Impostor Syndrome

Impostor syndrome, also known as impostorship or imposter phenomenon, describes a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Impostorship characteristics are largely organized into three subcategories: (1) feeling like a fake, or the belief that one does not deserve one’s success; (2) attributing success to luck or other external reasons and not to one’s own internal abilities; and (3) discounting success, or the tendency to downplay or disregard achievement of success. Impostor syndrome has been discovered in the psychology of individuals with marginalized social identities, particularly high-achieving women. From its earliest definitions, the impostor phenomenon was said to manifest in patriarchal or sexist contexts—or contexts that center on the interests of men. Recently, the impostor phenomenon has also been discussed in ...