The Phenomenology of the Impostor Phenomenon
Author(s): Rory O'Brien McElwee
Abstract: In the Impostor Phenomenon (IP), people who are objectively competent and successful report feeling secretly inadequate and fear detection of their incompetence. The IP has typically been studied using personality scales, but recent research has raised concerns about conceptualizing the IP as a personality trait. In the present work we approached the IP instead as an affective experience that can arise in anyone in response to certain evocative situations. Undergraduates ( N = 122) described experiences in which they felt like impostors. Qualitative and quantitative analyses showed impostor episodes to be widely experienced and related to certain situational factors such as the relative status of the perceiver. Additionally, IP personality scales are shown to predict some features of people's impostor experiences. Results are discussed in light of IP theory and research as well as self-verification theory.
Pages: 184-197
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