Imposter phenomenon

Like many of you, I remember the day I got into Duke with special clarity. The jumping, the crying, the overjoyed shouting from my mom and sister. All the blood, sweat and tears, the hundreds of hours I spent memorizing Latin conjugations and working through calculus problems, the car rides sitting in traffic on the way home from varsity tennis or Relay for Life or the local homeless teen shelter... It was all worth it for this, the offer to become a Blue Devil. Yet, as the calls came rolling in from relatives and friends, my perception of my acceptance began to change. “Congratulations,” aunts and uncles and grandparents would say, “We’re so proud of you.” “Thank you,” I would reply, nodding bashfully into the phone, “I’m just so lucky.”

And that was where it began for me. With a single word, “lucky,” I began to externalize my success—to diminish all the hard work I’d put in by attributing it to chance instead. Suddenly, almost inexplicably, I began to question whether or not I deserved my spot at Duke. This is a mechanism I hear from classmates with a startling frequency. Too often, a friend says, “I’m shocked I got an A on that test… I must have gotten lucky and studied all the right things.” Or “I bullshitted my way through that interview. I honestly can’t believe I got the job.” Over the course of the semester in Professor Rachel Seidman’s Women in the Public Sphere seminar, my classmates and I began to recognize these behaviors in fellow women on campus, and together we discovered this condition has a name: the imposter phenomenon.

Imposter phenomenon is often described as a person’s inability to internalize his or her accomplishments. It’s unwarranted self-doubt that manifests itself in thought processes where an individual worries that they only achieved success because they’ve gotten lucky, and at some point they’ll be “found out” or exposed as a fraud. Research shows that imposter phenomenon predominantly affects women and people of color.

Why should we care? Imposter phenomenon rears its ugly head every time you doubt yourself in lecture and don’t raise your hand, even when you know the answer. It not only prevents you from participating, it robs your classmates of your insights and the chance to hear from a wide variety of perspectives.

Imposter phenomenon is the voice in the back of your head that whispers, “I don’t know how I got into Duke. Sure, I’m a good student, but I don’t belong here.” That example is Dr. Gary Glass’s favorite to tackle. Glass, a CAPS psychologist, met with us to discuss instances of imposter phenomenon he frequently encounters in Duke students and explained with a chuckle, “I sit down students who tell me they feel like they don’t deserve their spot at Duke and I say, ‘Tell me—exactly what tactics did you employ to deceive Admissions?’ And of course, they can’t answer that question.”

When we first started this project, our goal was simply to raise awareness for imposter phenomenon, hopefully to help dissipate the inadequacies students on campus feel by illuminating why so many have these feelings in the first place. But as our research progressed, and as recent displays of racism and homophobia unfolded on campus, we realized that imposter phenomenon is one piece of a larger problem plaguing our campus—the idea of belonging, and why so many people feel as though they do not.

We want to be very clear: imposter phenomenon is not an individual condition. It’s not just in your head. It’s not just a Duke problem. Rather, it is symptomatic of a larger problem on our campus and at schools everywhere. Imposter phenomenon is indicative of an environment that fosters feelings of inadequacy and perpetuates the narrative that there is some correct version of a Duke student, and that not everyone fits that mold.

We’ve composed a video of students on campus and their experiences with imposter phenomenon. We are hosting an open, candid discussion on this subject; please join us Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. in the Women’s Center. We hope this is just the beginning of an ongoing dialogue.