The facets of an impostor – development and validation of the impostor-profile (IPP31) for measuring impostor phenomenon

Abstract

The Impostor Phenomenon (IP) is a characteristic, which is composed of cognitions of inauthenticity, in conjunction with fear of failure, as well as fear of being exposed as a fraud. The IP was first described by Clance (1985), who also developed an accompanying questionnaire. However, this questionnaire left room for optimization (item content, pysychometric properties, and the representing IP as a multidimensional construct). Therefore, we developed an item pool of 450 new items based on the theoretical foundation. The core element characteristics are measured using the theoretically derived scales: Competence Doubt, Working Style, Alienation, Other-Self Divergence, Frugality and Need for Sympathy. Based on a German sample (N = 771, 51% female), aged 18 to 70 years, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis resulted in a selection of 31 items. The six scales show satisfactory internal consistencies between .69 and .92. Initial construct validity showed positive correlations with convergent (Neuroticism) and discriminant measures (Self-Esteem). The Impostor-Profile (IPP31) is a theoretically founded multidimensional german questionnaire that can be applied in research and practice.

Examining the Impostor-Profile—Is There a General Impostor Characteristic?

“…The Impostor Profile (IPP31; Ibrahim et al, 2020 ) comprises 31 items constituting six scales. The instrument uses a visual analog scale with a response range from 1 (“does not apply in any aspect”) to 100 (“applies completely”).…”

“…Based on the findings of Ibrahim et al (2020), we have formulated the following hypotheses for gender differences in the subscales of the IPP. Hypothesis 2a.…”

“…In the previous study, we developed the multidimensional Impostor-Profile (IPP; Ibrahim et al, 2020 ). The construction process of the IPP was inductive by distilling many aspects related to impostorism into several factors.…”

“…The construction of the IPP31 (Ibrahim et al, 2020 ) was based on the theoretical notions by Clance ( 1985 ) and Harvey and Katz ( 1985 ). The core elements and typical features were extracted and clustered by experts.…”

“…Following the previous findings, we expect a strong correlation between the IPP total score and the CIPS. This is based on the relation of the largest IPP31 subscale Competence-Doubt with 11 items and the CIPS ( r = 0.80; Ibrahim et al, 2020 ), as well as the shared theoretical construct. The attributional style is defined by the dimension's internality (attribution to oneself, up to attribution to circumstances), stability (will be stable over time up to will certainly change), and globality (has just an effect on this scenario up to will affect every other scenario).…”