that the quest for authenticity is not primarily driven by a fear of alienation, baseless distrust
of progress and ineffable search for meaning, but of course, the presence of these factors in our
decision making cannot be denied. I have argued that a preference for authenticity is rooted in the
rational notion that what has been truer longer may be better, but of course, long-standing customs
and institutions are often harmful and wrong. In fact, they may be worse precisely because of their
longevity. As Nicolas Chamfort wrote: “The most absurd customs and the most ridiculous
ceremonies are everywhere excused by an appeal to the phrase, but that’s tradition” (as cited in de
Botton, 2004, p. 117). But despite the many ways in which the appeal of authenticity may be
misguided, I maintain that the association of authenticity with status, with meaning, with safety
emerges from a deeper, more primary, and perhaps more defensible human motive to learn or to
know some valuable truth.

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How A Desire For Information Explains Preferences For Authenticity Across Domains

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In Defense of Authenticity:

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From restaurants to handbags to political candidates, authenticity is valued in many different

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if it is what it appears, or is claimed, to be – such as “genuine” Swiss chocolate or an ancient relic

“authenticated” by an archeologist. Alternatively, an artwork or product can be considered

authentic if it is an honest, uncorrupted manifestation of its creator’s background, passions or

label if it is a product of a deeply rooted and naturally evolving tradition.

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what we value. Cultural authenticity is a similarly malleable, reference-dependent and even

unified way of understanding why we value authenticity.

When is authenticity relevant?

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threatened by an inauthentic expression of itself, the notion of authenticity becomes increasingly

perceived threat of the inauthentic.

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the absence of some kind of positive association.

My argument, therefore, is that something will be appraised as authentic only in contrast

categorize something as inauthentic, rather than otherwise disadvantageous or flawed? To answer

value in learning who this person really is.

To summarize, I propose that we will only consider something to be authentic if we believe

sometimes be guided by relatively stable social standards – American consumers may

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unanimously consider a knock-off Louis Vuitton to be inauthentic – but careful consideration

and gravitate toward the authentic?

Why is authenticity preferred?

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“Why are we motivated to pursue it at all?”

closer to experiencing something authentic that might be otherwise inaccessible given a

authentic process or an authentic result. A return to authenticity may sometimes require

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inauthentic transformation. A high-tech medical procedure, for example, may be necessary to

authenticity in the first place?

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culture, but it is not even predictive of all consumer behavior.

or symbolically-rich experience. Visiting a historical heritage site, an example of geographic

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counterexamples of inauthentic consumption. Authentic consumption, therefore, can only confer

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Truth and Authenticity

destined to know. Later thinkers, from Romanticists to Transcendentalists to Existentialists,

while simultaneously rejecting materialism and social striving (Thoreau, 1854).

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truth about our world or ourselves is worth learning.

To put it in economic terms, truth is a property of information and possessing or interacting

that we consider to be meaningful or essential. Basically, an attraction to the authentic is rooted in

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Motives for authenticity

I. Appraisal and Forecasting Motive

environment. Knowing that something is an authentic exemplar (e.g. an authentic painting) of

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knowledge that it is somehow emblematic to inform my valuation of French cuisine or French

tradition or is an inaccurate representation of a tradition because my preexisting knowledge of the

cultural reference point that we would benefit from understanding.

act consistently in the future.

In short, a critical feature of authenticity is that an authentic entity is connected to some

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therefore everything in one way or another facilitates information-relevant decision making,

then the authenticity of any given Starbucks will be irrelevant.

II. Desire-for-Knowledge Motive

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