The Impostor Thought

An offer is accepted. The congratulations arrive. A thought is already speaking over them: they will find out. It does not argue with the success. It agrees that the success happened, and it says the person behind it is not who they think. KTT counts it as a thought, noticed or not, even when it arrives as a small cold feeling in the middle of good news. Research calls it the impostor phenomenon. The studies read for this article did not test whether the thought or the feeling comes first.

Where the name comes from

In 1978, the psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes described “an internal experience of intellectual phoniness” among high-achieving women. Their account drew on about five years of therapy with more than 150 women. They proposed that two family dynamics, together with society’s expectations, feed the thought from an early age. It was a clinical account, not a measurement of how common the thought is.

How often it speaks

The thought is not rare. A 2020 systematic review of 62 studies and 14,161 participants found prevalence estimates from 9 to 82 percent. The range comes mainly from the questionnaire and the cut-off used. The review found impostor feelings common among men and women and across ages, and particularly high among ethnic minority groups. It also found that they often occur alongside depression and anxiety. That is an association. The studies read here do not show which comes first.

What it says when it speaks

The thought has a few lines. One says: it was luck. Another says: the next one will show it. A third says: better not to look too closely at the praise. These lines are KTT’s reading of how the phenomenon is described, not quotes from participants.

Beyond the first studies

Most of this work began in North America. Studies in China have used translated and adapted versions of the questionnaires, with students and nurses. One team cautions that the collectivist values of Chinese culture may limit how far Western findings carry over. In one validation study with a mixed student sample, impostor scores differed between ethnic groups in one sample and not in another.

What is not known

Whether the thought comes before the cold feeling or after it is not known.

How common the thought really is remains unclear. The 9 to 82 percent range says as much about the questionnaires as about people.

Whether the thought is the same thing in every culture is also open. The studies read here use scales built in the West.

This article describes a thought, not a condition. Strong or lasting self-doubt can call for professional care.