Please read  about this project (below) and decide if you would like to participate.

Project Title

Revisiting the relationship between state authenticity and positive affect.

Research team contact details

Description

The purpose of this project is to examine how state authenticity, the sense of “feeling like the real me at this moment,” is related to our emotions. People typically report feeling good during authentic experiences. If this research project discovers people can also experience authenticity in moments of low positive emotion, this supports the use of therapeutic approaches which encourage individuals to process experiences that don't necessarily feature strong positive feelings, but which still provide opportunities for developing personal authenticity.

This project is part of a Bachelor of Psychology Honours program through the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). It is hoped the research outcomes will lead to understanding ways to strengthen psychological approaches for supporting people’s authenticity, contributing to improved mental health and well-being in modern society.

Participation

Your participation will involve watching two short videos and an anonymous online questionnaire that will take approximately 20 minutes of your time. Participants will be randomly allocated to groups and may experience different sequences of stimuli as part of the study design to investigate the relationship between authenticity and affective states.

Questions will include:

- “Please read the following scenario and imagine this situation is happening to you right now. ... Describe what you would do or say in this situation.”

- “Please indicate how strongly you agree with each of the following statements right now” (I feel like myself; I feel like I'm pretending to be someone else).

- “While thinking and writing about what you would do in this situation, to what extent did you experience these emotions?” (Happy; Easygoing; Calm; Longing etc).

Participation is voluntary

Your participation in this project is entirely voluntary. If you do not wish to take part, you are not obliged to. If you decide to take part and then change your mind, you are free to withdraw from the project at any stage before you complete the activity. To withdraw, simply close the online activity by closing your web browser.

Your participation in the research activity is anonymous, so once you complete the activity it will be impossible to identify your responses to remove those from the dataset. This means your data cannot be withdrawn after you have completed the activity.

Your decision to take part or to take part then withdraw before completing the activity not will in no way impact your current or future relationship with the University of Southern Queensland.

Inclusion Criteria

To participate you must be:

• living in Australia,
• have competence in English language, and
• able to access an internet enabled device (e.g. laptop, tablet, or smartphone).
• an adult (18 years of age or older),

Exclusion criteria:

• Please do not participate if you experience a mood disorder (e.g. bipolar or depressive disorders).
• Please do not participate if you are using non-prescription medications which influence your emotions.

Expected Benefits

While actively participating in some of the research activities you might feel positive, or alternatively the project may have no direct benefit for you. However, the project outcomes may benefit the broader population as it aims to help psychologists improve strategies for supporting individual well-being.

The School of Psychology and Wellbeing runs a prize draw to encourage participants to take part in our research. Members of the public can enter the draw to win pre-paid cash cards. The prizes are 1 x $100 and 2 x $50 gift cards. The draw opened on November 2, 2025 and closes on November 1, 2026. The prize draw date is November 2, 2026 (see full terms and conditions in the downloadable version of this document below). UniSQ undergraduate students may be awarded course credits for their participation.  If you are eligible for and would like to access either of these options, there will be an option to do so at the end of the online activity.

Any personal information you provide at that point (so you could be contacted if you win a prize, or to be allocated course credit), will be stored on UniSQ secure data systems, but will be stored separately from the research data in accordance with UniSQ Research Data Management Policy and Procedure and Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld). Winners will be informed when prize draws are completed on November 2, 2026.

Risks

In completing the questionnaire, there is a minimal risk such as potential boredom or discomfort when you think about how you would respond in different social situations. To minimise this potential risk, the activity includes a short feel-good break between questions, so you can mentally reset. If the activity raises some uncomfortable feelings you can get help through Beyond Blue (phone 1300 22 46 36; online https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support) or 13 YARN (13 92 76) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People).

If you would like to participate and know someone on the research team, please know the research survey is anonymous, so they will not know you have participated. If you are a student, Dr. Carolyn Alchin is sometimes casually employed in teaching-related or research supervision roles at UniSQ but won’t know you have participated, as the research survey is anonymous. This means if you choose to participate, it will not affect your existing relationship with the research team.

Cookies

This online activity will use cookies to ensure the activity runs smoothly.  These are session cookies which track your progress through the survey. They expire on completion of the activity with no ongoing impact on your privacy.

Privacy and Confidentiality

All comments and responses are confidential unless required by law.

Your name is not required in the research data. Your anonymous data will be compiled with anonymous data from other participants and used in a thesis and may be used in published journal articles, conference presentations, or shared with other researchers for the purposes of verifying the research outcomes. If other researchers request to access the anonymous data, they may contact the Principal Investigator, who will verify they are a genuine researcher and share the data if they deem it appropriate.

At the end of the research activity, you’ll be asked if you would like to receive a summary of the research findings after the project is finished. If you want it, you’ll be asked to provide your email. Your email will be stored separately from your anonymous research responses – it will not be possible to link your anonymous responses to your email. Any data collected as a part of this project will be stored securely, as per University of Southern Queensland’s Research Data and Primary Materials Management Procedure.

Consent to Participate

Clicking on the "Submit" button at the conclusion of the questionnaire is accepted as an indication of your consent to participate in the project.

Questions

Please refer to the research team contact details at the top of the form to have any questions answered or to request further information about this project.

Concerns or complaints

If you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the project, you may contact the University of Southern Queensland, Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics on +61 7 4631 2321 or email researchintegrity@unisq.edu.au. The Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics is not connected with the research project and can address your concern in an unbiased manner.

Thank you for taking the time to help with this research project.

Click here to download a copy of this document and to read the prize draw terms and conditions.

To continue, click below.