The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It

Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, two psychologists at Georgia State University, first described “imposter phenomenon,” which they defined as “an internal experience of intellectual phoniness that appears to be particularly prevalent and intense among a select sample of high achieving women.”

Imposter syndrome is loosely defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments.

Impostor Syndrome : Fear of being exposed as less talented than people think you are, often because talent is owed to cumulative advantage rather than actual effort or skill.

Imposter Syndrome is when someone—even a very accomplished person with a lot of experience and credentials—believes they don’t actually know what everyone thinks they know. They believe their ideas are either wrong or invalid, or that everyone already knows what they know.