Imposter Syndrome is a Humblebrag
Everyone seems to want to talk about imposter syndrome these days. I find it tiresome and pretentious. Why pretentious? Isn’t it a mark of humility to admit that one experiences imposter syndrome? No. Imposter syndrome is a humblebrag.
The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines humblebrag as follows:
“...to make a seemingly modest, self-critical, or casual statement or reference that is meant to draw attention to one's admirable or impressive qualities or achievements.”
The Urban Dictionary puts it like this:
“ When you, usually consciously, try to get away with bragging about yourself by couching it in a phony show of humility.”
I suspect that loud and visible proclamations of imposter syndrome is intended as a strategy to preempt any change of suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect, which David Dunning described as follows:
“...the scope of people's ignorance is often invisible to them. This meta-ignorance (or ignorance of ignorance) arises because lack of expertise and knowledge often hides in the realm of the “unknown unknowns” or is disguised by erroneous beliefs and background knowledge that only appear to be sufficient to conclude a right answer.”
In publicly entertaining the claim that one feels like an imposter, one is stating that one is not at all unaware of one’s ignorance, and therefore one cannot reasonably be held to be ignorant of one’s ignorance. It’s an elegant twist on the moral psychology of the scholar, but now it is merely overused and predictable—making it a much less effective strategy than it was, say, ten years ago.
I have attended scientific conferences in which imposter syndrome was explicitly discussed. I was sorely tempted to raise my hand and say, “Are you sure that you are not an imposter? Have you considered that perhaps you really don’t know what you’re talking about? Is it possible that you are a fraud?” Of course, I didn’t ask any of these awkward questions, which would have been to violate the implicit social contract of the gathering.
If you think you’re suffering from imposter syndrome, maybe you’re just deluded and you actually are an imposter.
