There is no evidence of its existence. Yet the idea of the true self – who you really are deep down – is everywhere in our popular culture: in music, literature, films, and the entire self-help industry. But even if our journeys of self-discovery set out to find something that doesn’t exist, and even if there’s no such thing as “becoming who we really are”, believing we have a true self helps us make sense of the world, find our lives more meaningful, and act more morally, argue Rebecca Schlegel and Joshua Hicks.  

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the existence of a true self (at least as most people imagine it). When people think about their true selves, they tend to imagine a stable homunculus-like entity that exists within them that doesn’t change across situations or over time. This homunculus-like entity is perceived to be our essence – the thing that endows a person with their traits, skills, and interests.  Yet, academic psychologists have demonstrated time and time again that people’s answers to the question “who am I?” are culturally informed, contingent upon their current situations, and change over one’s lifespan. Further, even the most advanced brain measurement techniques have yet to illuminate any signs of a homunculus residing within us. All of these findings call into question whether any such entity is really plausible.