Guilt over success, impostor phenomenon, and self-sabotaging behaviors

Abstract

Impostor phenomenon refers to the psychological feeling of intellectual phoniness. It can favor failures and support a scarce perception of one’s own competence in order to protect social relations. The aim of this study was to investigate, with a longitudinal design, the contribution of fear of success and guilt over success in the experience of impostor phenomenon and its connections to maladaptive behaviors, such as submission and self-handicapping tendency. We assumed that impostor phenomenon would mediate the relationship between fear of success, guilt over success, and distress related to it, on one hand, and self-handicapping and submissive behavior on the other. Moreover, several personality variables were tested as potential predictors and protection factors against impostor phenomenon. As expected, we found a positive relationship between fear of success, guilt over success, and impostor phenomenon, and a positive relationship between impostor phenomenon and a tendency toward submitting and self-handicapping. Our findings suggest that the tendency to experience guilt and distress about success and the preoccupation with the impact of one’s own success on our important relationship predicted, both directly and with the mediation of impostor phenomenon, the tendency to submit and self-handicap.