Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the very unprofessional podcast whereby eye general, you're unqualified guide
Speaker 1: talk through some of the big changes and transitions of
Speaker 1: our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Well,
Speaker 1: welcome to our first official episode. And I thought what
Speaker 1: better way to get started than by talking about imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: I thought this would be a really appropriate first episode
Speaker 1: as I begin this new thing, this new podcast, just
Speaker 1: because there are heaps of unknowns. And it was a
Speaker 1: real struggle to get started because I was so nervous
Speaker 1: about seeming like an imposter, not being good enough, not
Speaker 1: knowing enough, or not having worthwhile stuff to say. But
Speaker 1: fuck it, I did it. And as an ode to
Speaker 1: those self doubts, why not make an episode about them
Speaker 1: to begin? So let's get into it. I'm sure we've
Speaker 1: all been scrolling LinkedIn at some point, like the good
Speaker 1: career folk twenty something year olds we are, and spam
Speaker 1: that awful feeling, the feeling of just being utterly incompetent
Speaker 1: in the things we do, our careers, our social circles,
Speaker 1: and especially in regards to our goals. Imposter syndrome. It's
Speaker 1: basically this sense that we're a phony compared to all
Speaker 1: these other super impressive people with their lives entirely in order,
Speaker 1: and they definitely deserve this their success because you know
Speaker 1: they're worthwhile and they're very impressive. But somehow we've ended
Speaker 1: up where we are just by our share ability to
Speaker 1: fake it, never mind any of our skills or ethnic
Speaker 1: or abilities. So you do feel like a bit of
Speaker 1: a fraud. And I thought this would be something that
Speaker 1: we should discuss and investigate, because this is a huge
Speaker 1: thing in our twenties, especially in our professional lives. We
Speaker 1: can feel incredibly insecure and underqualified for the jobs we have,
Speaker 1: all the jobs we want, and when we do reach
Speaker 1: positions where we've been striving for we've been striving for them,
Speaker 1: or we do have some level of expertise and experience
Speaker 1: to contribute to a situation. It's very easy to feel
Speaker 1: like you don't deserve the opportunities you have, especially when
Speaker 1: you may be the youngest person in the room or
Speaker 1: see other people who you believe are more deserving, and
Speaker 1: what ensues can include a pretty savage pattern of self
Speaker 1: sabotage and often attributing your success to external factors. So
Speaker 1: on this episode. We're going to talk about the origins
Speaker 1: of imposter syndrome and the psychology of imposter syndrome in
Speaker 1: our twenties. There are an abundance of links to social
Speaker 1: anxiety and perfectionism that we'll get into, but we're also
Speaker 1: going to discuss the purpose of imposter syndrome from an
Speaker 1: evolutionary perspective. I think a real perspective I have about
Speaker 1: many psychological concepts or psychological phenomenon is if it survived,
Speaker 1: it must have a purpose in nature. But what might
Speaker 1: that be from a psychological perspective, and how is imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome perhaps being exacerbated by the modern day labor, cultural,
Speaker 1: and social context. I think, especially in this kind of
Speaker 1: information saturated and very socially dominated modern day, it's so
Speaker 1: much easier to compare yourself to others and judge your
Speaker 1: own competencies, and this is particularly brutal for our minds
Speaker 1: and our psychology and has created this almost pandemic of
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome and self doubt amongst I'm sure many of
Speaker 1: you as well. And the final thing I really want
Speaker 1: to talk about is that this is particularly the case
Speaker 1: for women, and all these theories emerging from social psychology
Speaker 1: really demonstrate that there are these stark differences between genders
Speaker 1: on the prevalence of imposter syndrome, particularly directed towards our
Speaker 1: professional careers. So let's get to discussing this. So let's
Speaker 1: begin by getting some of the broad contextual knowledge out
Speaker 1: of the way, mainly just what is imposter syndrome. One
Speaker 1: of the best definitions of imposter syndrome that I came
Speaker 1: across when researching this episode was from this author and artist.
