Impostor syndrome appears to be linked to psychological issues

More recently, the term “Impostor syndromeAlthough there is a lot of discussion on the Internet about this phenomenon, there is little research on it. However, a study published in Personality and Individual Differences aims to study this phenomenon in real-world conditions. Check out more More info on the topic now!

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What is imposter syndrome?

People who tend to self-sabotage are prone to impostor syndrome. Therefore, the individual develops an internal perception of his own inadequacy or inadequacy. Of course, the human brain has this predisposition to create this sense of inferiority and transgression.

This phenomenon is more closely associated with anxiety, increased depression, and decreased job satisfaction. This is thought to have something to do with attribution patterns, which describe what people think is the cause of events.

Blaming someone’s ability or character is an internal attribution, while an external attribution would be more related to blaming circumstances or the outcome of fate.

The study was carried out

A total of 76 undergraduate students were sampled by Kay Brauer and Rene T. Proyer. Participants completed an online questionnaire consisting of demographic and impostor syndrome questions two days prior to the lab session.

The participants were told that they would undergo an IQ test in the lab. Despite the real success in these tasks, everyone was praised and reported that they did a very good job. Next, the participants completed the attribution procedures.

Conclusions have been obtained

The results showed that impostor syndrome was not related to performance on these tasks, but that those with higher rates of the syndrome attributed notable success to their own abilities, but rather to luck and circumstances.

This association between attribution patterns, mental health, and depression may explain why imposter syndrome itself is associated with depression and anxiety.

However, this study has its limitations. One is that the sample consisted only of university students from Germany. Furthermore, attribution was only tested in the good performance scenario, so the attribution of poor performance should be included in future studies.