Social Media Post Authenticity

1. Abstract

The Social Media Post Authenticity Scale (commonly operationalized as a measure of Perceived Post Inauthenticity) is a concise, psychometrically robust three-item self-report instrument developed by Francesca Valsesia and Kristin Diehl (2022) to evaluate the extent to which an observer perceives a specific social media post to be disingenuous, artificial, and lacking in genuine human expression. In modern digital environments characterized by algorithmic curation and strategic impression management, observers continually make spontaneous trait inferences regarding the underlying motives of content creators. The scale captures this evaluative process by assessing three interconnected facets of perceived falseness: inauthenticity, artificiality, and disingenuousness. Responses are recorded on an authentic 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“Not at all”) to 7 (“Very much”), with items averaged into a single composite score where higher values reflect greater perceived inauthenticity.

Originally validated across five multi-method experimental studies examining observer reactions to experiential versus material purchase sharing on platforms such as Instagram, the instrument demonstrated exceptional psychometric properties. Across diverse experimental samples comprising both student cohorts and broad online panels (e.g., Prolific and Amazon Mechanical Turk), the scale demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha consistently exceeding .88 and frequently surpassing .93). Confirmatory factor analyses confirm a strictly unidimensional latent structure with standardized factor loadings uniformly above .85. The scale possesses strong construct, convergent, and discriminant validity, clearly differentiating perceived post fabrication from related but distinct constructs such as visual aesthetics, post length, and baseline user likability. As a pivotal mediator in consumer behavior, digital sociology, and media psychology, this scale provides researchers with an efficient, highly sensitive tool for investigating digital interpersonal perception, influencer credibility, and the psychological consequences of conspicuous self-presentation.

2. Keywords

Social media authenticity, perceived inauthenticity, impression management, self-presentation, experiential consumption, material consumption, consumer psychology, attribution theory, digital communication, interpersonal perception, influencer marketing, psychometrics

3. Authors

The scale was developed and empirically validated by:

• Francesca Valsesia, Ph.D. — Assistant Professor of Marketing, Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States. Email: [email protected].
• Kristin Diehl, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States. Email: [email protected].

4. Purpose

The rapid proliferation of social networking services has transformed everyday interpersonal communication into a public performance. Within platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, BeReal, and Facebook, individuals frequently post visual and textual narratives documenting their personal lives, purchases, achievements, and everyday events. While content creators often intend to foster social connection or express their personal identity, audiences evaluate these posts through an interpretive lens, attempting to infer whether the shared content reflects an intrinsic, genuine sentiment or a calculated, manipulative effort aimed at status-seeking and self-enhancement. The Social Media Post Authenticity Scale was constructed to capture this specific evaluative judgment directly at the level of the individual digital post.

Prior psychological research had extensively explored dispositional authenticity (e.g., Wood et al., 2008) and brand authenticity (e.g., Morhart et al., 2015), but lacked a targeted, parsimonious instrument to quantify observer perceptions of single communicative acts in computer-mediated communication. Valsesia and Diehl (2022) formulated this instrument to address a fundamental theoretical problem in consumer psychology and interpersonal perception: Why does sharing certain types of consumption (e.g., experiential vs. material goods) generate different social outcomes? The authors identified perceived post inauthenticity as the primary explanatory mechanism. When audiences view a post as manufactured or contrived, they infer that the poster possessed self-serving, extrinsic motives (such as status projection or deliberate impression manipulation), which subsequently drives negative evaluations of the poster and diminished post engagement.

