Recently, the term "imposter syndrome” has become widely used on the internet. Although there are many online discussions about this phenomenon, there is little research on it. However, a study published in Personality and Individual Differences aims to examine this phenomenon in real-world circumstances. Check now for more information on the topic!
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People prone to self-sabotage are prone to imposter syndrome. Therefore, the individual develops an internal perception of his own incompetence or inadequacy. Naturally, the human brain has this predisposition to create this feeling of inadequacy and transgression.
This phenomenon is more associated with anxiety, increased depression and decreased job satisfaction. This is believed to have to do with attribution styles, which describe what people believe to be the cause of events.
Placing blame on someone's ability or character is an internal attribution, whereas an external attribution would be more like blaming circumstances or the outcome of fate.
A total of 76 college students were sampled by Kay Brauer and Rene T. Proyer. Participants completed an online survey consisting of demographic questions and a measure of imposter syndrome two days prior to the lab session.
The participants were told that they would undergo an intelligence test in the laboratory. Despite the real success in these tasks, everyone received praise and stated that they did very well. After that, the participants finalized the attribution measures.
The findings demonstrated that the impostor syndrome was unrelated to performance on these tasks, but those with higher rates of the syndrome did not attribute perceived success to their own abilities, but to luck and circumstances.
This association between attribution styles and mental health and depression may be one explanation for why imposter syndrome itself is linked to depression and anxiety.
However, this study has its limitations. One is that the sample consisted only of undergraduate students from Germany. Furthermore, only the attribution in the good performance scenario was tested, so the attribution of poor performance should be included in future studies.