Speaker 1: His name is Austin Clan. He's done a lot of
Speaker 1: work on imposter syndrome, particularly in the art world, and
Speaker 1: the way he put it was pretty spot on. Imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome is a psychological phenomena in which people are unable
Speaker 1: to internalize their accomplishments. That pretty much sums it up.
Speaker 1: So the term it was first used by these two psychologists,
Speaker 1: Susan Imms and Pauline Rose Clients in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: and we'll go on to reference Clients quite a bit.
Speaker 1: She was quite a pioneer around this concept and she
Speaker 1: kept it was kind of her niche, and she continued
Speaker 1: to do a lot of work on it into the
Speaker 1: eighties and the nineties. And really kind of popularize the term.
Speaker 1: So it was first used to describe this form of
Speaker 1: self doubt that was primarily affecting successful women, which will
Speaker 1: discuss a little bit more later on, but now it's
Speaker 1: kind of evolved from its initial applications to describe these
Speaker 1: feelings of self doubt, fear of success, fear of failure,
Speaker 1: and self sabotage. It's become more of a popular term.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure you've seen it referenced across pop culture
Speaker 1: the internet. I saw, you know, memes about it on
Speaker 1: Instagram the other day, So it has started being applied to,
Speaker 1: you know, just more self doubt in general, rather than
Speaker 1: the specific feelings of fears of success and failure and
Speaker 1: of being a fraud. So, although it's not an official
Speaker 1: diagnosis listed in the DSM five, which is this big
Speaker 1: manual of all mental disorders and psychological disturbances, I think
Speaker 1: at this time psychologists and others and even psychiatrists, they've
Speaker 1: really come to acknowledge it as a very real and
Speaker 1: very specific form of intellectual self doubt. And these impositive
Speaker 1: feelings are generally accompanied by anxiety and often depression, so
Speaker 1: it's not just another symptom of low confidence or excessive humility.
Speaker 1: But that's also the reason why they don't list it
Speaker 1: as a psychological disorder, because many of the symptoms are
Speaker 1: actually those of other disorders, so sometimes they do just
Speaker 1: see it as perhaps almost a new manifestation of a
Speaker 1: disorder someone might already have. I actually think that it
Speaker 1: should be listed as its own disorder, or perhaps as
Speaker 1: a specifier, just because it is pretty serious. So people
Speaker 1: experiencing imposter syndrome, they may firstly have a lot of
Speaker 1: functional difficulties, so they might underestimate their abilities, really struggle
Speaker 1: to believe in themselves, feel like they don't deserve their
Speaker 1: successes and opportunities. It's also accompanied by this deep sense
Speaker 1: that they're a fraud. And there have been some studies
Speaker 1: that have kind of suggested that it has almost a
Speaker 1: delusional basis, whereby people who have impostive feelings, they're almost
Speaker 1: a little bit delusion or they can't really confirm the
Speaker 1: reality of their success, and they can end up suffering
Speaker 1: a pretty great deal of anxiety in their professional lives.
Speaker 1: So Forbes magazine, I'm sure we've all heard of them,
Speaker 1: they've labeled it the domain of the high achiever, just
Speaker 1: because it's more likely to be experienced by those who
Speaker 1: have those sense of achieved. It's all those successes that
Speaker 1: they do actually have the capacity to doubt. I kind
Speaker 1: of disagree with this. I think it's a lot more
Speaker 1: universal than we imagine, especially amongst women and people of color.
