https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2302-844X
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ABSTRACT
Many intelligent, capable, and successful individuals believe that their success is due to luck, and fear that they will someday be exposed as imposters. A puzzling feature of this phenomenon, commonly referred to as imposter syndrome, is that these same individuals treat evidence in ways that maintain their false beliefs and debilitating fears: they ignore and misattribute evidence of their own abilities, while readily accepting evidence in favour of their inadequacy. I propose a novel account of imposter syndrome as an instance of self-deception, whereby biased evidence treatment is driven by the motivational benefit of negative self-appraisal. This account illuminates a number of interconnected philosophical and scientific puzzles related to the explanation, definition, and value of imposter syndrome.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Precisely what cultural and class equipage entails is difficult to pin down; it seems to point to a constellation of properties, such as the way one speaks (e.g. accent and vocabulary), the clothes one wears, and the knowledge one holds (e.g. who composed ‘Ode to Joy’) [ibid.].
2 Note that ‘available evidence’ refers not to the evidence that an individual possesses, but to the evidence that is ‘easily available’ to them [Lynch Citation2012: 441]. This ensures that those who possess belief-warranting evidence in virtue of their biased evidence gathering (e.g. actively seeking out supporting evidence) might still qualify.
3 I put aside the requirement that those who are self-deceived engage in behaviour that suggests that, at some level, they are aware that the relevant belief is false [Schwitzgebel Citation2002]. Philosophers generally accept that there are some cases of self-deception where the self-deceived show all of the markers of belief in the proposition, with no indication that they believe the opposite [Mele Citation2001; Lynch Citation2012; Funkhouser Citation2019]. Thus, I will focus on this more straightforward notion of self-deception.
4 For example, this condition often holds in domains where the rewards are of a pass-fail nature, such as ‘graduating from school, making a sale, being hired or fired (tenure, partnership), proposing marriage, etc.’ [Bénabou and Tirole Citation2002: 905]. As anyone who has underachieved throughout high school will recognise, believing that you are terrible at a subject but needing to pass it in order to graduate is a wonderful motivator for studying.
5 In fact, some psychologists suggest that the motivational effect of inadequacy beliefs is two-fold: first, people with imposter syndrome work harder to overcome their lack of ability; second, they work harder so as not to have their lack of ability discovered [Clance and Imes Citation1978: 244].
6 Of course, this does not entail that knowledge of one’s own abilities provides no utility whatsoever; it might provide many sources of utility (for example, when it is positive, it will cause happiness). The important point, however, is that, in contexts where imposter syndrome is prevalent, knowledge of one’s own abilities does not make succeeding easier.
7 This would constitute a form of self-deception that is importantly different from the more commonly discussed varieties, introduced in section 3. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this possibility.
8 Thanks to Eric Funkhouser for bringing this argument to my attention.
9 This is not to say that imposter syndrome is, overall, epistemically good, only that it has underappreciated benefits (see Bortolotti [Citation2015]).
10 If psychologists are correct in saying that some of the motivational utility of imposter syndrome stems from the fear of being discovered (see note 5), then this strategy might reduce motivational utility. Nevertheless, this may be an acceptable trade off, given the decrease in affective disutility.
11 I would like to thank Simon van Baal, Tim Bayne, Andrew Corcoran, Manja Engel, Eric Funkhouser, Jakob Hohwy, Alex Kiefer, Andy McKilliam, Dan Williams, Iwan Williams, Jennifer Windt, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful discussion and/or written feedback on the manuscript.