High achieving and unbelieving
Students of minority backgrounds experience Impostor Phenomenon at higher rates
Is it possible to be a successful college student on the dean’s list for excelling academically — and still have no clue about how you got to this point?
I’m convinced it can be because that is often how I feel. Nevermind my admission to the University of Southern California, my consistently good grades, and the support of my family and professors. I’m still convinced I don’t deserve to be here because I don't always feel worthy enough.
I’ve learned during my time at USC that I am not alone. I have encountered plenty of high-achieving students from all over the world who struggle to persuade themselves that they are deserving of their place here. It is true for those of us who stay up deep into the night to get our school work done on time and those of us who wake up before the sun rises to work unpaid internships. The same goes for those of us who squeeze in time to visit to professors’ office hours and make various personal and familial sacrifices. In the end, we might achieve things that our childhoods previously convinced us were impractical. But we — and this may be especially true for students of color — still conclude that we are impostors waiting to be found out.
I’ve long suspected that this way of thinking isn’t helpful for me or my growth as a young adult. Now I know it is true. Psychology researchers say that race and ethnic minority status can heighten the experience of Impostor Phenomenon . The term, which was formulated by Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Dr. Suzanne A. Imes in the late 1970s, refers to the “internal experience of intellectual phoniness.”
For some students, Impostor Phenomenon can drive mental health, but in other cases, mental health can also drive the feelings of being a phony, according to psychologist and professor, Dr. Nina Ellis-Hervey. She said that a person becoming knowledgeable of their phenomenon but does not receive treatment can lead to mental health problems.
“The other way around is that if you already have mental illnesses and you constantly think negatively about yourself, you're never going to see yourself fully for who you are,” she said. “You're only going to see the mental illness or the other issues or barriers that you might be experiencing.”
Those who experience Impostor Phenomenon, are typically successful people who don’t believe in their own success and have a fear that others will figure out they were faking. When they are given achievement related tasks like school or work assignments, their impostor fears may push them to anxiety-related symptoms like self-doubt or worry, according to Dr. Clance’s Imposter Cycle. In result, anxiety can cause a person to extensively over prepare or procrastinate with completing the assignment.
When a task is completed, a person will generally feel relief and short-lived sense of accomplishment. They will often deny their success after positive feedback and blame it on luck if they procrastinated, or effort if they have over prepared. This can cause a high level of anxiety and depression, and the Impostor Cycle is repeated.
A 2017 study by Dr. Kevin Cokely Dr. Leann Smith, using the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale, the Perceived Discrimination Scale and the Mental Health Inventory–18, showed that both perceived discrimination, the “manifestation of a negative attitude, judgment, or unfair treatment toward members of a group,” was a critical positive predictor of impostor feelings with a .34 score among African American students. Imposter feelings also show a critical positive predictor of anxiety with a .46 score and depression at .49 score.
The study also revealed that in Asian American students, who have the highest levels of impostorism, showed impostor feelings were a significant positive predictor of anxiety at score of .42 and depression at a .18 score. Feelings of being a phony significantly intervened with the relationships between perceived discrimination and anxiety with a score of .08, and depression .04 score.”
For Latino American students, perceived discrimination was a predictor of depression with a score of .22, anxiety at .23 and impostor feelings with a .48 score. Impostor feelings were a significant positive predictor of anxiety at a score of .25, and also intervened with the relationship between perceived discrimination and anxiety with a .12 score.
Dr. Clance created the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale, which is a test aimed at detecting the fear of evaluation, feeling less capable than peers, and fear that success cannot be repeated. The test asks 20 questions with a one-to-five scale for answers. Upon completion, the selected numbers are added together. The higher the total score, the more a person feels they are an impostor.
Studies show about 70 percent of people will experience at least one episode of Impostor Phenomenon in their lives. Self-declared impostors may not be achieving to heir full potential, and they may not always enjoy their successes because of their lack of ability to have a rational sense of their competence, according to Dr. Clance. If impostor feelings are at high levels, people may turn down opportunities to advance because of the fear of failing.
Bigger personalities than me admit suffering from this. Michelle Obama addressed the phenomenon last year at an Obama Foundation event in Kuala Lumpur on girls’ education, warning them not to be plagued by those feelings— especially when fighting men for power. Obama, who attended top tier universities Princeton and Harvard, was told she was not good enough.
The former first lady still persevered through those feelings and made achievements beyond measures. “So you can’t count on somebody else to give you this self-confidence, that is not how we work,” she said.
The sense of being a faker might be nearly universal, but it can play out very differently from workplaces to social settings to academia. Senior lecturer and researcher, Anna Parkman, said that the culture of a person’s job and work field can play a significant role in how they experience Impostor Phenomenon.
“In a typical work environment when you’re evaluated, you’re evaluated by one person,” Parkman said. Employees usually have a clear understanding of what their work evaluation entails and know what success looks like based on examples from well performing peers. However, this phenomenon can start early in life, often well before people enter the workplace.
In higher education, a student could have five people with four to five different assessments evaluating them on criteria that are similar or very dissimilar. “There’s an intensity about it and the variety of this experience escalates this feeling,” she said.
The definition of success in classes can vary or, in some cases, is not defined at all. Although it is nevertheless about the grade, grading is inherently subjective and vague feedback can cause students to experience more imposter feelings. A prime example could be receiving a letter grade on a paper weeks later with no feedback on the body of work. This could instil the idea that the student didn't actually achieve success, but that they got the grade simply because of luck.
Universities are one of the places we try and solve the issues of impostorism for minority students as schools become more aware of diversity. Black students were the least likely to graduate with a retention rate of almost 46 percent. Hispanic students had a rate of 55 percent, and Asian students had a rate of almost 72 percent. Interestly, white student retention rates were lower than Asian students by almost five percent.
Students’ of color experiences are different from white students because they can be subject to institutional, implicit, and blatant acts of racism from both peers and professors. This can lead to students to disengagement, underperformance, and high dropout rates.
USC graduate student Isabel Castillo, who migrated to the United States as a young child, says that is when she first experienced the phenomenon. Having grown up speaking Spanish, she felt like she didn’t belong in English-speaking environments. She quickly perfected her English, but the feelings stayed throughout high school and into college.
After enrolling in community college, she said, “I felt like I was on top of the world. I felt like I was the brightest girl there.” It wasn't until she transferred to USC and switched her major to journalism, a subject she wasn’t as familiar with, that she began to feel high levels of phoniness.
“I just felt like I was intrinsically dumber than everyone else. I feel like, they made an error accepting me into this prestigious university,” she said. “Maybe I was their token-undocumented Latina girl that just got in because they needed to fill a quota.”