This study aimed to determine if manipulation of two basic psychological needs, autonomy and relatedness, each had independent effects on inducing state authenticity. Participants were randomly assigned to a condition where their autonomy need was either fulfilled or unfulfilled and their relatedness need was met or not. The autonomy need was manipulated as follows, a participant was asked to write an essay in accord with their personal beliefs (autonomy fulfilled) or against their personal beliefs (autonomy unfulfilled). The participant was accept or rejected for a future interaction on the basis of this essay by a bogus interaction partner. Potential mediators were also examined which included self-esteem, positive affect, negative affect, private self-consciousness and public self-consciousness. Analysis of the results using ANOVAs and ANCOVAs revealed a lack of effect of relatedness manipulation on state authenticity and a lack of effect of the autonomy manipulation on two domains of state authenticity as measured by the Wood, Linley, Maltby, Balisousis and Joseph’s (2008) adapted state authenticity scale, authentic living and accepting external influence; possible explanations for this failure to find effects are described. This study found that manipulation of support for autonomy caused variation in levels of self alienation a third subscale of the Wood et al. (2008) authenticity scale. This effect was partially mediated by negative affect. Implications for theory regarding authenticity, and possible therapeutic methods are discussed