Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

zapier.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 368 posts

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#71

Post by kazinator »

> Because actual impostors don't experience impostor syndrome. They don't wonder if they're qualified for their current position, or if they measure up with their peers. They just lie, lie, lie, until they have access to what they want, then they take it—and leave.

This is just silly. The author of this article is perpetrating a logical fallacy of equivocation revolving the multiple semantics of the word "impostor".

Impostor syndrome is the fear that one is an undiscovered incompetent, promoted into their position by luck.

Impostor syndrome is not the fear that one is a literal impostor: someone who consciously takes on a false identity and lies to get what he wants, yet is somehow not aware of this! (That would be pretty serious psychiatric disorder!)

Impostor meaning "incompetent person in an undeserved position" is different from "someone who lies and disguises their identity to gain what he wants".

Of course impostors of this second kind, the conscious liars and pretenders, know what they are. That is completely irrelevant to impostor syndrome.

Impostors, the incompetents, often do not know they are incompetent. This is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.

However, incompetents sometimes do know that they are incompetent.

Whether or not you think you are incompetent actually has no bearing on whether or not you are. All four combinations of think/are are possible.

If you suspect you're incompetent, you've avoided the Duning-Kruger effect; but that doesn't prove you're competent. You simply could be right.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#72

Post by Banana699 »

j7ake wrote: post #57
ARandomerDude wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is an example of a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent." Borrowing from Wikipedia, a good example of affirming the consequent is: 1. If an animal is a dog, then it has four legs. 2. My cat has four legs. 3. Therefore, my cat is a dog. The problem is the conclusion is the result of a reversal of the conditional statement. Similarly, you've said, essentially, 1. If I am an imposter, then I wil…

Is this related to mistaking an "if" statement in math as "if and only if" ?

yes, "if" statments in proofs are the "p->q" forms from logic, if you have p you also have q (therefore if no q then no p). If you imagine the set of all possible logical propositions as nodes in a graph, p->q tells you that q is reachable from p. If you prove that q is not reachable from whatever axioms you have (i.e. false), then p is false too by necessity, because otherwise q would be reachable and we know that's not the case. But if all you have is that q is reachable, that's not enough to assert that p is also reachable. Because you have no reason to believe that the road from p to q is the only one, it might very well be that p is false but q is reachable from another statment s or something.

"if and only if" is "p->q and q->p" (also equivalent to "p->q and not(p)->not(q), the more intuitive sense of the phrase), it basically establishes equivalence: any proof that requires p also requires q and vice versa, any proof that guarantees p also guarantees q and vice versa.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#74

Post by the_only_law »

aixi wrote: post #61
the_only_law wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually had a conversation a few months back with some CS students close to graduating. I kinda felt that, but then the job market reverted that feeling real quick.

What about the job market exactly? The endless leetcode grind?

There’s that for sure, but also I’m probably at a 50% rejection rate having at the HR screening level, in fairness though the latter is somewhat my fault.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#75

Post by mrh0057 »

nicolashahn wrote: post #2

Hmm. I don't usually get imposter syndrome. Wait, does that mean this is saying I am an imposter? Oh no, what if I am? But wait, wasn't that thought imposter syndrome? That means I'm not an imposter. Wait, now I'm back to not having imposter syndrome. Oh no.

Most of us have worked with the person who thinks they know everything. Part of being a good engineer/software developer/scientist is knowing it’s impossible to know everything and being open to new ideas.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#77

Post by deanCommie »

A lot of the discussion here is treating impostor syndrome and qualifications as binary: You're either qualified or not. And your evaluation of your skills is either above your actual skills or not.

But it's more nuanced than that.

I'm a Principal Engineer at a FAAMNG company. I have impostor syndrome all the time. Why? Because I measure myself against 1) role models that are ahead of me in many ways - I've always done that, and it's how I grow, 2) against those with strengths in areas that I have weaknesses.

I think my impostor syndrome is absolutely fact-based. I am not as good in the technical areas I care about as those I measure myself against.

My fallacy is that there is a billion things that I am good at, but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them), or I consider them insufficient to a fully rounded engineer, if I don't also have the skills that I know I'm missing (but some of my peers are not).

It doesn't help that I'm the epitome of a 'Generalist' - I'm good at a lot of things, but I don't know if I'm the BEST at anything.

I get lots of positive reinforcement - from my management chain, and from those more junior than me. But it never resonates. I always think "damn, I've actually fooled them all". And then I feel guilty that the management is putting so much trust in me, and that the juniors actually look up to a fraud.

The only feedback that resonates is from my technical peers. Luckily I get this just often enough that I don't fall into a catatonic mess of anxiety. And sometimes I believe it...

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#78

Post by ARandomerDude »

titzer wrote: post #64
ARandomerDude wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is an example of a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent." Borrowing from Wikipedia, a good example of affirming the consequent is: 1. If an animal is a dog, then it has four legs. 2. My cat has four legs. 3. Therefore, my cat is a dog. The problem is the conclusion is the result of a reversal of the conditional statement. Similarly, you've said, essentially, 1. If I am an imposter, then I wil…

It's a long way to say P => Q is not the same as Q => P or P Q.

Agreed! I considered writing something along the lines of what you wrote, but I don't think most people would understand it who haven't already studied at least some logic.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#80

Post by nonbirithm »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #8

I guess I just don't really believe this. It sounds nice, and it might even be a good falsehood to tell yourself for personal motivation—but that doesn't make it true. Yes, of course if you're an actual fraudster intending to commit fraud, you're probably comfortable with committing fraud. But feeling "impostor syndrome" colloquially means second-guessing whether you're good enough to deserve your position. There are…

I also believe this. I think "imposter syndrome" has been associated with actual abilities not aligning with lower expectations, with the implication that if you match the description of someone with imposter syndrome, you're just overthinking things and will be just fine.

I cannot see how this logically follows in every circumstance that someone feels like an imposter. If you're expected to learn something by someone but don't learn it, because of motivation or other reasoning, but are then put in front of other people by your superior with the assumption that you have gained that knowledge in the meantime, you'd both feel like an imposter and actually be one.

My bias is to believe that if I don't feel that I'm qualified for something, then claiming that it will all be fine in the end is dishonest, and a fully realized version of the imposter syndrome with actual consequences for failure. The bias itself, as in most always feeling like an imposter no matter what your qualifications are, is what I would consider the intent of a concept like imposter syndrome. But it is still possible to go too far in the other direction and mistakenly believe you're simply worrying too much.

I feel that hiding behind a notion of imposter syndrome erases notions of personal responsibility when things actually go wrong, e.g. when one really is an imposter, or acted similarly without awareness or ill intent. The word "imposter" itself seems to imply that you must have ill intent to be a true imposter, which almost nobody actually is. "Unqualified" would probably be a more appropriate word, and would probably make people more hesistant to use this kind of terminology when discussing a lack of skills or confidence.

Post reply on HN