Do you feel you don’t deserve your success? Do you feel obliged to rack up diplomas and certifications to feel legitimate in your career? You may be suffering from impostor syndrome, especially if you’re a woman.

Theorised in the late 1970s by American psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, impostor syndrome is a self-perpetuating feeling of inadequacy and self-doubt. Sufferers believe they are not sufficiently qualified to deserve their academic or professional success. They attribute their success more to external factors, such as luck, than to their own talent.

This feeling of fraud is likely to affect 70% of the world’s population at some point in their lives, according to a study published in 2011 in the Journal of Behavioral Science. But a meta-analysis, published in Current Research in Behavioral Sciences, asserts that women are more likely than men to experience impostor syndrome.

The authors of this research came to this conclusion after studying the findings of over a hundred studies on the subject, involving a total of more than 40,000 participants. They found that women, who made up 58% of the sample, scored higher than men on the various scales measuring impostor syndrome.

“Based on this analysis, we would argue that an appropriate answer to the question of whether there is a gender difference in impostor syndrome is ‘yes’. There do appear to be some exceptions to this general rule, but not many,” the researchers write in their paper.

The weight of stereotypes

The research team does not go into the reasons why women might doubt their abilities, but previous studies suggest that there may be structural and societal reasons for this phenomenon.

Women’s lack of confidence is said to be fuelled by the belief that cognitive and intellectual performance is, by nature, different between the sexes. This misconception, which has no scientific basis, is so widespread that even young children unconsciously subscribe to it.

In fact, American researchers found that gender stereotypes are internalised as early as age six: girls of this age are less likely to see women as “really, really smart” than boys of the same age when it comes to men, they report in a paper published in 2017 in the Science journal.

In adulthood, these stereotypes can discourage women from pursuing careers in sectors deemed to be “male”, including science.

Contrary to what its name might suggest, impostor syndrome is not an illness; it’s a feeling of psychological discomfort that can lead to a state of chronic dissatisfaction, procrastination and self-sabotage strategies, anxiety, and sometimes even depression.

Fortunately, it is entirely possible to learn to reclaim personal successes and quash self-doubt, without becoming overconfident.