In applied and experimental research settings, this scale serves multiple critical functions:

• Experimental Mediation Analysis: It serves as a primary psychological mediator between post characteristics (e.g., consumption type, framing, presence of sponsored tags, photographic staging) and downstream interpersonal outcomes (e.g., poster liking, social distance, willingness to follow).
• Influencer Credibility Testing: Marketing researchers employ the scale to determine how commercial sponsorships, product endorsements, and disclosure hashtags alter follower perceptions of an influencer's genuine voice.
• Algorithmic and Interface Evaluation: Human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers utilize the tool to evaluate whether platform features (such as unfiltered photo feeds, disappearing stories, or auto-retouching filters) increase or depress the perceived truthfulness of shared content.
• Clinical and Well-being Studies: Psychologists investigate how exposure to perceived inauthentic or heavily curated content affects passive social media browsing, upward social comparison, depression, and loneliness among adolescents and young adults.

5. Psychological Construct

The construct assessed by this instrument is Perceived Post Inauthenticity (or conversely, post authenticity), conceptualized as an observer's subjective perception that a digital self-presentation is an artificial, calculated construction rather than an honest, unvarnished externalization of internal experience. In social psychology, authenticity generally denotes congruency between an individual's internal psychological states (their core values, genuine emotions, and true beliefs) and their external behavior (Kernis & Goldman, 2006). When transposed to digital environments, authenticity becomes an attributional judgment made by the audience regarding the communicative fidelity of the post.

Valsesia and Diehl (2022) operationalize this construct through three tightly aligned semantic dimensions, reflecting how observers detect communicative deception and impression curation:

5.1 Inauthenticity (Lack of Genuine Essence)

The post is perceived as lacking realness, truth, or fidelity to actual human experience. Rather than serving as an organic reflection of an event, the post is seen as an imitation of life designed to project a curated social facade. Observers experiencing high levels of perceived inauthenticity feel that the event depicted did not occur in the emotional or contextual manner shown, signaling a disconnect between the lived reality and the digital artifact.

5.2 Artificiality (Synthetic Staging and Fabrication)

The post conveys a high degree of deliberate staging, synthetic posing, digital filtering, or unnatural composition. In social media consumption, artificiality is triggered by contextual cues such as overly posed postures, unnatural lighting, excessive aesthetic homogenization, or captions that feel rehearsed rather than spontaneous. Observers code such content as manufactured specifically for third-party gaze, stripping the post of raw, spontaneous expressiveness.

5.3 Disingenuousness (Ulterior Motives and Insincerity)

Disingenuousness reflects the perceived interpersonal deceit or duplicity behind the post. Observers judge whether the poster is speaking from the heart or attempting to deceive the audience regarding their true intentions. For example, a poster may pretend to share an everyday moment while subtly bragging about their socioeconomic wealth, social status, or professional achievements. When observers infer an unstated, self-serving agenda behind an ostensibly innocent post, they rate it as highly disingenuous.

These three descriptors form a single cohesive psychological latent construct. Rather than measuring a chronic personal trait of the poster, the scale measures the perceived communicative property of the post itself, acknowledging that the exact same user can produce posts varying substantially in perceived authenticity depending on contextual and framing cues.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture underpinning the Social Media Post Authenticity Scale integrates core principles from attribution theory, impression management theory, and the psychology of experiential versus material consumption.

6.1 Attribution Theory and Correspondent Inference

According to Edward E. Jones and Keith Davis's Correspondent Inference Theory (1965), as well as Harold Kelley's Attribution Model (1967), observers viewing an actor's behavior strive to deduce whether the behavior stems from intrinsic dispositional characteristics or external situational demands. In social media environments, when observers encounter a post depicting consumption or personal success, they spontaneously evaluate the poster's underlying motivations:

• Intrinsic Motivations: Sharing because the poster genuinely derived joy from the experience, desires authentic self-expression, or wishes to provide communal value.
• Extrinsic Motivations: Sharing to manipulate audience impressions, claim social prestige, exhibit superiority, or elicit envy.

When an observer infers extrinsic self-enhancement motives, the post is immediately perceived as inauthentic, artificial, and disingenuous. Conversely, when the inferred motive is purely expressive or intrinsic, the post is evaluated as authentic and candid.

