Imposter Syndrome: Does It Even Exist?

Source: Allef Vinicius / Unsplash

Not long ago, an acquaintance who happens to be a therapist was fretting aloud about a presentation she had to give in front of a group of peers; I empathized since public speaking is a stretch for many of us, but I was surprised when she said it was harder for her because she’d been diagnosed by her therapist as having “imposter syndrome."

Wait. How can you be diagnosed with something that hasn’t made it into the Bible of psychology, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)? Google the words, and you will find no fewer than 20 million entries—giving narcissism a run for its money—and literally hundreds of listings for courses and therapeutic interventions to help you get rid of this pesky syndrome that appears to induce self-doubt even in the most competent among us.

But is this supposed “syndrome” actually a good thing that allows us to assess the risk of sounding ignorant or uninformed when we take on a challenge or address other people? Does it permit us a moment to assess our skill set and perhaps hone our approach before we take on the challenge? Many years ago, I had to address the entire English department of a prestigious university for a job; not even the suit with padded shoulders I had on—we dressed like dudes in the day to underscore girl power—could allay the angst I felt. The faculty was all wearing name tags, not that I needed them since their author photos graced the books on which I had based my thesis. No one laughed, in fact.

In a culture that exorts us to “fake it until we make it,” isn’t this momentary pause a good thing?

Are Some People More Likely to Feel Like Frauds Than Others?

The short answer is “yes.” Individuals raised in healthy emotional environments develop secure attachment; they are not simply more confident in who they are but are able to brook setbacks and failures without devolving into self-criticism. That is not true of most people raised in dysfunction or who have been a victim of verbal abuse growing up.

The Origins of Imposter Syndrome

The imposter phenomenon was coined by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes over 40 years ago. Clance and Imes’ original work, published in 1978, focused on professional women and noted anecdotally that men seemed to suffer less from the phenomenon. (I personally think this is more a reflection of the times when women in the workforce wore suits and shirts modeled after menswear, and the secret code was pretty much “don’t act like a girl,” which I mentioned earlier. The price of equality had its costs.) Clance and Imes attributed the imposter phenomenon to early childhood experiences stemming from seeing a sibling designated as being superior or being told constantly that that sibling was perfect or a star. As the authors saw it, in the first case, a girl may set out to disprove she’s inferior (and be plagued by self-doubt) or, in the second, be hobbled by her inability to deal with setbacks. Clance revisited the issue in 1993 with coauthor Joe Langford and linked feeling like an imposter with anxiety, introversion, a belief that the self is defined only by achievement, and growing up in a family high in conflict and lacking in support.

An astonishing number of accomplished women, including Sonja Sotomayor, Melinda Gates, and others, have admitted in interviews that they have felt like imposters or frauds at moments in their lives, but am I the only person who finds this totally understandable and actually not revelatory? I am going to go with Helen Mirren, who I believe should have the last word: “It would be wrong to think that you’re always right and correct and perfect and brilliant. Self-doubt is the thing that drives you to try to improve yourself.”

More recent research has revealed that men also suffer from feeling like imposters, as a study by Sonja Rohrmann and her colleagues showed; they found no association between the imposter phenomenon and gender. Unlike samples used in other studies, theirs was of working managers, not students, which may explain the different findings. Not surprisingly, they also noted a link between anxiety and the imposter phenomenon. Counterintuitively, they also found that people who felt like imposters were both perfectionists and procrastinators—two working styles that seem, on the surface at least, to be contradictory. They explained their findings by suggesting that people who feel like imposters tend to overprepare and work to impress others while showing their perfectionism—while also procrastinating, which tends to bolster their vision of themselves as fraudulent.

An even newer study by Rebecca L. Badawy and her colleagues specifically looked at gender differences and came up with some really interesting findings, limited only by the use of student participants, and not adults in real-life workplace situations. They point out that, theoretically, someone who already feels like an imposter will have their feelings validated by negative feedback and will consequently decrease their efforts. While it was true that more women identified themselves as feeling like imposters, the men who did have greater anxiety in the wake of negative feedback and their subsequent work were more affected than women who felt like imposters. The women didn’t just show more resilience, but their subsequent efforts were less affected by the feedback.

Driven by Social Media?

A recent study attempted to corral what was real and what wasn’t about imposter syndrome and concluded that the court of public opinion (and, dare I say it, the offering of services to “fix” it) played a much larger role than scientific study. My educated guess is that we have better things to worry about and pathologize.

Imposter Syndrome Essential Reads

How Writers Are a Perfect Target for Imposter Syndrome

Feeling Imposter Syndrome? Congratulations!

This piece is partly adapted from my book Verbal Abuse.

Copyright 2024 by Peg Streep