Photo by UnderPinned.
BY: Juliet Schulman-Hall, SUMMER 2020 COLLABORATOR AT POWER IN PLACE
Growing up, everyone has feelings of inadequacy. In quarantine this may be accentuated, with more competition for jobs and internships, limited face-to-face social interaction, and increased consumption of social media. Interacting through social media, such as Instagram, can make things worse, as social media often presents unrealistic highlights and high points of one's life. In reality, nearly every person struggles with feelings of inadequacy and some form of imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome is the “idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications” [1]. This term was coined by two female psychologists named Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. They theorized that only women were affected by this syndrome, however, since then, research has disproved this claim. Even still, prior to researching imposter syndrome, when I discussed the syndrome with a small group of friends, all of us had thought that women suffered more from imposter syndrome than men. In reality, this may have been more of a commentary on how society forms and distorts one’s own perceptions of reality. Men are characteristically seen as less emotional and are socialized not to speak as often about their insecurities. Women, who are characterized as more emotional, find it easier to discuss their insecurities and may do so with more freedom.
To better understand the ways in which imposter syndrome may or may not affect different groups of people, I crafted a survey that asked how often one feels inadequate, why they think this way, and so forth, which I presented to sixteen people. The results were surprising in that everyone had relatively the same insecurities, regardless of multiple external factors, including sex, race, and school attended. It is important to note that this was a small sample size of sixteen college students with nine of the people identifying as female. However, as I will highlight later, the results of this survey were consistent with many of the general conclusions about imposter syndrome arrived at by other, more established research that relied on larger and more sophisticated sample sizes and methodologies.
The general conclusion from this survey is that people tend to have feelings of inadequacy one to three times times a week. This is consistent across gender, race, and kind of college (ie. historically women’s, co-ed, etc.). An intriguing note is that all of the men who responded wrote nothing or little in response to why they felt inadequate, perhaps tying to the societal expectation that men aren’t supposed to discuss their feelings. There were two major reasons as to why the participants feel insecure. The first is that the individuals do not feel smart enough, despite being at a top school. Individuals noted that they feel as though they shouldn’t be at their college. The second is insecurities about one's body—this was a recurring answer for women and those who are genderfluid. Body image is difficult to deal with as social media reinforces what a ‘perfect body’ is supposed to look like. All insecurities mentioned in the quiz stem from comparing oneself to others.
As evidenced by academic studies that I viewed, and as reinforced by the results I found, there are small differences between the way in which men versus women experience insecurities and portray them. However, it is important to note that everyone “doubt[s] their abilities and ha[s] a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud” [2]. This is something that society reinforces in a multitude of ways. Insecurities are a part of human nature, however, as one study points out, one needs to learn and have “the confidence and/or courage to embrace vulnerability” [3]. What one shows others is often not what is happening in one’s life. Social media influencers have begun to display this through the multitude of photos they take as well as noting their insecurities during the photoshoot. This is a great start in demonstrating that life is imperfect and it is unrealistic to expect to achieve perfection—a movement that should be extended past social media and into the real world.
References
[1] Abrams, Abigail. “Yes, Impostor Syndrome Is Real: Here's How to Deal With It.” Time. Time, June 20, 2018. https://time.com/5312483/how-to-deal-with-impostor-syndrome/.
[2] Nedegaard, Randall. 2016. “Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: How My Students Trained Me to Teach Them.” Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping 22 (4): 52–59. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sxi&AN=126936993&site=eds-live&scope=site.
[3] Cowie, Megan, Logan Nealis, Simon Sherry, Paul Hewitt, and Gordon Flett. Perfectionism and academic difficulties in graduate students: Testing incremental prediction and gender moderation, November 23, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.11.027.
Juliet Schulman-Hall is a rising junior at Smith College majoring in English Language & Literature, minoring in Sociology, and concentrating in Poetry. At Smith, she is involved in Emulate Magazine, the club volleyball team, and the Sophian Newspaper. She is passionate about criminal justice reform and animal rights and advocacy and is the Communications Lead for an animal nonprofit called Global Strays.