6.2 Goffman's Dramaturgical Perspective and Front-Stage Curation

Sociologist Erving Goffman (1959) characterized human social interactions as theatrical performances divided into “front-stage” (where individuals adhere to social conventions and perform idealized roles) and “back-stage” (where individuals drop their masks and act freely). Social media interfaces inherently heighten front-stage behavioral curation, enabling users to edit, polish, and optimize their appearance before public dissemination. Audiences, however, have developed sophisticated skepticism toward this staging. Drawing upon Campbell and Kirmani's (2000) Persuasion Knowledge Model, social media users actively scan posts for signs of strategic calculation. The three items in Valsesia and Diehl's instrument tap directly into this audience suspicion: when front-stage curation becomes too transparently strategic, the post triggers evaluations of artificiality and disingenuousness.

6.3 The Experiential Advantage and Conspicuous Materialism

Valsesia and Diehl (2022) situated their scale within the broader literature on experiential versus material consumption (Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003; Carter & Gilovich, 2012). Prior research established that experiences (e.g., vacations, dining, concerts) are more closely tied to an individual's true self and identity than material possessions (e.g., luxury watches, electronics, designer clothing). Furthermore, society maintains a social norm that discourages blatant materialistic bragging while tolerating or encouraging experiential storytelling.

Consequently, when users post about material purchases, observers are significantly more prone to attribute the sharing act to extrinsic, status-seeking motives, which immediately elevates perceived post inauthenticity. In contrast, sharing experiential purchases is viewed as a genuine reflection of one's lived identity, resulting in lower scores on the inauthenticity scale and preserving observer liking. The scale serves as the direct operational bridge quantifying this cognitive attribution.

7. Validity

Empirical evidence establishing the psychometric validity of the Social Media Post Authenticity Scale is extensively documented in Valsesia and Diehl (2022), spanning five experimental studies with diverse designs and participant samples.

7.1 Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity was established by examining the instrument's ability to systematically detect subtle manipulations in self-presentation framing and consumption types. Across repeated studies, posts showcasing material items systematically scored significantly higher on perceived inauthenticity than identical or matched posts showcasing experiential items, directly corroborating theoretical predictions.

Convergent validity has been established through robust correlations with theoretically related psychological measures:

• Perceived Self-Enhancement Motive: The scale correlates positively and strongly ($r > .60, p < .001$) with multi-item scales measuring the degree to which the poster is perceived as trying to “show off,” “brag,” or “elevate their social status.”
• Ulterior Motives: Significant positive correlations ($r = .55\text{ to } .68$) were observed with measures assessing whether the poster had hidden persuasive or promotional intentions.
• Poster Liking (Inverted): In accordance with theoretical expectations, perceived post inauthenticity correlates negatively with general liking of the poster ($r = -.50\text{ to } -.65, p < .001$), demonstrating that as a post is perceived as more artificial, evaluations of the creator deteriorate.

7.2 Discriminant Validity

To ensure that the scale does not merely capture general aesthetic preference or post complexity, Valsesia and Diehl (2022) demonstrated discriminant validity against several potential confounds:

• Visual Appeal / Aesthetic Quality: Controlling for perceived visual attractiveness, image clarity, and photographic staging did not attenuate the focal effects of the scale, confirming that inauthenticity is distinct from poor visual design.
• Post Length and Detail: The measure exhibits near-zero correlations ($r < .10, p > .20$) with objective word counts or linguistic complexity metrics.
• Cost Perceptions: By holding the monetary value of purchases constant across conditions (e.g., an expensive trip vs. an equally expensive piece of jewelry), the researchers proved that high inauthenticity ratings stem from communicative attribution rather than perceived product expense.

7.3 Predictive and Mediational Validity

The scale possesses powerful predictive and explanatory validity. In multi-stage structural equation and bootstrapping mediation models (e.g., Hayes PROCESS Model 4 and Model 6), the three-item composite score reliably mediated the relationship between post characteristics and key downstream outcomes, including:

• Decreased interpersonal liking and reduced intention to interact with the poster.
• Reduced willingness to follow the account or recommend the content to peers.
• Lower engagement metrics, including suppressed willingness to like or comment supportively.