Speaker 1: And some studies have even concluded that up to seventy
Speaker 1: percent of people will experience an instance of imposter syndrome
Speaker 1: in their lives. Obviously, that is, you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: only a couple of studies have found such a significant number,
Speaker 1: but it shows that it's not exactly rare. And the
Speaker 1: huge problem with imposter syndrome is that the experience of
Speaker 1: doing well, it's something does nothing to change your belief
Speaker 1: that you don't belong or don't deserve to be there,
Speaker 1: just because of how insidious this thought pattern is. So
Speaker 1: every time you get more success, it almost just reaffirms
Speaker 1: your ideas of being afford in the first place, and
Speaker 1: it makes you feel almost slightly more uncomfortable. And I
Speaker 1: came across like a bunch of interviews when I was
Speaker 1: researching this episode, interviews with people like Serena Williams, Natalie Portman,
Speaker 1: and Cheryl Sandberg. So arguably women at the very highest
Speaker 1: points in their fields and industries, and they've all admitted
Speaker 1: to this crippling imposterism. So it's almost this cognitive compulsion
Speaker 1: that even if you have every indication of legitimate success,
Speaker 1: you still have these reasons to doubt that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is kind of more anecdotal, but I don't really
Speaker 1: know anyone who doesn't at times feel this way, especially
Speaker 1: in an age where we can constantly compare ourselves with
Speaker 1: others we deem more worthy or more competent. I'm sure
Speaker 1: we've all felt that feeling before, but I think this
Speaker 1: is the thing I was discussing with my friends the
Speaker 1: other day. For someone else, you are the comparison. It's
Speaker 1: like this kind of horrendous cycle. You know, you feel
Speaker 1: really shit in comparison to someone else who has their
Speaker 1: own person who they compare themselves too. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's someone out there who's looking at you thinking you're
Speaker 1: really impressive, and you know, yeah, you're worthy of your success,
Speaker 1: but they aren't. So even though we are able to
Speaker 1: rationalize imposter syndrome and recognize our strengths and this almost
Speaker 1: universal nature of self doubt, we really still can't escape it,
Speaker 1: and it can really hold us back, especially in our
Speaker 1: twenties when we're really trying to find our place in
Speaker 1: our chosen fields and our lives in general. So let's
Speaker 1: not talk about where this feeling comes from. What are
Speaker 1: the general origins of imposter syndrome? So as this term
Speaker 1: has become more ubiquitous, so as the interest in this
Speaker 1: concept so in particular, researchers have often really questioned its existence,
Speaker 1: as with most new concepts, as that preliminary questioning of
Speaker 1: is this syndrome? Is imposter syndrome real? And the short
Speaker 1: answer is yes, it is. It definitely is. So I
Speaker 1: read this study in this kind of summary of all
Speaker 1: these studies, and in across sixty two studies, there were
Speaker 1: twenty thousand participants and fourteen thousand, one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: one of them met the inclusion criteria for imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: Just anecdotally, I've felt it. I'm sure you have as well.
Speaker 1: It does definitely seem to be these feelings that are
Speaker 1: very real and very very impactful in our lives. So
Speaker 1: some pretty prominent theories kind of circulate the origins of
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome. My favorites by Pauling Clans. So Clans was
Speaker 1: the woman who we talked about before who kind of
Speaker 1: discovered this this kind of experience amongst high achieving women,
Speaker 1: and she proposes this cycle of behaviors and reactions that
Speaker 1: lead to imp imposter syndrome. And crucially, if you can
Speaker 1: kind of break the chain within this cycle or perhaps
Speaker 1: avoid progressing along these different stages, she suggests that you
Speaker 1: can actually kind of almost cure your imposter syndrome or
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a gateway integrate a self confidence.
Speaker 1: So this first stage is when the aposter cycle kind
Speaker 1: of begins. It's when a person feels these initial feelings
Speaker 1: of angsty when they're assigned a task. So this is
Speaker 1: kind of like a trigger, so you know, this stimulus
Speaker 1: this task that they've been asked to do or something
Speaker 1: that they need to complete. So the second stage is
Speaker 1: the need to be special or the need to be
Speaker 1: the very best, and this is really linked to perfectionism,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about a little bit more later on.
