Serious question: Could it be that imposter syndrome isn't real, but what people are actually experiencing is imposter syndrome-syndrome?
I don't think there's a person whom I've known who hasn't claimed to have experienced imposter syndrome. It seems like everyone has this feeling when they're engaging in something they have don't have complete experience or confidence in. This is a normal way to feel, but some people are better at overcoming it than others. The people who don't seem like they experience imposter syndrome are either well settled into their roles or are simply good actors who can handle pressure. At some point or another, we decided that this state of being had something to do with being an "imposter" rather than being a human being lacking experience. Unless you outright lied about who you are, you're not an imposter.
This reminds me how everyone says they're an "introvert". Even the people I know who are party animals say they're introverts because they need time to "recharge". We throw around these terms like "imposter syndrome" and "introvert" because they make us feel better, even though they describe most people, in which case they're really not that useful. Sometimes you've just got to buck up and not waste time overthinking, descriptions of one's self being one form of that.
It's not that we've forgotten that feeling like an imposter is just being human. It's that almost everyone has always felt this way but never talked about it. As social animals, we're terrified (justifiably) of being outcast from the group, so admitting any feeling of weakness or low utility seems like something that could make the group start to question whether we actually belong. Our rivals can also use it against us. People are more likely to follow someone who projects confidence in their ability over someone who is actually competent but projects uncertainty.
It's only now that imposter syndrome is well known and starting to be understood as the rule, not the exception, that people are getting more comfortable talking about it and learning to be OK with it.
I think there's some confusion here. The effect is meant to describe the feelings being experienced and not the actual objective state of the individual.
I have come across many people who had never heard the term before but immediately identified with having experienced such a state when it was explained to them.
I also disagree that having names for things that is common to most peoples' experience is a bad idea. On the contrary, it helps people better understand their experience as a human. This isn't a competition to see who experiences it the most.
In the case of impostor syndrome I have also found this is true. In my experience, once people are exposed to the idea they find it a great relief to know it is merely a cognitive bias and it makes them more confident about their abilities in the future.
I see impostor syndrome as the dual to Dunning-Kreuger. As people gain expertise, they become aware of the huge number of stones they've left unturned along the path of specialization. That knowledge can become so overwhelming, especially when compounded with other sources of anxiety, that one questions their ability to tie their shoes.
Naming it has power. We can talk through this insecurity, rather than let it eat us from the inside out.
Let X = "the natural feeling of inadequacy that pretty much everyone feels when learning new things".
Your question is a bit confusing. It sounds like you acknowledge X's existence, but are mostly unhappy with the naming, since "imposter" implies a negative connotation (which X isn't), and "syndrome" implies that it is some sort of exceptional condition (where X isn't). I agree with you on that about X.
That said, I think imposter syndrome isn't about X per se. I am more interested in the case where X gets into smart people's heads and prevents them from being as successful as they can be (projecting a bit, because I too have imposter syndrome). In these cases, it makes sense to not only label it, but also give it a slight negative connotation. At that point, X becomes a phenomenon that is worth talking about.
The impression I got from the GP wasn’t that it wasn’t a negative thing but rather that it was so ubiquitous that we should just think of it as normal and not the special case
> We throw around these terms like "imposter syndrome" and "introvert" because they make us feel better, even though they describe most people, in which case they're really not that useful.
You say they're not useful, but in the very same sentence you say they make us feel better. I can't find a way to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory statements; can you help me understand this?
I'm guessing that in this context, "useful" is intended to mean "useful in conveying information" rather than "useful in accomplishing some goal."
It sounds a bit like saying "you're only human" -- which is of course unlikely to convey any new information, but could still be useful for its emotional result.
I think another aspect of it is the pressure to appear competent. No one wants to tell their boss that they don't have an f*ing clue what they're doing so they internalize the anxiety.
In reality I think a lot of people feel this way a lot of the time and it's not shared for some GameTheory-y coordination problem reasons
You're right. And it's the adult version of "everybody gets a trophy" in that we all by default assume each other equally capable. Look at every single answer that pops up on the academic exchange forum - someone inevitably brings up impostor syndrome, almost no one, except in extreme cases, ever suggests that maybe someone is in the wrong field or in over their head.
Yes, but then again, Dunning-Krueger effect is quite real -- I've seen it.
And you know who never has to worry about Dunning-Krueger in a given field? Folks with "impostor syndrome" in that field.
Yes, it's possible that some folks with traits of impostor syndrome are genuinely incompetent and incapable of learning a given field, but much more likely that it's something the opposite of Dunning-Krueger at play. And as a software developer, I've seen many more genuinely incompetent people with Dunning-Krueger than I have genuinely incompetent people with imposter syndrome.
There's always the rare supremely-confident 10x developer, but as a general rule, people with no zero doubt in software development make me very nervous, because I've send it turn out badly much more than I've seen it turn out well.
Yeah, that matches my intuition. I wish we could focus on giving coders reliable heuristics to self-assess rather than immediately jump to "impostor syndrome" at any expression of self doubt.
I don't think there's a person whom I've known who hasn't claimed to have experienced imposter syndrome. It seems like everyone has this feeling when they're engaging in something they have don't have complete experience or confidence in. This is a normal way to feel, but some people are better at overcoming it than others. The people who don't seem like they experience imposter syndrome are either well settled into their roles or are simply good actors who can handle pressure. At some point or another, we decided that this state of being had something to do with being an "imposter" rather than being a human being lacking experience. Unless you outright lied about who you are, you're not an imposter.
This reminds me how everyone says they're an "introvert". Even the people I know who are party animals say they're introverts because they need time to "recharge". We throw around these terms like "imposter syndrome" and "introvert" because they make us feel better, even though they describe most people, in which case they're really not that useful. Sometimes you've just got to buck up and not waste time overthinking, descriptions of one's self being one form of that.