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Martin Heidegger Theory Of Authenticity

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Authenticity characterizes an individual’s behavior to be in accordance with his/her motives and beliefs and also be able to express who he/she really is. (Varga & Guignon, 2014). Authenticity is closely related to self-actualization and individuation. The importance of authenticity is on the rise with the increase in individualism. Following the industrial revolution, urbanization, and socio-cultural changes in the last two centuries, human beings are considered more as individuals rather than insignificant members of large social systems. This altering view towards a society and its members increased the importance of the individual. In this new era, being an individual can be best achieved through being unique and distinctive. Moreover, …show more content…

According to Heidegger, leading an authentic life, exercising the freedom to create a meaningful existence and continually grow is possible and should be sought after. The alternative is living an inauthentic life, that can be summarized as giving up the freedom, accept conventionality, and think of only the present. The relation of authenticity to the well-being of an individual is also hinted in his works in terms of guilt. He suggests that most individuals don't exercise the personal freedom they have, which leads to guilt. (Zimmerman, 1981). This autonomy of an individual indicates his/her ability to decide independently, free from social manipulation. Nietzsche’s thought on authenticity and is also similar to this notion as he denoted that one must “stand alone” and avoid herding behavior if he is to find authenticity (Nietzsche, 2001). Other than Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche had their own views of authenticity. Becoming true to oneself, rejecting social dictation, autonomy can be considered the indicators of authenticity summarizing these philosophers’ points of view that draw from existentialist philosophy (Golomb, 1995; Varga & Guignon, …show more content…

This is related to individuals need for counter-conformity (moving away from conformity) which is defined as the establishment of a group opinion norm and the tendency of individuals to comply with that norm (Burnkrant & Cousineau, 1975; Nail, 1986). It was seen that consumers buy and use possessions to develop a personal image that is different from others in the society (Lynn & Harris, 1997; Richins, 1994). This need for being different and unique manifests itself in the search for and the use of unique possessions. The acquisition of unique and scarce products is an on-going process because when scarce products become more available in the market and more people use them, they lose their unique scarcity attribute. Accordingly, uniqueness is related with the scarcity of a product (Snyder, 1992, p. 20; Tian & McKenzie, 2001) and consumers continuously look for other products to differentiate themselves from

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