Speaker 1: So this need to be the very best is obviously
Speaker 1: pretty anxiety inducing, and this anxiety it leads to extreme
Speaker 1: over preparation and many imposters or people who suffer from
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome. They often secretly harbor the need to be
Speaker 1: deemed as the most competent compared to their peers, and
Speaker 1: like I kind of mentioned, this does create a lot
Speaker 1: of initial feelings of fear in approaching the task because
Speaker 1: your expectations are so high. The next stage is superman
Speaker 1: or superwoman aspects. So now that this person has committed
Speaker 1: to the idea they're going to be the very best,
Speaker 1: they'll often overwork and overwork themselves and believe that they
Speaker 1: have some sort of superhuman ability or need to adopt
Speaker 1: some superhuman ability in order to really propel themselves and
Speaker 1: do their very best at this. This is often met
Speaker 1: with stage four, which is a fear of failure, so
Speaker 1: they're kind of overworking themselves. They have these really just
Speaker 1: unrealistic expectations and impostive anxiety is often exacerbated when you're
Speaker 1: exposed to an achievement related task because that fear of
Speaker 1: failure is such a possibility, so it really kind of
Speaker 1: makes it very real for them in the realm of
Speaker 1: which they're feeling insecurity once the task is finished, although
Speaker 1: near the end there's this denial of competence and discounting praise.
Speaker 1: So this is stage five. There's a real difficulty internalizing
Speaker 1: their successes and accepting praise as valid. And crucially, this
Speaker 1: is not just a display of false mode modesty. Because
Speaker 1: they've set their expectations so high and they've almost convinced
Speaker 1: themselves that they need to have these superhuman abilities to
Speaker 1: achieve the goal they've set out for. It's really hard
Speaker 1: to then take credit for it at the end because
Speaker 1: they often have this sense that, oh, this was something
Speaker 1: outside of me that allowed me to do this. And
Speaker 1: then finally there's stage six, So this is fear and
Speaker 1: guilt about success. For example, if success is unusual amongst
Speaker 1: their family or their peers, imposters often feel less connected
Speaker 1: and more distant, and then they are kind of overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by this guilt about being different and worrying about being
Speaker 1: rejected by others, which is often why we sometimes see
Speaker 1: it amongst high achievers who perhaps came from less privileged backgrounds.
Speaker 1: So there is this huge link and I've kind of
Speaker 1: mentioned it before, but one of the most prominent links
Speaker 1: and theories around imposter syndrome is this relationship between perfectionism
Speaker 1: and imposter anxiety. So if you're a self described perfectionist,
Speaker 1: you're more likely to kind of view yourself as an imposter,
Speaker 1: and research is shown they often go hand in hand.
Speaker 1: So people who have imposterism or imposter syndrome will often
Speaker 1: report feelings of needing to be perfect so much like imposters.
Speaker 1: Much like imposters in that in clients as kind of
Speaker 1: six stage model. Perfectionists will often set these excessively high,
Speaker 1: unrealistic goals and then experience a lot of self defeating
Speaker 1: thoughts and behaviors when they can't reach those goals because
Speaker 1: they're so beyond their limits. So within the clinical literature
Speaker 1: on imposter phenomena and imposter syndrome, perfectionism it's repeatedly discussed
Speaker 1: as a dominant theme. Almost every paper you read will
Speaker 1: at least briefly mentioned perfectionism. So they need to be
Speaker 1: the best, they need to be able to do everything flawlessly,
Speaker 1: and their tendency to overwork are the characteristics of imposters
Speaker 1: of imposters, and that's also consistent with the pursuit of perfection.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that's really interesting is I tendency
Speaker 1: to discount positive feedback and maintain high standards for self evaluation,
Speaker 1: but they're also very critical of their inability to realize
Speaker 1: these standards, which could also be considered consistent with perfectionism
Speaker 1: because perfectionists do really tend to feel self conscious about
Speaker 1: everything they do. So this does lead to a lot
Speaker 1: of self reflection and for some to feelings like they
Speaker 1: are an imposter, that they're not as good as others
Speaker 1: because they've really kind of put the microscope on themselves.
