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The key part of impostor syndrome is that you think you're bad at something, but somehow nobody else can tell. You keep getting compliments for the thing you're

The key part of impostor syndrome is that you think you're bad at something, but somehow nobody else can tell. You keep getting compliments for the thing you're worried about. If you think you're bad at coding, and people can tell right away in a short coding interview, then you're not an impostor, you're just bad at it. If you're coming in last in every race, then you're not an impostor, everyone knows you're bad. If you're consistently on the podium but you tell yourself you don't really deserve it and those races were all flukes, that's imposter syndrome. It is healthy and normal to question your own abilities and how you represent yourself, but it's not healthy to question to such a point that you ignore all positive evidence. If you mentor someone who's great at coding, and you tell them that, and they still think to themselves that they're actually bad and just got lucky this time, that's impostor syndrome. tldr: "Am I bad at this" and "am I a fraud that has everyone fooled" are very different.

jacobr1 5y ago
To further your example, when the mentor gives the feedback that the programmer is _good_, they don't take it as evidence they are good, instead it is rationalized away. "The mentor only told me I was good because they didn't want to hurt my feelings, but of course she knows I'm really not," Or "The mentor only told me I was good because they don't really see how much time I spend googling things. Real Engineers should have their code jump from their heads like Athena from Zeus."
- caddemon 5y ago
  Part of the problem is that the standard to say something is "good" can vary wildly, and often does end up becoming quite low. See inflation of grades, video game reviews, Yelp ratings, etc. If I see a 3 star restaurant I'm highly skeptical of it, even though 3 stars should be considered perfectly acceptable by intended definition. On Google performance reviews scores could range from 1 to 5, with 2 being "meets expectations". A 2/5 sounds pretty bad, but the description sounds like the person is doing their job fine and is not an impostor. So what does it actually mean? But that depends from manager to manager anyway. IME many of them end up inflating and "exceeds expectations" loses meaning. Point being, I think you need a lot more context to determine what "good job" actually means. If feedback is sufficiently detailed you can make a pretty good estimate right off the bat, but unfortunately people are bad at giving feedback in general. So especially when new to a team and you don't have any priors for how they use language, it makes sense to have some doubts. I'm sure this can become pathological, but is the unhealthy version actually as prevalent as all the talk about impostor syndrome?

jacobr1 5y ago

To further your example, when the mentor gives the feedback that the programmer is _good_, they don't take it as evidence they are good, instead it is rationalized away. "The mentor only told me I was good because they didn't want to hurt my feelings, but of course she knows I'm really not," Or "The mentor only told me I was good because they don't really see how much time I spend googling things. Real Engineers should have their code jump from their heads like Athena from Zeus."

caddemon 5y ago
Part of the problem is that the standard to say something is "good" can vary wildly, and often does end up becoming quite low. See inflation of grades, video game reviews, Yelp ratings, etc. If I see a 3 star restaurant I'm highly skeptical of it, even though 3 stars should be considered perfectly acceptable by intended definition. On Google performance reviews scores could range from 1 to 5, with 2 being "meets expectations". A 2/5 sounds pretty bad, but the description sounds like the person is doing their job fine and is not an impostor. So what does it actually mean? But that depends from manager to manager anyway. IME many of them end up inflating and "exceeds expectations" loses meaning. Point being, I think you need a lot more context to determine what "good job" actually means. If feedback is sufficiently detailed you can make a pretty good estimate right off the bat, but unfortunately people are bad at giving feedback in general. So especially when new to a team and you don't have any priors for how they use language, it makes sense to have some doubts. I'm sure this can become pathological, but is the unhealthy version actually as prevalent as all the talk about impostor syndrome?