The mediating role of body awareness in the relationship between authenticity and subjective well-being

Exhibiting authentic behaviors by connecting with one's true self contributes to their overall well-being and enables to lead a fulfilling life. At the core of authentic behavior lies not only subjective knowledge but also the physical and emotional knowledges acquired through body awareness. Following the trace of these information from the body is important for their holistic health and well-being. The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of body awareness in the relationship between authenticity and subjective well-being (SWB) among young adults. Another purpose of the study is to test the mediating role of the sub-factors of body awareness (noticing, non-distracting, not-worrying, attention regulation, emotional awareness, trusting) in the relationship between authenticity and subjective well-being. 291 young adults between the ages of 22-40 participated in the study. The data were collected by Demographic Information Form, Authenticity Scale, Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness-II, Positive and Negative Affect Scale, Life Satisfaction Scale. In the analysis of the data, the relationships between the variables were examined. Then, to test the main purpose of the research, simple mediation analysis was performed using Hayes Macro Process v4.0. Finally, a multiple parallel mediation analysis was conducted to examine the mediations of the sub-factors of body awareness. Significant relationships were found between the variables of the study. When examining the results of the mediation analysis, it was found that body awareness partially mediates the relationship between young adults' levels of authenticity and subjective well-being. In addition, multiple parallel mediation analysis findings show that only attention regulation, one of the sub-factors of body awareness, partially mediates the relationship between authenticity and subjective well-being. The findings have been discussed in light of the literature. Keywords: Authenticity, body awareness, subjective well-being