Impostor Syndrome: Why Women Do Not Believe in Their Success
This Feeling is familiar to many women: at work, you feel that you do not deserve the success you have achieved — you think that you were just lucky and you were in the right place at the right time. It seems to you that people around are mistaken about your account that the truth will sooner or later open and it turns out that you are taking someone else's position. This feeling is called the “impostor syndrome”, and it is not connected either with the level of career development or with success - both an intern who is in a large company and a top manager may face it. Emma Watson, Tina Fey, Sheryl Sandberg and many others said that from time to time they feel like "impostors". Even the owner of the three Oscars, Meryl Streep, once admitted that she feels insecure: “Do you think:“ Why should people even want to see me in another movie? I still can't play, so why am I doing this? ” "
About the impostor syndrome first started talking in 1978, psychology professor Paulina Clans and psychologist Suzanne Ames. They found that many of their clients could not accept their own success and their achievements - instead, they believed that the reason was their luck, charm, that they had the right contacts and that they skillfully pretend to be more competent. The impostor syndrome is not a psychological diagnosis, but many people face this condition in one form or another. A person does not necessarily feel like an impostor all the time and in all spheres, this feeling can arise sporadically. The impostor syndrome is rarely caused by a real lack of knowledge and skills. The opposite situation is much more common: an incompetent person lacks the knowledge to understand that he is incompetent.
Later studies have shown that not only women but also men are susceptible to the impostor syndrome - but the problem does not become less acute. Institutional wage inequality is also due to the fact that it is harder for women to seek improvement than men: where a man is more likely to defend his rights, a woman often does not want to act because he is afraid to seem "difficult" and "uncomfortable "in work. The impostor syndrome plays an important role here: it is not easy for women to ask for a promotion if they do not feel worthy of it.
And although women work on a par with men, they often lack self-reliance. Because of the impostor syndrome, women are afraid to take on new responsibilities because they think they will not cope and are often not ready to ask for help because they are afraid that they will show weakness in this way. This is confirmed by research data. Linda Babcock, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, conducted a study with students of business schools and found that men discuss wage increases four times more often than women. At the same time, when women are still talking about a raise, they ask for amounts 30% smaller than men.
Children prone to impostor syndrome grow up in families where parents pay a lot of attention to the child’s achievements, but lack human warmth.
Scientists believe that the impostor syndrome can be due to different reasons: it is associated with family relationships, and with the personal qualities of a person, and with cultural attitudes. Clans and Ames believed that the impostor syndrome develops in women who grew up in one of two family models. In the first case, there are several children in the family, one of whom parents consider more intelligent and capable. The second child - a girl - on the one hand, believes that she is less capable, and on the other - hopes to destroy this myth. As an adult, she is constantly looking for confirmation of her solvency and at the same time begins to doubt her abilities, thinking that her parents were right. In the second type of family, parents idealize the child. Growing up, the girl faces difficulties and begins to doubt her abilities - her parents believe that everything should be given to her without difficulty, but in fact it turns out differently. She feels that she does not cope, but believes that she must meet the expectations of parents, and is afraid to let them down.
Impostor syndrome is also often associated with perfectionism. Psychoanalyst Manfred Kets de Vries notes that children prone to the impostor syndrome grow up in families where the parents pay too much attention to the child’s achievements, but they do not give him enough human warmth. Such children think that parents will pay attention to them only if they succeed - and grow into self-confident workaholics. In his opinion, “impostors” often set unattainable goals for themselves, and when they cannot fulfill them, they start to torment themselves because of failure. Self-blame only stirs up the feeling of “imposture,” which is why a person sets himself a new unattainable goal - and everything repeats from the beginning.
"I would say that the impostor syndrome is not a single symptom," said psychologist and journalist Ksenia Kuzmina. "It is built into the personality structure of the neurotic spectrum and can thus be characteristic of people experiencing deep conflict - often feeling empty inside and lack of faith in order to live and function in the world, they used to hide their uneasy feelings under the masks of successful heroes, while at the same time afraid of a kind of “revelation”: “They will now understand what I really am! They were mistaken in me!completely different! In fact, I feel insignificant! "". According to Xenia, a person devalues his success, fearing failures and the fact that others, believing in him, will ask him too much - which will lead to "revealing." "And when a person diminishes his contribution and responsibility, believing that it is due to luck, external factors, then defeat is much easier and simpler. It is likely that the neurotic avoidance of guilt feelings, originating somewhere in early childhood and relationships with brothers or sisters. After all, being a winner is just as difficult as a loser. Some people have an unbearable feeling that somewhere behind them are those who lost, "notes Kuzmina.
According to the observations of psychologists, members of minorities more often feel like “impostors”. However, some minorities face the problem more often than others: in 2013, scientists at the University of Texas at Austin conducted a study that showed that Asian Americans feel themselves as “impostors” more often than African Americans and Latin Americans. Some researchers also believe that representatives of certain professions often face the syndrome - for example, scientists and doctors who are important for achieving success not only to have great knowledge and competencies, but also to give the impression of an educated and confident person.
Cultural attitudes also contribute to the development of the impostor syndrome in women. Directly talking about their achievements - a feature that is traditionally considered to be male; Women, according to traditional attitudes, should remain modest and have no right to declare their success - because of what they often get the feeling that they can and can do less than men. At the same time, cultural stereotypes also often make it difficult to notice the impostor syndrome in men: traditional ideas about masculinity do not allow men to talk about their feelings and admit that they feel vulnerable.
If you are lucky constantly, most likely, this is not luck, but the result of your actions
Fortunately, it is quite possible to cope with the impostor syndrome: the main thing is to understand that our perception of our own success is always subjective. To this end, it is useful to try to look at your achievements from the outside and objectively evaluate yourself. “Understand that you do not recognize your own accomplishments, attach too much importance to the achievements of others, and greatly underestimate the difficulties that others have encountered on their way to success,” said Bradley Wojtek, professor at the University of California at San Diego. In his opinion, an honest conversation with oneself about one’s achievements and failures will help to look more objectively at one’s work. He himself adds in his resume a whole section devoted to failures: grants that could not be obtained, unpublished articles, applications for admission to graduate school, which were rejected. It can be useful to learn about the bad experiences of other people - this allows us to understand that each of us faces failures.
If you are in doubt about your abilities, try to talk with colleagues or relatives - so you can see the results of your work in perspective and see if people really do their job better or they are simply more confident. "Compare the results of your work with the results of others. If there are no people at a similar level in a company, talk with colleagues from other companies, share experiences, knowledge, results. This will help to calibrate the internal line that you assess your own achievements," advises Maria Kozlova, a recruiter well-known IT-company. - Try to shake honest feedback from your manager, subordinates, subcontractors. For this you need to build trust with them, but it's worth it. "
If the reason for the feeling of "imposture" is that you try to avoid a sense of responsibility, then the only way out is to start taking responsibility for your actions and actions in work. It is not easy, but it is necessary: to endure failure, accusing external circumstances of what happened, is much easier - but the feeling of success will not be so complete. In any case, it is important to remember that success is impossible without effort. As Maria Kozlova says, "if you are lucky all the time, most likely this is not luck, but the result of your actions." It remains only to learn to believe in yourself and make well-deserved achievements.
Illustrations: Katya Dorokhina
