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Negative performance evaluation in the imposter phenomenon

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Abstract

The imposter phenomenon (IP) is associated with a bias towards negative evaluation of one’s own performances. This study employs an online problem-solving task to investigate this bias. Participants (graduate students from the UK, US, and Europe; n = 163) solved reasoning problems and subsequently evaluated their performance. Participants high in IP evaluated their performances more negatively than participants low in IP. This pattern was observed both during the task and after completion. It was also observed in objective assessments (estimates of accuracy) and comparative assessments (estimates of rank amongst participants). Performance evaluation bias was not associated with a bias in the selection of feedback about performance nor was it mediated by depression or self-esteem.

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Data Availability

The dataset and code for this project are available on the Open Science Framework repository (https://osf.io/3n96e/).

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the members of the Cognition and Philosophy and Dijkerman labs for helpful discussion; Manja Engel, Ryan McKay, and Jennifer Windt for written feedback; Simon van Baal and Jarl Kampen for analysis and coding advice; and Andrew Gadsby for figure design.

Funding

This study was funded by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship (S.G), a Monash University Postgraduate Publications Award (S.G.), a Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO) Postdoctoral Fellowship (1267022 N) (S.G), and the Faculty of Arts at Monash University (J.H).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Philosophical Psychology, Department of Philosophy, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Stephen Gadsby & Jakob Hohwy

  2. Cognition & Philosophy Laboratory, School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Stephen Gadsby

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  1. Stephen Gadsby
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  2. Jakob Hohwy
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Contributions

Stephen Gadsby contributed to the study conceptualization, data collection, data preparation, data analysis, report writing. Jakob Hohwy contributed to the study conceptualization and report writing.

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Correspondence to Stephen Gadsby.

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Ethical approval statement

Approval was obtained from the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (MUHREC Project ID: 25939) The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

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The authors report no conflict of interest.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Gadsby, S., Hohwy, J. Negative performance evaluation in the imposter phenomenon. Curr Psychol 43, 9300–9308 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05030-0

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