Speaker 1: And even if an individual is competent, smart and highly accomplished,
Speaker 1: having maladaptive perfectionist tendencies can contribute to this feeling, which
Speaker 1: is why it is such a dominant theme in the
Speaker 1: literature around imposter syndrome. The next kind I would say theory,
Speaker 1: but it's more like a broad based kind of idea
Speaker 1: that gets applied to a lot of different areas inside ecology,
Speaker 1: it's that imposter syndrome is a result of your personality.
Speaker 1: It's a result of your disposition. So personality traits associated
Speaker 1: with neuroticism, they're more likely to predict impostus in German
Speaker 1: research that has been done in recent years. So research
Speaker 1: has examined the relationship between impost fears and the Big
Speaker 1: five personality traits which will definitely discuss in a later episode.
Speaker 1: And they particularly wanted to look at medical students and
Speaker 1: they had the sample in Sweden, and they found that
Speaker 1: neuroticism was a significant predictor of impostive fears. So neuroticism
Speaker 1: is a trait that often predicts anxiety, so hence the
Speaker 1: relationship here often predicts self consciousness, irritability, and emotional stability,
Speaker 1: which is good. So neuroticism may be a strong pre
Speaker 1: existing trait in imposters because it refers to this predisposed
Speaker 1: trait for negative affect and for low self esteem. Post
Speaker 1: feelings comprise of prominent negative effect states such as self doubt,
Speaker 1: and so it kind of makes sense that these go
Speaker 1: hand in hand. And there was another study I think
Speaker 1: it was run on Harvard students, about around two hundred
Speaker 1: Harvard students, and it also confirmed that self identified imposters
Speaker 1: are higher in neuroticism, showing and kind of reaffirming this
Speaker 1: really significant link. Like I said, I'm sure we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the Big five personality traits in a later episode.
Speaker 1: But many psychologists and researchers in personality psychology in particular,
Speaker 1: they do really believe that a trait like neuroticism is
Speaker 1: permanent and lifelong. It's a part of our disposition, so
Speaker 1: it can be hard to alter these preexisting personality features,
Speaker 1: meaning many people who do feel like imposters, they might
Speaker 1: firstly not have themselves to blame, but secondly, it's a
Speaker 1: very difficult thing to change, which is a pretty bleak
Speaker 1: conclusion for those of you out there who might have
Speaker 1: these feelings. But that's just a theory. That's just one
Speaker 1: of many. And let's consider something else that some would
Speaker 1: say we can change, but we can at least interact with,
Speaker 1: whereas our personality or our disposition seems pretty pretty permanent.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about family and cultural context. It's not
Speaker 1: a psychological concept or a podcast on psychology if the
Speaker 1: nature and nurture debate isn't mentioned at least once, So
Speaker 1: here it is for this episode. So far, many of
Speaker 1: the explanations that we've been discussing about the origins of
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome they're from the nature side, So ideas of personality,
Speaker 1: ideas of neuroticism, and perfectionism, they're all things that a
Speaker 1: lot of psychologists often assume or innate and have been
Speaker 1: with us since birth. They're very difficult to change. However,
Speaker 1: there is this component of imposter syndrome that is related
Speaker 1: to nurture, particularly our family environment and the manner in
Speaker 1: which we are raised, and a lot of researchers have
Speaker 1: found that this has a stronger correlation with feelings of
Speaker 1: imposterism than some of those personality or disposition features. So
Speaker 1: family environment, family dynamics, parental rearing styles. They can really
Speaker 1: affect the achievement values and achievement behavior of a child
Speaker 1: and influence how a child learns to deal with success
Speaker 1: and failure. Many young adults who do feel like imposters
Speaker 1: they grow up in families that place a big emphasis
Speaker 1: on achievement. In particular, this one study was really discussing
Speaker 1: kids who have imposter syndrome. Often their parents will send
Speaker 1: out very mixed messages about success, so alternating between overpraise
Speaker 1: of their kids, are you're amazing, you're so smart, you're
Speaker 1: so intelligent, and then criticism, And this can really increase
Speaker 1: the risk of future fraudulent feelings because you don't really
Speaker 1: have a stable basis to judge your own intelligence and competence.
