What Is an Imposter Syndrome?

Even though I don’t think this is in my nature, I recently experienced a wild attack of the imposter syndrome. This is when you feel that others overestimate your mental and physical capabilities. Pretty much, everyone, in academia suffers from it, it is just that some people overcome this effect better than others.

According to Bravata and colleagues (2020), impostor feelings are in fact widespread among high-achieving people and are consistently linked to burnout, anxiety and lower job satisfaction. According to Wang and Li (2023), impostor feelings are especially common among doctoral students and track with anxiety and depression.

So, last week we had a student conference at the institute, and I presented my work there. I presented even though it is a work in progress. After all, I don’t have convincing results at the moment. 

After years and years and years of watching dull tv shows such as Top Model, I worked out some self-confidence though. So after all the audience was content anyways. More than that, there were even people who wanted to invite me to their institutes abroad so that I can introduce my – yet nonexistent – method.

I felt like a marketer while discovering that they are just too good at what they are doing and that their nonexistent product sells. Yet still, it is a non-existent product…

I also experienced a range of other science-related emotions which are relatively new to me. For instance, this weird anxiety when you are talking to an expert in your field, to whom you try to sell yourself as a researcher. 

Why Does Presenting Your Work Trigger Imposter Feelings?

So you present your stuff. But try to keep a good balance of what you can and cannot say so that you will not get scooped. According to Hill and Stein (2025), scientists overestimate both the odds and the cost of getting scooped.

I had that moment of anxiety yesterday when I talked to some highly acknowledged professor about effective connectivity. At some point, I told him that using the time order for rendering connectivity from the fMRI data seems pointless to me. He hung for a moment, went into some catatonic state and started staring at the wall.

He was looking to his upper right which usually means recalling items from memory. So I got the idea that he is reconsidering things he is already doing. He might use my knowledge to improve, or completely reinvent, his models.

Or, perhaps, come up with the same research ideas I just came up with.

Which would be a disaster. ‘I said too much – I thought to myself.

How Do You Get Back to Baseline After an Imposter Attack?

I think it is very personal how people react to this kind of event. For me, nothing is a better motivation than the competition. Of course, only under two assumptions.

The first assumption is that I am working in a team against other, outer teams. And not – for instance – against another PhD student in the same lab.

The second assumption is that I believe I have enough resources to win the race. If you have worse data, worse clusters, fewer people around etc., it is extremely hard to stand up to the challenge.

Anyways, I usually get back to work with double force if these two conditions are met. So I got a kick of energy yesterday.

Imposter complex and racing against other labs are two things which I only heard about before. But faced just right now for the first time.

I digested both of them relatively fast. But now it is time to turn on the high-speed mode. I don’t want to face another two legendary phenomena such as “getting scooped” and a “burnout episode”…

According to Anderson, Ronning, De Vries and Martinson (2007), scientists consistently describe intense inter-lab competition as a major source of strain on their well-being and working relationships.