Imposter Syndrome: You Might Have This Phenomenon If You're Feeling Unworthy of Success

While there have been a lot of discussions and arguments online about a certain condition called imposter syndrome, a study seeks to test such a phenomenon in real-life situations.

As specified in a PsyPost report, the rare condition has become a famous term recently in the internet lingo. People are using it to describe their feeling of unworthiness with their success.

The imposter syndrome, also called the Imposter Phenomenon, is a concept about a person's perceptions of his capabilities, or lack thereof, being underserved of his level of accomplishment.

Despite evidence suggesting that capabilities like jobs, education, and experience, some people think accomplishments are deceitful and undeserved.

Link to Anxiety, Increased Depression, and Reduced Job Satisfaction

This syndrome is associated with more anxiety, increased depression, and reduced job satisfaction. This is believed to be related to attributional styles, describing what people believe is causing the occurrences.

Essentially, an internal attribution is placing accountability on one's ability or personality, while an external attribution could be "blaming chance or fate," as indicated in the research published in the Personality and Individual Differences journal.

Kay Brauer and Rene Proyer used 76 university students to serve as their sample. The study volunteers completed an online survey that comprised demographic questions and an imposter phenomenon measure two days before the laboratory session.

The participants were told during the lab session that they would be accomplishing an intelligent test. Despite their actual performance on the said tasks, all participants were commended and told they had quite an impressive score.

Success Attributed to 'Luck' and 'Chance'

Results of their test revealed that imposter syndrome was not related to performance on such tasks, although people who have higher rates of imposter syndrome did not attribute their perceived achievement to their abilities and capabilities but to luck and chance instead.

Since attributional styles are associated with mental health and depression, such a link could explain why imposter syndrome is associated with depression and anxiety.

Even though this research took steps toward deeper insight into the syndrome, it also has limitations. One such limitation is that the sample was exclusively comprised of German-speaking undergraduate students, which could have caused the limitation in generalizability.

Though this study took steps toward further understanding imposter syndrome, it also has its limitations.

Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

There is no particular cause of imposter syndrome. Instead, several factors likely combine to stimulate or induce them. The good news is that there are ways to prevent the condition.

Healthline advises that for one who feels like a fraud, "working harder to do better" may not help to change his self-image.

Some strategies will help one to resolve such an imposter feeling effectively. One is to acknowledge one's feelings. Identifying the feeling of being an imposter and bringing them into the light of day can achieve several goals.

Talking to a trusted person or mentor about that feeling of distress can help in getting some outside context on the situation.

Related information about imposter syndrome is shown on Treehouse's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Rare Occurrences in Science Times.