Speaker 1: If you've got a parent or a teaching figure who's
Speaker 1: constantly kind of hyping you up and then also tearing
Speaker 1: you down. So of course you're going to feel like
Speaker 1: a fraud because you don't feel like your personality or
Speaker 1: all your sense of accomplishment is consistent. The other thing
Speaker 1: is family messages about the importance of being naturally intelligent.
Speaker 1: And I found this really really interesting. So family, this
Speaker 1: kind of broad based family philosophy that many have about,
Speaker 1: you know, whether natural intelligence is real, can really influence
Speaker 1: the ambitions and expectations of so called impostors from a
Speaker 1: pretty early age. In process, they do have this need
Speaker 1: in very strong need to please, which may cause children
Speaker 1: to alter their behavior just in order to prevent the
Speaker 1: loss of affection from their parents. And this kind of
Speaker 1: also comes into attachment style impostors. They do tend to
Speaker 1: conform to the standards of the family in order to
Speaker 1: gain positive feedback and verify their sense of self worth.
Speaker 1: And these modified behaviors may in turn conflict with their
Speaker 1: needs and their capabilities as a child because they're kind
Speaker 1: of pursuing this more dominant need to feel like they're loved,
Speaker 1: and it can create problems within our ability to internalize
Speaker 1: our successes. We become more independent become young adults and yeah,
Speaker 1: just active members of society. And also if your family
Speaker 1: has emphasized natural rather than developed intelligence, it becomes a
Speaker 1: lot easier to apply that logic to your successes because intelligence,
Speaker 1: if it's not something you've earned and it's a reason
Speaker 1: for your success, then your success is not something that
Speaker 1: you've earned. So that's that feelings of being those feelings
Speaker 1: of being a fraud, feeling like you don't deserve your
Speaker 1: success that can really come from this almost childhood philosophy
Speaker 1: that your parents may have had. And the other thing
Speaker 1: is societal pressures and they can really add to this
Speaker 1: problem as well. So in our society, there's this huge
Speaker 1: pressure to achieve. I'm sure we've all felt it, and
Speaker 1: there can be a lot of confusion between approval and
Speaker 1: love and worthiness. So self worth can become contingent on
Speaker 1: achieving rather than just unconditional. But it's really interesting to
Speaker 1: kind of think about where this fits in terms of
Speaker 1: an evolutionary perspective because a big belief, and I've said
Speaker 1: this before I have in terms of our psychology and
Speaker 1: different mental phenomena, is that if it's survived, it must
Speaker 1: have a function. If it's still here, but I don't
Speaker 1: really see how that does relate to imposter syndrome, because
Speaker 1: surely a feature of our minds that makes us feel
Speaker 1: incompetent or insecure in comparison to people we see as
Speaker 1: competition is a pretty poor adaptive feature, you know. Imagine
Speaker 1: you come across this new tribe or new group of people,
Speaker 1: and within your first encounter your left feeling, you know,
Speaker 1: these crippling sense of self doubt, You sabotage your own abilities,
Speaker 1: you fear you won't you live up to your expectations.
Speaker 1: I don't think it would be a very helpful asset.
Speaker 1: I don't really know why it would survive either, because
Speaker 1: it could probably end up, you know, minimizing your chances
Speaker 1: of survival if you doubt your ability to perform, which
Speaker 1: hence influences your ability. So surely I think we would
Speaker 1: be more genetically predisposed or evolutionary predisposed to excessive confidence instead.
Speaker 1: But then we also have species filled with narcissus, which
Speaker 1: is in itself seen as a disorder. So imposter syndrome
Speaker 1: is not a disorder, but narcissism definitely is. So there
Speaker 1: seems to be some adaptive benefit to humility and perhaps
Speaker 1: a tiny bit of self doubt, but also adaptive benefit
Speaker 1: to confidence as well. But it's just a real wonder
Speaker 1: why it's manifested in such a deeply seated way in
Speaker 1: the minds of so many twenty year olds at the moment.
