The Surprising Psychology of Imposter Syndrome
Are you an impostor? Are you just waiting for people to figure it out? That might sound like a weird question, but more than 20% of people, and perhaps as many as 40% believe that they’re imposters. They have what’s known as imposttor syndrome. That means that when they have success, they feel like they’re secretly frauds or they’re convinced that they’re secretly incapable. Imposttor syndrome is so common that chances are either you experience it or a friend or loved one
Of yours does. If you’re not sure whether or not you have imposter syndrome, just wait to the end of the video where we’ll give you a quick and easy way to find out. To gain a deeper understanding of this topic, we examined all of the existing imposter syndrome tests developed by academic psychologists. We then combined all of their different approaches for measuring imposter syndrome into a single survey and tested that survey on 223 Americans. Analyzing this data helped us understand
What the core of imposter syndrome really is and it led us to two surprises which I’ll share near the end of this video. But before we talk about that, how can you tell if you have imposter syndrome? One sign is if you’re afraid that others will find out that you actually lack the knowledge or ability that they believe you have. Another sign is how you react when someone praises the results you’ve achieved. If their praise makes you feel delighted, you’re
Less likely to have imposter syndrome. But if the praise makes you worry that you may not be able to fulfill their expectations in the future, then you may have imposter syndrome. You know who doesn’t have imposttor syndrome? Cats. But who actually does have imposttor syndrome? Some people are so accomplished that they could never have imposter syndrome, right? An author once felt insecure as he was attending an event full of impressive people. He struck up a conversation with a polite
Elderly gentleman. After a few minutes, the elderly gentleman suddenly gestured to the hall full of people and said, “I just look at all these people and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.” So, who was that elderly gentleman? And what did he mean he just went where he was sent? He was Neil Armstrong, the first man ever to walk on the moon. And yet, he didn’t
Feel like he fit in in that room full of accomplished people. Now listen to the following quote and take a moment to see if you can guess who said it. No matter what we’ve done, there comes a point where we think, “How did I get here?” When are they going to discover that I am in fact a fraud and take everything away from me? Any ideas who might have said that? If you can believe it, that
Was Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks has won so many awards that there’s a Wikipedia page called list of awards and nominations received by Tom Hanks. If you have imposttor syndrome, it’s easy to assume that the antidote is simply to do more, to achieve more. And if you achieve enough, you’ll finally believe you’re deserving of success. But as the examples of Neil Armstrong and Tom Hanks illustrate, simply having accomplishments isn’t necessarily enough to free you from imposter syndrome. And
That’s because imposter syndrome is fundamentally about the way you see yourself. So what kind of people are susceptible to imposter syndrome? Well, this takes us to the first surprise of our study. We assumed that we knew what the answer would be. Women are well known to have somewhat lower self-esteem than men. And in fact, the concept of imposter syndrome was developed with women in mind. Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Susan Imus coined the idea as part
Of their 1978 paper, the imposttor phenomena in high achieving women. They wrote imposttor phenomenon is used to designate an internal experience of intellectual phoniness which appears to be particularly prevalent and intense among a select sample of high achieving women. So what did we find when we analyzed the data from our study? No statistically significant difference between men and women. Now some studies have found that women are more likely to have imposttor syndrome but the difference they find is typically small.
Both women and men are prone to imposter syndrome. The second surprise is what we found imposter syndrome to be linked to in our study. Imposter syndrome was substantially linked to procrastination and in other studies it’s been found to be linked to perfectionism as well. So why might this be? Well, perfectionists tend to hold their work to an impossible standard. Since perfection is almost impossible, this means they’ll routinely feel their output simply isn’t good enough. It’s then easy to see why even
If they have success, they could be left feeling like it wasn’t deserved because it didn’t meet their own perfectionistic standard. What about procrastination? Well, sometimes people procrastinate simply because there’s something more enjoyable they’d rather be doing. A lot of procrastination is driven by anxiety. If you worry you can’t do a task well or that your results will be inadequate, it can be anxietyprovoking to think about the task. And one of the pernitious effects of anxiety is that it causes us
To avoid things. If our ancient ancestors felt anxiety about a certain part of the forest because they spotted a tiger there the other day and therefore they avoided it for a little while, that was likely a good thing that helped them survive. But when we feel anxious about work we need to do because we worry we aren’t capable enough to do a good job. And so we avoid the task until the last minute. That can make our
Anxiety worse and it can even lower the quality of our work, which is the thing we were worried about in the first place. So what should you or a loved one of yours do if you have imposter syndrome? Unfortunately, not that much is known about treating it, but given the limited evidence, here’s a useful exercise that may help, which is heavily inspired by cognitive therapy. The next time you’re having negative thoughts that involve worrying that you’re not as
Good as other people perceive you to be, write down those thoughts that you’re having. Then return to them when you’re in a calmer state of mind and take a few minutes to evaluate the evidence both for and against those thoughts. For instance, if the thought was, “People think I’m talented, but they’re going to find out that I have no idea what I’m doing.” You could write down the evidence both for and against the idea that you’re talented. The goal is to
Evaluate the evidence objectively to see yourself accurately. Then once you’ve written that down, write down a new version of your original thought that’s more helpful and at least as accurate as the original. In this case, the new thought might be, “While I’m not talented at everything, nobody is, but I am good at X and Y and Z.” Make sure this new thought is something that is true, even if you sometimes doubt it. Then set an intention of noticing
Whenever you have the original thought. When you do, immediately say to yourself the new, more helpful thought. Over time, if you keep replacing that less helpful thought with the more helpful version, it’s likely to become easier and easier, and your mindset may shift. If you’re not sure if you have imposter syndrome or you’re curious to find out, you can take our free imposttor syndrome test. You can find the link in the description below. If you enjoyed this
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