Imposter Syndrome

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.

The root cause of impostor syndrome is an unhelpful picture of what people at the top of society are really like. We feel like impostors not because we are uniquely flawed, but because we can’t imagine how equally flawed the elite must necessarily also be underneath their polished surfaces.