I attended a fascinating presentation earlier this week. The presentation was about the “imposter phenomenon” by Diane Zorn (PhD candidate at York University).
The Imposter Phenomenon is when high achievers (e.g., graduate students, professors, lawyers, physicians, etc) are “plagued by the fear that they are not as capable or intelligent as others think they are, that they cannot keep repeating their sucesses, and that they will reventually be found out as frauds”, despite outstanding accomplishments and frequent praise.
What I found most interesting was that this phenomenon isn’t so much an individual’s fault (according to Diane Zorn), but the result of environmental and cultural forces. In graduate school, the university culture fosters unhealthy lifestyles and often unwittingly promotes this imposter phenomenon. Diane Zorn presented data that showed how working to get a PhD is detrimental to your health: loss of hobbies, isolationism, decreased and dysfunctional communication skills, high incidence of depression, high stress, and so on.
One interesting finding was about Harvard. Apparently, Diane gets very positive feedback whenever she runs a seminar/workshop on this topic at universities and companies across North American and Europe. Audience members seem to share about their own insecurities and generally support Diane’s thinking about the imposter phenomenon. The one time she presented at Harvard, she got a completely different response – basically they disagreed with her. When she asked the Harvard audience about their response, they basically said “We’re at Harvard. Why would we feel that way”. As Diane said, Harvard looks like a perfect opportunity for a case study.
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