“Overcoming the Fear That Haunts Your Success” – The Effectiveness of Interventions for Reducing the Impostor Phenomenon

“Furthermore, the trainer told participants about attributional style theory (Heider, 1958) and gave an example situation.”

“According to previous studies, such beliefs have serious implications for reactions to challenges and motivation and can affect whether one chooses to engage in or forgo demanding activities (Dweck and Leggett, 1988; Mueller and Dweck, 1998).”

“Theoretical Background Dweck’s mindset theory (Dweck, 1986; Hong et al., 1999) offers a useful theoretical background for the career- and workrelated consequences of the IP outlined above.”

“At the beginning, the coaches supported the participants in refining personal goals they had identified prior to the intervention into more welldefined outcome goals for the coaching process that met the criteria of goal-setting theory (e.g., SMART, Doran, 1981; Locke and Latham, 1990).”

“To assess motivation, we used the external regulation subscale of the Situational Motivation Scale (SIMS; Guay et al., 2000).”

“Theoretical Background Dweck’s mindset theory (Dweck, 1986; Hong et al., 1999) offers a useful theoretical background for the career- and workrelated consequences of the IP outlined above.”

“This supports the considerations that led to Hypothesis 2, that training in general promotes the acquisition of knowledge (e.g., Salas and CannonBowers, 2001; Salas et al., 2012) and may be superior in this regard.”

“Generally speaking, the coaching intervention appeared to be an effective tool for improving the functioning of individuals in organizations and it facilitated individuals’ cognitive reframing of work experiences and attitudes, as suggested in previous research (Grant, 2001; Theeboom et al., 2014).”

“Interventions for Reducing Expressions of the IP This research suggests that interventions aimed at reducing the personnel consequences of the IP in the career and work context should focus on implementing a growth mindset (Yeager et al., 2016).”

“Altogether, coaching appears to have larger and more consistent positive effects on outcome criteria compared to other popular interventions in the organizational context (for an overview and recent meta-analytical findings see Theeboom et al., 2014; Sonesh et al., 2015; Jones et al., 2016).”

“, 2010b) where a coach and a client engage in a collaborative effort to set personal goals and develop, monitor, evaluate, and modify goal-appropriate activities (Grant et al., 2009) tailored to the individual’s specific needs in the context of organizational-level goals (Grant, 2001; Bond and Seneque, 2013).”

“Research along these lines focused on personal, health-relevant consequences, and studies found that it caused psychological distress, lower well-being, (social) anxiety, and depression (Chrisman et al., 1995; Henning et al., 1998; Thompson et al., 1998; September et al., 2001; Bernard et al., 2002; Oriel et al., 2004…”

“In comparison, many studies have used single group or pre–post within-subject designs (e.g., Olivero et al., 1997; Grant, 2003; Jones et al., 2006; Orenstein, 2006).”

“In particular, empirical findings have indicated that it is probable that participants’ self-enhancing attributions and self-efficacy as well as their environmental mastery and self-acceptance are increased through coaching (Green et al., 2006; Finn, 2007; Spence and Grant, 2007; Spence et al., 2008; Moen and Skaalvik…”

“To assess career management, we used the Career Management Scale developed by Gould (1979) and translated into German by Rowold (2004).”

“Coaching could be used to foster affected individuals’ organizational citizenship behavior and affective commitment as well as job satisfaction and perceived organizational support (Grubb and McDowell, 2012; McDowell et al., 2015; Vergauwe et al., 2015; Neureiter and Traut-Mattausch, 2016b).”

“Coaching can be described as a goal-focused helping relationship (Grant and Cavanagh, 2004; Grant et al., 2010b) where a coach and a client engage in a collaborative effort to set personal goals and develop, monitor, evaluate, and modify goal-appropriate activities (Grant et al.”

“Moreover, applying coaching interventions has been shown to be effective in decreasing depression, anxiety, and stress (Grant, 2003, 2008; Green et al., 2007; Grant et al., 2009, 2010a), additional variables highly related to the IP (Chrisman et al.”

