Fleischhauer Monika, Wossidlo Josephine, Michael Lars, Enge Sören
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, MSB Medical School Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2021 Nov 17;12:764030. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.764030. eCollection 2021.
The impostor phenomenon (IP) refers to the tendency to perceive oneself as intellectually incompetent and to attribute one's own success to effort-related or external factors, such as fortunate circumstances. The present study (=209) aimed to contribute to open questions regarding gender differences in the IP and the nomological network of the IP. The results show that the consistently found key correlates of the IP, that is, lower self-esteem and higher neuroticism, could also play a role in explaining why women report higher impostor feelings than men in many studies. Moreover, the results suggest that IP is characterized by the more maladaptive, socially prescribed perfectionism, which is related to the belief that others expect perfection from oneself, whereas self-oriented perfectionism, which is characterized by a critical view on oneself, plays a smaller role in differences in the IP. Finally, a strong association with the sandbagging construct challenges the conceptualization of the IP as a genuine doubt about one's own competence, because similarly to IP, sandbaggers present themselves negatively to others, but do so for very strategic reasons in order to create a low expectation base in other individuals. Regression analysis was used to assess the incremental value of the personality factors in explaining variance in the IP. It was found that sandbagging and IP are highly related but not interchangeable.
冒名顶替现象（IP）是指个体倾向于认为自己在智力方面能力不足，并将自身的成功归因于与努力相关的因素或外部因素，如幸运的环境。本研究（n = 209）旨在探讨关于IP中性别差异以及IP的概念网络等尚未解决的问题。结果表明，一直以来发现的IP的关键相关因素，即较低的自尊和较高的神经质，在解释为何在许多研究中女性比男性报告有更高的冒名顶替感方面也可能起作用。此外，结果表明IP的特征是更具适应不良性的、社会规定性的完美主义，这与认为他人期望自己完美的信念有关，而以自我为导向的完美主义，其特征是对自己持批评态度，在IP差异中所起的作用较小。最后，与故作谦虚结构的强烈关联对将IP概念化为对自身能力的真正怀疑提出了挑战，因为与IP类似，故作谦虚者向他人呈现负面形象，但这样做是出于非常策略性的原因，以便在他人心中建立一个低期望基础。回归分析用于评估人格因素在解释IP差异方面的增量价值。研究发现，故作谦虚和IP高度相关但并非可互换的概念。
