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Being a perfectionist can take its toll, particularly on mental and emotional health, as many people can attest. The closely related “imposter syndrome,” in which a person feels as if he/she doesn’t really deserve to be in a current work role, also seems to chip away at satisfaction—but not just at work. According to a new study from the University of Houston, imposter syndrome seems to be bleed over to home-life satisfaction and contribute to work-life balance issues as well.
The study should be considered preliminary, as it has not yet been published in a peer-review journal.
The researchers set out to understand how people with feelings of imposter syndrome fared at home and at work, and in balancing the two. They queried over 450 participants about their feelings of imposterism—that is, whether they felt like a “fake” or otherwise incompetent at work, which appears to be, understandably, more common in people in high-level positions. They correlated this with how satisfied participants said they were both in home and in their jobs, how much emotional exhaustion or burnout they experienced, and how they rated their work-life balance.
The team found that people who felt more like imposters were more likely to experience burnout and to have conflict between work and family roles—they were also more likely to report less satisfaction with home life. Additionally, though work-life balance problems weren’t necessarily linked to lower job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion was.
"The most important point of our study is showing employees who experience persistent thoughts of feeling like a fake are not only experiencing detrimental effects at work but also at home," said study author Lisa Sublett in a statement. "These accomplished employees are emotionally drained and struggle maintaining family and work demands. Our study also adds legitimacy to discussing imposter phenomenon as an important talent development issue, especially for high-potential employees."
Some research estimates that upwards of 70% of workers in the U.S. experience imposter syndrome. Though the term was originally proposed to apply specifically to women in the workforce, it’s now accepted that both sexes experience it. In fact, other recent research has arrived at some interesting findings about how imposter syndrome may affect the sexes differently.
A study last year, for example, found that men with imposter syndrome are more likely to succumb to pressure—for instance, when researchers told participants they’d answered questions incorrectly in an initial part of the study, men with imposter syndrome tended to react with more anxiety, put forth less effort, and perform a tiny bit worse on subsequent tasks, compared to women, who tended to put in more effort and perform better after the negative feedback. The authors suggest that this may be because there are a couple of different coping strategies with imposter syndrome: over-preparation, which is what the women in the study may have done, and self-handicapping (i.e., putting forth less effort as a way to rationalize poorer performance), which is what they men may have done.
The authors of the current suggest that given how pervasive imposter syndrome is, managers should be cognizant of the issue and make efforts to help their employees manage it.
"We recommend that supervisors become aware of indicators that signal a subordinate is struggling with imposter phenomenon," Sublett said. "As our study shows, these employees are at a greater risk of experiencing high levels of burnout, job dissatisfaction, and work-family conflict. In addition to providing emotional support for these individuals, supervisors can help alleviate imposter cognitions by providing individual coaching on perfectionism and frequent performance feedback."
If you want to know your own level of imposter syndrome, you can take the test, written by one of the original researchers who coined the term. There's a little solace to knowing you're not alone if you experience it. But since it's so common, offices would definitely be wise to address it as part of their wider efforts to support employees' mental health.