“In particular, empirical findings have indicated that it is probable that participants’ self-enhancing attributions and self-efficacy as well as their environmental mastery and self-acceptance are increased through coaching (Green et al., 2006; Finn, 2007; Spence and Grant, 2007; Spence et al., 2008; Moen and Skaalvik…”

“People with high expressions of the IP make attributions that inhibit any growth in selfesteem (e.g., Cozzarelli and Major, 1990).”

“, 2009, 2010a), additional variables highly related to the IP (Chrisman et al., 1995; Thompson et al., 1998; Bernard et al., 2002; Oriel et al., 2004; McGregor et al., 2008).”

“Altogether, coaching appears to have larger and more consistent positive effects on outcome criteria compared to other popular interventions in the organizational context (for an overview and recent meta-analytical findings see Theeboom et al., 2014; Sonesh et al., 2015; Jones et al., 2016).”

“Furthermore, the positive relation between the IP and the fear of failure (Ross et al., 2001; Kumar and Jagacinski, 2006; Neureiter and Traut-Mattausch, 2016a) is fairly clear from an entity mindset perspective.”

“This is also in line with some original assumptions regarding the IP that impostors overgeneralize failure and consider it internal and stable (Clance and Imes, 1978; Chae et al., 1995; Thompson et al., 1998).”

“People with high expressions of the IP believe that their success is due to some kind of luck or error, and they live in constant fear of being exposed as unintelligent or less competent (Clance, 1985; Harvey and Katz, 1985; Jöstl et al., 2012).”

“…IP have been recognized in different cultures (Chae et al., 1995; Clance et al., 1995) as well as in different groups, such as marketing managers (Fried-Buchalter, 1997), undergraduate entrepreneurs (Sightler and Wilson, 2001), engineering students (French et al., 2008), medical, dental,…”

“From the perspective of cognitive neuroscience, a growth mindset induction contributes to better cognitive control (Schroder et al., 2014), which might be especially useful, given that impostors demonstrate an external locus of control and unstable, external attributions in successful achievement situations (e.”

“In comparison, many studies have used single group or pre–post within-subject designs (e.g., Olivero et al., 1997; Grant, 2003; Jones et al., 2006; Orenstein, 2006).”

“Research along these lines focused on personal, health-relevant consequences, and studies found that it caused psychological distress, lower well-being, (social) anxiety, and depression (Chrisman et al., 1995; Henning et al., 1998; Thompson et al., 1998; September et al., 2001; Bernard et al., 2002; Oriel et al., 2004…”

“We did so because we were building on previous work reporting relations between the IP and the indicators, such as self-efficacy beliefs (Jöstl et al., 2012; McDowell et al., 2015; Neureiter and Traut-Mattausch, 2017) or the fear and overgeneralization of failure (Clance and Imes, 1978; Chae et al.”

“In the current sample, internal consistency for the CIPS was good (αT0 = 0.87; αT1 = 0.80; αT2 = 0.86).”

“Therefore, participants rated their current degree of goal attainment at T0, T01, T1, and T2 by answering the question “As of right now, to what extent have you attained this goal?” (Braumandl and Dirscherl, 2005; Biberacher, 2010; Ianiro et al., 2014) on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all achieved) to 10 (fully achie…”

“Moreover, applying coaching interventions has been shown to be effective in decreasing depression, anxiety, and stress (Grant, 2003, 2008; Green et al., 2007; Grant et al., 2009, 2010a), additional variables highly related to the IP (Chrisman et al., 1995; Thompson et al., 1998; Bernard et al.,…”

“…this empirical background and recent published articles calling for interventions that may reduce the experience of IP thoughts (e.g., Neureiter and Traut-Mattausch, 2016a, 2017; Brauer and Proyer, 2017), we were inspired to create potential interventions that could be applied in the work context.”

“Overall, our research contributes to the recognition of the direction of clients’ goal-relevant efforts as a distinguishing characteristic of coaching conversations (Grant and Stober, 2006; Grant, 2012).”

“, 1995) as well as in different groups, such as marketing managers (Fried-Buchalter, 1997), undergraduate entrepreneurs (Sightler and Wilson, 2001), engineering students (French et al.”

“To create an appropriate intervention that fosters a mindset change, we considered that both a coaching and a training are thought to be helpful in reducing IP feelings as recommended by previous works (Clance, 1986; Klinkhammer and Saul-Soprun, 2009).”

