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The concept of Impostor Syndrome has become ubiquitous

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Re: The concept of Impostor Syndrome has become ubiquitous

#21

Post by knaik94 »

RajT88 wrote: post #18
knaik94 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel less charitable. In the last couple of decades, there has been meaningful change in people adhering to traditional gender roles. Especially in the last 10 years, I have seen a huge push to break the cultural acceptance of toxic masculinity. Pretending that men would be less familiar or feel it less intensely, in this day and age, is continuing the underlying themes of toxic masculinity. It's not just dishearte…

Indeed. I am no part of the LGBT+ community, but articles like this make me realize there are emotional elements of the female experience that resonate with me. Certainly imposter syndrome is something I have struggled with and continue to. I had an interaction just this week which brought it up. All that said, if some feminist idea wasn't intended for me, I am not going to sweat it. Feminism at its core is the idea…

I was reading the original paper where the idea was first presented and came across a footnote that demonstrated to just how far we've come in the last 40 years.

"The attribution research findings, summarized later, imply that the impostor phenomenon would be found less frequently in men than in women. We have noticed the phenomenon in men who appear to be more in touch with their “feminine” qualities. This clinical observation needs to be researched"

The whole point of feminism is equality, it doesn't make sense to then restrict experiences to a specific gender. I think the idea that "some feminist idea wasn't intended for" you is the wrong takeaway here. These ideas and frameworks are meaningful when they can be applied to improve your life, the intended audience isn't important. Otherwise it feels like it'll induce imposter syndrome for the concept of having imposter syndrome. If you feel that this struggle applies to you, then the idea was intended for you. One of the definitions of toxic femininity is shaming men for not being "manly" enough and more generally policing femininity in others.

That kind of othering is the reason why some people react so negatively to certain kinds of feminism, and it's why I don't call myself a feminist even if I work to promote feminist ideologies. Exclusionary feminism is not popular as a whole, but it is very vocal. I feel classifying resonating emotionally with the female experience as LGBT+ is continuing implicit toxic masculinity and femininity. Implicit bias surrounding these topics is completely dependent on the environment you were brought up in, and it's one of the hardest things to break when you are older. There absolutely is subjectivity in all of this, and there is value in classifying specific things as a feminine or masculine experience. But I dislike how strongly some people work to delineate the two. It feels wrong to intentionally create a minority out of people and behaviors that fit into both categories.

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&d...

Re: The concept of Impostor Syndrome has become ubiquitous

#22

Post by knaik94 »

whatever1 wrote: post #20
knaik94 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's related to pride, in my experience tutoring high school and college kids. That was my own experience while growing up as well, there's a sentiment that "natural" smartness and hard-working smartness are two seperate things. I feel like kids have been moving away from this mindset, but maybe it's changed names. Growing up being a "nerd" was uncool, and studying was "nerdy". After college, I talked to some of the…

The most successful people I know are regular smart folks who have patience, and can get into deep focus mode / zone at-will. The smartest people I know have 0 focus, but they can grasp insanely complex topics that are interesting to them super fast.

You're not strictly describing intelligence, you're also describing symptoms that relate to ADHD. I wonder if there's a bias to categorize someone as more intelligent based on the contrast between someone's ability to focus and their ability to grasp complex ideas quickly. I struggle severly with ADHD and notice it all of the time, in how people's perception of me changes when we end up on a topic I know well and enjoy talking about.

Re: The concept of Impostor Syndrome has become ubiquitous

#23

Post by Izkata »

d_t_w wrote: post #6

I have never felt like I am faking it, is that really strange?

For the latecomers - It was originally posted here with the title on the page, not the title in the URL: "Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Faking It".

I was also was gonna post something like "...uh, no I don't", but decided to hold off and see what others thought. Guess it was a good idea for a different reason, the title on here having changed.

Re: The concept of Impostor Syndrome has become ubiquitous

#26

Post by quectophoton »

To balance things out, the opposite is the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

"I'm bad at this. Oh, but maybe it's the Impostor Syndrome and that means I'm actually good? Oh but then maybe that's the Dunning-Kruger Effect and I'm actually bad."

Repeat until both cancel out and your mind settles on some middle point, not worrying about "maybe I'm bad and nobody else knows", and not being overconfident.

Re: The concept of Impostor Syndrome has become ubiquitous

#27

Post by j7ake »

gopalv wrote: post #3

> her mother had taught her that naturally smart people don’t have to study. Of all the parts of the article, that little bit stands out. Because I see my older kid do that all the time, as if putting in effort to do something is somehow not the real thing. As if things learned from mistakes and practice is not progress - a substitute for talent.

It’s a protection mechanism for ones ego. Because if you “don’t try” you always have an excuse for why you’re not doing as well as the “nerds” at school.

If you do “try” but you don’t get a top result, what would that say to a kids fragile ego ? They might think they’re not good at all.

By trying, you reveal your capabilities (as well as your limitations), and that can be terrifying for a kid with a fragile ego.

The correct mentality is to focus on the process, rather than the result.

The result doesn’t matter (especially for kids) as long as you focus on training and improving yourself.

Re: The concept of Impostor Syndrome has become ubiquitous

#28

Post by lost_padawan »

gopalv wrote: post #3

> her mother had taught her that naturally smart people don’t have to study. Of all the parts of the article, that little bit stands out. Because I see my older kid do that all the time, as if putting in effort to do something is somehow not the real thing. As if things learned from mistakes and practice is not progress - a substitute for talent.

How are you dealing with this? I used to feel that way too but now that I actually want to put more effort, I cannot being myself to do that. I cannot focus and get easily distracted whenever I try.

Re: The concept of Impostor Syndrome has become ubiquitous

#29

Post by Der_Einzige »

knaik94 wrote: post #10
gopalv wrote: post #3

> her mother had taught her that naturally smart people don’t have to study. Of all the parts of the article, that little bit stands out. Because I see my older kid do that all the time, as if putting in effort to do something is somehow not the real thing. As if things learned from mistakes and practice is not progress - a substitute for talent.

It's related to pride, in my experience tutoring high school and college kids. That was my own experience while growing up as well, there's a sentiment that "natural" smartness and hard-working smartness are two seperate things. I feel like kids have been moving away from this mindset, but maybe it's changed names. Growing up being a "nerd" was uncool, and studying was "nerdy". After college, I talked to some of the…

"there's a sentiment that "natural" smartness and hard-working smartness are two seperate things."

This is a huge problem in the dating market too. "Self improvement" implies that at one point one was a singificantly less high status individual... And that they are at risk of backsliding.

People who are naturally gifted or don't have to try have less risk of becoming unattractive later.

It's sexier, cooler, and more successful to be good at something without trying. I don't blame your kids.

Re: The concept of Impostor Syndrome has become ubiquitous

#30

Post by IshKebab »

The biggest issue with Imposter Syndrome is the name. It makes it sound like some kind of abnormal medical issue that some people "have". I think part of its popularity is because people make it part of their identity.

It's like people saying they are OCD when really they just like things to be neat.

It's should be called "lack of confidence", but they you probably couldn't write papers and books about it.

You could probably come up with more "syndromes" that are really common and normal human behaviours if you want to make a name for yourself! "morning syndrome" (difficult to get up in the morning), "hunger syndrome" (being hungry even when you've eaten a sensible amount of food), "stranger syndrome" (not being confident at talking to strangers), "Smalltalk syndrome" (being shit at Smalltalk), etc.

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