What is ‘Imposter Syndrome’?

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UPDATE: wow, never thought this post would take off this much! thanks

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35 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s basically the opposite side of the curve as the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The less skilled you are at something, the less skill you have at noticing your own mistakes or knowing how much more you need to learn, because you don’t have enough knowledge to understand what you’re lacking. This can lead to an inflated sense of confidence, which is the Dunning-Kruger Effect: Not knowing enough to recognize when you’ve made a mistake.

Imposter Syndrome happens when you become more skilled and thus more able to notice your own mistakes, and also understand where you still have gaps in your knowledge. Therefore, because you are more aware of the mistakes you make, you’re more likely to suffer a lack of confidence in what you’re doing and think that the praise you receive for your skill is unearned, even though your skill is objectively higher than other people’s. That’s Imposter Syndrome: Knowing so much that you recognize how much you still don’t know.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s basically thinking “Oh wow, everyone here is so smart and well put together. I’m literally just scraping by. I don’t deserve to be here. They’re going to find out that I’m just trying my best with no clue what I’m doing and then I’m going to get into trouble for faking it”

Newsflash though. Everyones faking it because nobody knows what they’re doing.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s a lack of confidence in what you have done, when others say you have done good.

You fabricate reasons to dismiss the postive evidence from external sources. Then promote invalid internal negative thoughts that haven’t been proven to fill the gap.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Impostor syndrome is where someone doubts their own abilities, qualifications, or expertise. More specifically, it happens to individuals who become more and more knowledgeable about their given field of expertise, which seems paradoxical. If you think about, it makes sense; the more you learn about a given field (in other words, the more of an expert you become), the more you realize just how vast the scope and depth of the knowledge in that field is. The nuances, intricacies, and details about a specific field of knowledge (of which the average person might not be aware) start to become apparent to you. You might then realize just how much there is to know about that field, and you might realize that the amount you actually DO know pales in comparison. Further, you might compare yourself to other experts in the same field, and might think that they know far more about it than you do (even though you might be just as qualified, or even more qualified than them). All of this may contribute towards the feeling of being an ‘impostor’ (feeling like you are unworthy of being called in expert, despite actually being qualified as such), hence the name ‘impostor syndrome’.

This (in my view) is the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which people with a low level of knowledge in a field tend to overestimate their competence in that field and view themselves as experts. Again, the less you know about a field, the less aware you are of the scope, depth, nuances, intricacies, and details of that field. For example, imagine a young child who got a 98% on a math test. They may very well tell you, “I’m great at math,” “I really know a lot about math,” or even “I’m an expert in math!” However, they are unaware of so much higher-level mathematical concepts, equations, problems, etc., and because of that, they are overestimating just how good they are in that field. They would be falling into the bias of the Dunning-Kruger effect. However, if you were to ask someone who had a PhD in mathematics, they would obviously know way more than the young child, but because they are more aware about the wide scope and depth of their field, they may hesitate to make claims boasting about their expertise. In fact, they may even hesitate to call themselves experts. This would be an example of impostor syndrome.

Hope this helps.

P.S. Take my explanation with a grain of salt – I’m no expert.

Anonymous 0 Comments

From a more causal perspective, there is a thing called the “dunning/kruger effect”

Essentially, those who know little know so little that they don’t understand how little they know, and those who know a lot absolutely understand how little they know.

This leads to incompetent people feeling as though they know everything, and extremely competent people feeling as though they are know-nothing fools.

Imposter syndrome is exactly the latter scenario: as an expert in the field, and given the breadth of human ignorance and the vastness of subject matter that even an expert doesn’t know, many experts end up feeling like they are faking, namely the knowledge that they know they lack. In reality, most such people operate by having the tools to get the knowledge they need, at the time they need it (rather than “just knowing it already”). While this is arguably far more valuable (knowing how to learn rather than knowing how to do), it leads to a constant feeling of struggle to achieve.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Whatever job, social event, friendgroup or hobby you’re in, you’re constantly looking around waiting for someone to notice you don’t belong there or deserve to be there. That’s imposter syndrome.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Last year, the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, said that she suffers from this. She said:

“Even though I have been in politics for a long time, I have been First Minister for four years, there will be days when I think ‘should I even be here? Is somebody about to find me out?’”

(This quote is from the Guardian newspaper, May, 15, 2019)

Exactly as described in this thread; a feeling of being found out, being a fake, even though properly qualified and experienced.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Paul McCartney is one of the most successful and popular musicians of all time, and generally agreed to be a musical genius. I heard him once say in an interview that before every concert he wonders if this is finally going to be the time that they figure out he’s no good. That is impostor syndrome.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The feeling that whatever job you’re in, you’re not qualified for it and got the position due to a fluke and that people are going to figure out any minute that you’re just an impostor who has no clue what you’re doing.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Imposter syndrome is a feeling of incompetence at something, particularly when you’re in a position where someone expects you to perform at a certain level. You would feel as if you’re not capable of performing at that level. Say, for instance, you’ve become really good at the piano and you’re looking to join your first orchestra. There’d be a “presupposition” that you are capable of playing together, in time, and on key with other members! This can lead to a feeling of anxiety and incompetence which we call imposter syndrome. And it can be quite debilitating because once you start to doubt your abilities, you’re prone to what some people call the “yips.” You don’t really “self sabotage” per say, you more “fail unintentionally” and then feel even worse about yourself and your abilities.