Speaker 1: You know, it's very interesting to think self doubt doesn't
Speaker 1: really seem to have a function in terms of helping
Speaker 1: us survive, then how come it's become just so prevalent
Speaker 1: and widely spread. Let's talk about LinkedIn or social media
Speaker 1: kind of more generally, which really was the inspiration for
Speaker 1: this episode. I think the sharing of huge amounts of
Speaker 1: personal information online has made it a lot easier to
Speaker 1: compare ourselves to others. So social media, including professional platforms
Speaker 1: LinkedIn is probably the primary one, but also Facebook and
Speaker 1: Instagram can really act as a trigger for imposter syndrome
Speaker 1: because it gives us this benchmark to compare and judge
Speaker 1: ourselves against, and it implicitly may result in a judgment
Speaker 1: of whether or not you deserve to be where you are.
Speaker 1: For example, someone who's in a similar position that you
Speaker 1: are now may have done two paid internships and worked
Speaker 1: for a top form before getting their current job, whereas
Speaker 1: You've just come straight out of UNI. So this does
Speaker 1: create a direct point of comparison for you to create
Speaker 1: a false idea that you've only gotten where you are
Speaker 1: not because of you deserve it, but because of luck
Speaker 1: or some other factor. These platforms also provide an opportunity
Speaker 1: to view people more successful than you or doing things
Speaker 1: you aspire towards, but I haven't had much success in yet,
Speaker 1: which is kind of no wonder. Imposter syndrome has become
Speaker 1: so prevalent with the introduction of these platforms because we
Speaker 1: can instantly judge ourselves against others at any point, any time,
Speaker 1: any situation. You know, when you're in your bed on
Speaker 1: a Saturday night, and you probably don't need to be
Speaker 1: looking at these things that are going to make you
Speaker 1: feel bad. But this self doubt that comes from this
Speaker 1: new normal can be fairly insidious, and I've definitely felt
Speaker 1: it and know heaps of you have as well. So
Speaker 1: I've kind of been teasing it for a while. But
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the interaction between women and
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome. So far, I think we covered that imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome can be experienced by anyone, and particularly when you're
Speaker 1: in your younger years in your twenties. But I think
Speaker 1: this term or phrase it's more often applied to women,
Speaker 1: and that's a huge issue I have with the term,
Speaker 1: and something I've really tried to emphasize that this is
Speaker 1: not a female issue. It's universal. But many aspects of
Speaker 1: our patriarchal society have led women to experience self doubt
Speaker 1: in their professional lives a lot more, which is what
Speaker 1: many people see as a criteria for imposter syndrome. It's
Speaker 1: also really important to recognize that many of the environments
Speaker 1: women enter can make it hard not to feel like
Speaker 1: we are less deserving, less respected, and therefore perhaps a
Speaker 1: little bit less worthy as well. And this is especially
Speaker 1: the case in professional workplaces, which history can kind of
Speaker 1: explain in many ways. There was an excellent article written
Speaker 1: about this recently in the Harvard Business Review, definitely a
Speaker 1: worthwhile read if you want to do more homework on
Speaker 1: this topic. It's called stop telling women they have imp
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome. So stop telling women they have imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: And it is a very insightful read. And yes, those
Speaker 1: two psychologists, Pauling Clients and Susannims, they did first study
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome in women. But let's kind of ask ourselves
Speaker 1: why it was that these women with outstanding academic and
Speaker 1: professional successes, these high performing women, why was it them
Speaker 1: that believe they were intellectual frauds or imposters and not
Speaker 1: their male counterparts. Because when this initial study was first run,
Speaker 1: there was sample from both genders, and as the authors
Speaker 1: of this article that I just mentioned to explain, we
Speaker 1: do often falsely equate confidence, most often the type demonstrated
Speaker 1: by white male leaders with competence and leadership. So employees
Speaker 1: who can't or perhaps won't conform to these male bias
Speaker 1: social styles are told that they have imposter syndrome because