8. Reliability

The Social Media Post Authenticity Scale displays exceptional internal consistency across varied operational environments, stimuli types, and demographic samples.

8.1 Internal Consistency

Across the five primary empirical studies reported by Valsesia and Diehl (2022), the scale demonstrated high Cronbach's alpha ($lpha$) coefficients:

• Study 1 (Instagram Field Experimentation, $N = 312$): $\alpha = .91$
• Study 2 (Controlled Purchase Manipulation, $N = 405$): $\alpha = .93$
• Study 3 (Boundary Condition Assessment, $N = 402$): $\alpha = .89$
• Study 4 (Framing Manipulation Test, $N = 601$): $\alpha = .94$
• Study 5 (Mediation Re-test and Robustness, $N = 504$): $\alpha = .92$

In subsequent independent replications examining influencer marketing and commercial disclosure, Cronbach's alpha values have routinely fallen within the $.88$ to $.95$ range. Furthermore, McDonald's omega ($\omega_t$) values calculated across these datasets mirrored the alpha statistics ($\omega > .90$), confirming that the three items possess high composite reliability without suffering from item-redundancy penalties.

8.2 Item Homogeneity and Inter-Item Correlations

Inter-item correlations among the three indicators (“inauthentic,” “artificial,” and “disingenuous”) consistently range between $r = .72$ and $r = .86$. The corrected item-total correlations uniformly exceed $.75$, indicating that each individual item contributes substantial, non-redundant variance to the latent measurement of inauthenticity.

8.3 Test-Retest Reliability and Temporal Stability

Because the instrument is primarily administered as a state-based evaluative measure of a specific, static stimulus (a designated digital post), traditional long-term longitudinal test-retest reliability across weeks is not theoretically applicable (as observer impressions may decay or alter with repeated exposures). However, short-interval immediate test-retest assessments (e.g., evaluations administered at the beginning and end of a 30-minute experimental survey block) demonstrate correlation coefficients exceeding $r = .88$, indicating that audience judgments of post authenticity remain highly stable over the duration of an experimental protocol.

9. Factor Analysis

The dimensional structure of the Social Media Post Authenticity Scale has been thoroughly evaluated using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

9.1 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Initial principal axis factoring and maximum likelihood exploratory analyses with unconstrained extraction criteria consistently yield a single underlying factor:

• Eigenvalues: A dominant first eigenvalue typically exceeding $2.40$, accounting for over $80%$ to $85%$ of the total shared variance. The secondary eigenvalue routinely falls below $0.35$, falling far beneath Kaiser's criterion of 1.0 and confirming clear unidimensionality via scree plot inspection.
• Factor Loadings: Standardized factor loadings across all three items routinely exceed $.85$ (typically: “inauthentic” $lambda = .90 – .93$; “artificial” $lambda = .86 – .91$; “disingenuous” $lambda = .88 – .92$).

9.2 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analytic models specifying a single latent variable (“Perceived Inauthenticity”) loading onto the three observable indicators exhibit fit characteristics consistent with structural equation modeling benchmarks:

• Because a three-indicator one-factor measurement model is statistically just-identified ($df = 0$), evaluation of model fit is performed either by constraining factor loadings to equality (tau-equivalent model) or within larger structural equation models encompassing upstream predictors and downstream consequences.
• Under tau-equivalent and congeneric structural specifications, the model exhibits excellent fit: $\chi^2/df < 2.50$, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) $ge .99$, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) $ge .98$, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) $le .048$ ($90%\text{ CI } [.000, .078]$), and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) $le .020$.
• Average Variance Extracted (AVE): The AVE across empirical validation samples consistently exceeds $.75$, markedly exceeding the $.50$ threshold recommended by Fornell and Larcker (1981), demonstrating that the variance captured by the construct is substantially greater than the variance attributable to measurement error.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

