“accretion of the composite meanings individuals attaches to the roles they typically play
in interpersonal situations, meanings that to some degree frame our interpretations of
social reality and guide our behavioral expectations” (PMC, Sports Related Identity and
the “Toxic Jock”). This theory bears resemblance with the one mentioned above (that
people construct their reality with pain). In both of them, people’s reality is very much
based on environmental issues, in which society and their fellows’ thinking shape the way
they view themselves. “The relationship between behavior and identity is circular. An
individual may construct an identity that reflects his or her activities, and subsequently
seek out other activities congruent with that now-existing identity” (PMC, Sports Related
Identity and the “Toxic Jock”). Yet this phenomenon unfolds as perfectly reasonable. As
social animals, humans inevitably encounter with others’ perspective and even base their
pleasure and behavior on it. We can see this ideology reflected back on the protagonist in
Fight Club.
In spite of their disease, the protagonist and many other characters still desperately
need the attention from people around. When describing his experience in the support
group, the narrator says: “If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you.”
(Palahniuk 107) This incarnates one of the reasons why they love the support group.
People give them all their attention and care when the patients are dying.
Even it takes lots of efforts and pain to reach self-authenticity, the characters and
people in real life still strive to achieve this goal. In their essay “The Authentic Personali-
ty: A Theoretical and Empirical Conceptualization and the Development of the Authentici-
ty Scale”, Alex M. Wood and P. Alex Linley offers reasonable explanation as well as
research findings to answer this question. From the psychological point of view, “authen-
ticity is seen as the most fundamental aspect of well-being.” (Wood & Linley 386) They
also state that “Greater feelings of authenticity were negatively correlated with anxiety,
stress, and depression, and positively correlated with self-esteem, and this partially medi-
ated the relationship between role variability and well-being” (Wood & Linley 387). In the
search of personal well-being and greater dignity, people would try to find their own
authentic self. Moreover, the paper discusses the protagonist’s situation in Fight Club.
“People who reported more variability between roles saw themselves as less authentic.”
(Wood & Linley 387) Since the protagonist suffers from dissociative personality disorder
(he has two distinct personalities), his role in life constantly changes--“me” when he’s