Speaker 1: they're not willing to be these excessively and aggressively confident
Speaker 1: people in the workplace, and they kind of made to
Speaker 1: feel bad about that, and that then leads to this
Speaker 1: sense of self doubt that they maybe don't really deserve
Speaker 1: to be there. And I think also it's important to
Speaker 1: realize up until about eighty years ago, professional environments were
Speaker 1: pretty hostile to the idea of including women in a
Speaker 1: high up or in an advanced way. Some would argue
Speaker 1: that in some industries this is still the case. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we can all think of a few. Therefore, if
Speaker 1: you're a woman entering an environment where you automatically feel
Speaker 1: as if you don't belong, it's understandable that you begin
Speaker 1: to doubt your own worthiness and the impact as well
Speaker 1: of systematic racism, classism, xenophobia, and other biases. They were
Speaker 1: kind of categorically absent when the concept of imposter syndrome
Speaker 1: was developed, so it wasn't really mentioned. It was kind
Speaker 1: of around second wave feminism. They really just focused on women,
Speaker 1: and yes they did include some women of color, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't really like they were looking to identify in
Speaker 1: broader kind of groups of people. So many of the
Speaker 1: groups that were excluded from the study in large so
Speaker 1: namely women of color and people of various income levels
Speaker 1: and different professional backgrounds. Even as we know it today,
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome really does put blame on individuals without accounting
Speaker 1: for the historical and cultural context that are foundational to
Speaker 1: how it manifests in both women of color and white women.
Speaker 1: So imposter syndrome directs our view towards fixing women at
Speaker 1: work instead of fixing the places where women work, and
Speaker 1: doesn't always account for the fact that no wonder women
Speaker 1: feel like shit. No wonder we get accused of imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome more and no wonder that's even more prevalent amongst
Speaker 1: other minority groups because of the historical basis in which
Speaker 1: we've been made to feel accepted in different environments. So
Speaker 1: it kind of brings this back to this discussion of
Speaker 1: whether imposter syndrome exists, which is where we kind of started,
Speaker 1: or is it just a cultural construct used to shame
Speaker 1: people who are victims of their personality and upbringing or
Speaker 1: historical trauma of exclusion from certain environments. And I think,
Speaker 1: regardless of your perspective, what is obvious is that these
Speaker 1: feelings of being a fraud are pretty universal. And if
Speaker 1: you have experienced this type of self doubt before, you're
Speaker 1: definitely not alone. And isn't that kind of a nice feeling.
Speaker 1: I always think that's a nice feeling, not being alone
Speaker 1: in something. And if there's another thing this episode has
Speaker 1: taught us, it's I guess to stop going on LinkedIn
Speaker 1: to compare ourselves. I don't know, maybe this is to
Speaker 1: turn into an episode where I hate on LinkedIn. But
Speaker 1: you've got where you are for a reason, and you
Speaker 1: do deserve every opportunity that comes your way. Imposter syndrome,
Speaker 1: it's not your fault, like it's definitely been kind of
Speaker 1: rained in us. All comes from our families, or our
Speaker 1: disposition or our personality, so you can definitely kind of
Speaker 1: skirt some of the blame on that one. Anyhow, I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this first structured episode. Next week we're
Speaker 1: going to be discussing breakups, so, yes, the big one.
Speaker 1: We've all been there. I've been there recently, so I
Speaker 1: feel like we do have heats to discuss and hopefully
Speaker 1: bring in some useful psychological theories to explain my breakups
Speaker 1: just fucking suck as much as they do. And thanks
Speaker 1: again for listening if you've made it this far. This
Speaker 1: is a work in progress and I am new to
Speaker 1: this and I'm sure i'll improve every episode, but thanks
Speaker 1: for your support thus far, and if you do have
Speaker 1: any feedback, you can damn me on Instagram Twenties Psychology
Speaker 1: Podcast and we'll talk next week. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: tuning in, and I hope you guys have a great
Speaker 1: weekend and enjoy all the things this next week has
Speaker 1: to bring. H m hm hm