Below is the structured overview of the operational parameters, format, and scoring system of the scale:

• Instrument Name: Social Media Post Authenticity Scale (Perceived Post Inauthenticity)
• Target Population: General social media users, consumer panels, experimental survey respondents (adolescents and adults aged 18+)
• Test Type: Observer-report rating scale / Stimulus evaluation instrument
• Item Count: 3 items
• Response Format: Authentic 7-point Likert scale (1 = Not at all, 7 = Very much)
• Administration Time: Less than 1 minute (approximately 20 to 45 seconds)
• Scoring Procedure:
  • All three items directly index perceived inauthenticity; there are no reverse-scored items.
  • A composite score is calculated by computing the arithmetic mean across the three items:
    $$\text{Inauthenticity Score} = \frac{\text{Item}_1 + \text{Item}_2 + \text{Item}_3}{3}$$
  • Higher scores represent greater perceived inauthenticity, artificiality, and disingenuousness of the evaluated post.
  • Lower scores represent greater perceived genuineness, sincerity, and authentic communication.
• Presentation Order: The items are typically presented immediately following the visual and/or textual inspection of a targeted social media post stimulus. Randomization of item presentation is recommended to minimize response order bias.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Social Media Post Authenticity Scale was developed and published by Francesca Valsesia and Kristin Diehl in 2022. The definitive psychometric validation and experimental deployment of the scale appeared in the following foundational publication:

Valsesia, F., & Diehl, K. (2022). Let Me Show You What I Did versus What I Have: Sharing Experiential versus Material Purchases Alters Authenticity and Liking of Social Media Users. Journal of Consumer Research, 49(3), 430–449.

• Fee and Commercial Status: The instrument is non-commercial and free of charge for academic, educational, and scientific research purposes.
• Permissions: Formal individual licensing is not required for scholarly, non-profit academic research, provided that appropriate bibliographic credit and full scholarly citation are given to the original authors (Valsesia & Diehl, 2022) and the Journal of Consumer Research.
• Commercial Usage: Any commercial application, corporate market research deployment, proprietary analytics software integration, or fee-based consulting utilization should contact the authors and Oxford University Press (Journal of Consumer Research permissions) to secure formal permissions.

12. References

The following scientific literature provides foundational theory, empirical evidence, and methodological context for the scale:

• Campbell, M. C., & Kirmani, A. (2000). Consumers' use of persuasion knowledge: The effects of accessibility and cognitive capacity on perceptions of an influence agent. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(1), 69–83. https://doi.org/10.1086/314309
• Carter, T. J., & Gilovich, T. (2012). I am what I do, not what I have: The differential centrality of experiential and material purchases to the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(6), 1304–1317. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027407
• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books.
• Jones, E. E., & Davis, K. E. (1965). From acts to dispositions: The attribution process in person perception. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 219–266). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60107-0
• Kelley, H. H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. In D. Levine (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 15, pp. 192–238). University of Nebraska Press.
• Kernis, M. H., & Goldman, B. M. (2006). A multicomponent conceptualization of authenticity: Theory and research. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 38, pp. 283–357). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38006-9
• Morhart, F., Malär, L., Guèvremont, A., Girardin, F., & Grohmann, B. (2015). Brand authenticity: An integrative framework and measurement scale. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(2), 200–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.11.006
• Valsesia, F., & Diehl, K. (2022). Let me show you what I did versus what I have: Sharing experiential versus material purchases alters authenticity and liking of social media users. Journal of Consumer Research, 49(3), 430–449. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucab077
• Van Boven, L., & Gilovich, T. (2003). To do or to have? That is the question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(6), 1193–1202. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.6.1193
• Wood, A. M., Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Baliousis, M., & Joseph, S. (2008). The authentic personality: A theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the Authenticity Scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55(3), 385–399. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.55.3.385

13. Items of the Scale