The Imposter Syndrome and scientists
-Why do so many scientists and PhD students feel like frauds? -
by Dana Seucan (PhD student in Applied Cognitive Psychology at Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania)
You are a successful scientist. But when you look at your wall covered in awards and diplomas do you have the feeling they don’t belong there? “Surely, this is really someone else’s wall,” you may think. “Someone who is smarter and more knowledgeable”. Full of anxiety you are waiting for the moment when everybody else discovers you are nothing but a fraud.
If this description sounds familiar to you, you are likely to be suffering from something called “the imposter syndrome”.
The term “imposter phenomenon” (IP) was coined in the late ’70s after being identified in therapeutic sessions with high-achieving women1. Nowadays, we know this condition is not restricted to women and that 70% of high-achievers have suffered from IP at some time in their life. It is more common among minorities- whether this be gender, race or sexual orientation and can be triggered when someone is faced with new challenges, for example students starting their Ph.D. studies, graduate PhDs starting on a new position or scientists faced with a new project.
What defines someone as suffering from IP?
Unfortunately IP is not officially recognised as a mental health disorder, and this may be due to the fact it is difficult to define. IP can manifest itself in a range of ways. These may include the need to be the best there is, the need to do everything flawlessly, fear of failure, feelings of shame and humiliation when failure is real of perceived, guilt of being different, worry about being rejected, feelings of phoniness and fraudulence, concerns about self-worth and social image, persistent self-monitoring, intellectual self-doubt, feelings of weakness or feelings of inauthenticity.
“….70% of high-achievers have suffered from IP at some time in their life.”
It is very difficult for people with IP to manage these negative feelings because they get caught up in a cycle that reinforces their fraudulence feelings. This cycle starts up when the people with IP are assigned a new achievement-related task2. They may become overwhelmed with feelings of anxiety and they will either over-prepare or they will procrastinate thinking that they don’t have what it takes to complete the task at the required high standards. This period of procrastination is followed by extreme hard work. If they fail they feel shame and humiliation and are convinced that their failure is due to their lack of intelligence and knowledge. By contrast, if they succeed they reject praise because they underestimate themselves (i.e. they think their article could be cited more or their grant could be bigger) and they externalize their success (“anyone can publish in PNAS” or “I was really lucky to get that grant”). On the other hand, when they assess others they overestimate their capabilities (“he is really smart, no wonder he published in PNAS” or “she wrote a really great application for that grant”). They inaccurately self-assess their performance3, they internalize their failures and mistakes and they work longer, harder and seek perfectionism in order to maintain a façade of authenticity. All this causes stress, anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion and finally, burnout 4,5,6.
For someone who is afflicted by IP, if there is a disparity between their performance and their ideal standard of success they can reject positive feedback 7. They may set extremely high standards for themselves and unrealistic goals that ultimately they can’t achieve which leads to confirmation of their fraudulence and the cycle begins again.
Frederik Anseel, a psychologist at Ghent University in Belgium, thinks that in a profession where ‘failure’ in publishing papers and securing grants are the norm scientists are at a greater risk of developing imposter tendencies. Scientists work in a highly competitive environment where the best researchers are highly acclaimed leaving the others to feel inferior and ask themselves if they really belong there.
“Scientists work in a highly competitive environment where the best researchers are highly acclaimed… [this] leaves others to feel inferior and ask themselves if they really belong there.”
What causes IP?
The roots of the imposter syndrome can come from someone’s family background. The condition is more present in individuals whose families have an emphasis on natural intelligence, or who place large importance on achievements but who fail to provide positive and consistent reinforcement when a child does succeed. The children in these families formed a distorted image of their self-worth, which makes them eager to please others and seek approval when they are adults.
And mass media and societal pressure can make things worse. It is not surprising that women are affected more than men or that minorities have greater tendencies to feel like frauds, considering the quantity of stereotypic messages we receive from the media and society.
How can we combat IP?
The imposter syndrome can hold someone back from applying for a better position, it can delay them from writing grants or publishing articles and maybe even prevent them from considering applying for awards and other academic opportunities.
Fortunately, there are tried-and-tested coping strategies for reducing and eliminating the IP feelings:
1. Cognitive reframing: In order to reduce the intensity of negative feelings it is important to restructure your thinking. Every time you feel like a fraud stop and analyze what thought passed through your mind the moment your feeling appeared. Maybe you told yourself: “I don’t know how you pulled this award off, you are not that knowledgeable. Sooner or later they will discover that you are not that smart.” What you need to do is to tone that “voice” down. You could rationally debate whatever the “voice” is saying or you could imagine that your hero who is full of wisdom does that for you. Your “hero” can be a person you really admire and consider very intelligent. So, you could imagine that Einstein replies to that self-downing ‘voice’ telling it: “That’s not true. X (your name) is very smart and worked a lot for that award. The award is in the right hands.” Self-monitoring your thoughts — it’s not that hard. Every time you feel a negative emotion bothering you stop and investigate the thought generating it and send that irrational thought to ‘Einstein’ to confront it.
2. Self-advocating: Learn to talk about yourself and your work the same way you talk about the people you admire. Don’t minimize your contribution to the field but instead write down the contribution and importance of your work. Do not highlight your mistakes rather emphasize on what went well. Learn to embrace the little failures that are specific to your job: paper and grant proposal rejections and do not link these rejections to your abilities.
In fact, all you need to do is to change the core beliefs that you hold about yourself. It will take a while to do this considering that they have built your self-image from childhood until now, but it isn’t impossible either.
You are a scientist. Your job is to test ideas and put everything under a question mark. If the inner voice says something hurtful about yourself, test it, and if it turns out to be false don’t adopt and include that thought in your self-image and sense of self-worth. Test your thoughts, they are the real imposters!
Daniela Seucan, PhD student in Applied Cognitive Psychology
Our bespoke collection of academic studies on imposter syndrome: https://www.sparrho.com/pinboard/the-imposter-syndrome/166219/landing/
References:
[1] Clance, P.R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The impostor phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice, 15(3), 241–247.
[2] Clance, P.R. (1985). The imposter phenomenon: Overcoming the fear that haunts your success, Atlanta, GA: Peachtree.
[3] Want, J., & Kleitman, S. (2006). Imposter phenomenon and self-handicapping: Links with parenting styles and self-confidence. Personality and Individual Differences, 40(5), 961–971
[4] Cowman, S. E., Ferrari, J. R. (2002). “Am I for real?” Predicting imposter tendencies from self-handicapping and affective components. Social Behavior and Personality, 30(2), 119–126.
[5] Kets de Vries, M. F. R. (2005). The dangers of feeling like a fake. Harvard Business Review, 83(9), 108–116.
[6] Kumar, S., Jagacinski, C. M. (2006). Imposters have goals too: The imposter phenomenon and its relationship to achievement goal theory. Personality and Individual Differences, 40(1), 147–157.
[7]Sakulku, J. & Alexander, J. (2011). The imposter phenomenon. International Journal of Behavioral Science, 6(1), 73–92.
.