“Given the nature of training and in aid of group processes, essential training elements such as ice breakers, introduction rounds, quick energizers, repetition of content to facilitate the transfer of the learning input, and feedback were implemented (Brinkmann, 2008; Döring, 2009; Weidemann, 2015).”

“Instead of focusing on how individuals themselves should battle their impostor feelings (Sandberg, 2013; Dickerson, 2019; Zanchetta et al., 2020), our perspective outlines the importance of addressing the contextual roots of this phenomenon—by tackling persistent stereotypes in society, increasing diversity across occ…”

“Only three studies measured the distal impact of the intervention [38, 44, 45].”

“People who experience the impostor phenomenon have intense thoughts of fraudulence regarding their intellect or professional activities, even in light of verifiable and true achievements [1, 2], and are distinctly unable to internalise successful experiences [3].”

“Several studies have shown that coaching is associated with significant progress toward self-set goals (Grant et al., 2009; Grant, 2010; Ballesteros-Sánchez et al., 2019; Zanchetta et al., 2020).”

“Important IP scholarship was recently produced outside of the USA, such as validating a multidimensional IP scale (Ibrahim et al., 2020) and an IP intervention (Zanchetta et al., 2020).”

“It could also be an essential lever for reducing impostor feelings since the mindset can be changed through learning experiences (Plaks & Stecher, 2007), as indicated in the intervention study by Zanchetta et al. (2020).”

“” To improve the academic environment, mentorship and coaching could be effective ways of helping individuals manage feeling like an impostor, improve self-efficacy, and reduce negative evaluation fears (Zanchetta et al., 2020).”

“To date, however, few evaluated interventions for managing IP are available [22, 25].”

“Previous studies have shown that brief trainings or coaching sessions can mitigate the effects of imposter syndrome on mental health, 53 but most interventions currently only focus on personal mal-adaptive cognitions.”

“…was one-on-one coaching, in which a coach and student worked on individual goals and developing beliefs associated with a growth mindset such as reflecting on abilities, identifying strengths, and improving self-efficacy, and decreasing fear of negative evaluation (Zanchetta et al., 2020).”

“18,19 Despite a growing number of studies exploring IP, both within and outside the health care context, studies seem to vary in methodological rigour.”

“…mentioned the benefits of having a mentor being able to guide them through these feelings, which is in agreement with other research on the benefits of mentoring in decreasing feelings of self-doubt and fraudulence in industry (Zanchetta et al. 2020) and medical fields (Armstrong and Shulman 2019).”

“25,26 People who experience IP may have similar mental makeup as those seen in perfectionism, where the individual will engage in an all-or-nothing mentality and overgeneralize their own mistakes.”

“More generally, discovering that negativity persists during task performance can help clinicians in understanding when their clients suffer from performance evaluation bias and, therefore, how to teach their clients to counteract such bias (Zanchetta et al., 2020).”

“…support to new physicians as they adjust Provide formal mentoring program (Wyatt et al., 2021) Foster growth mindset Establish coaching program (Zanchetta et al., 2020) Decrease burnout and improve retention Implement wellness program (Kim et al., 2017, West et al., 2018) Depersonalize…”

“Coaching as an intervention showed good results in practice and research (e.g., Greif 2016; Grant 2014; Jones et al. 2014; Losch et al. 2016; Theeboom et al. 2014; Zanchetta et al. 2020).”

“For this reason, impostor phenomenon is a term that is preferred in academic studies (Bravata et al., 2019; Zanchetta et al., 2020), while non-peer-reviewed literature and mainstream media use almost exclusively the term impostor syndrome (Bravata et. al, 2019; Mak et al., 2019).”

“…the relationship between goal-setting, motivation, and performance is well-established (Locke & Latham, 2002 ), it is not surprising that the past literature has shown a positive relationship between coaching interven - tions and goal achievement (Grant et al., 2009 ; Zanchetta et al., 2020 ).”

“Moreover, coaching effect tends to increase over time, making the intervention sustainable (Zanchetta et al., 2020).”

“Ultimately, the findings can inform and tailor impostorism interventions, which currently do not adequately address mental health's association with impostorism (c.f., Cisco, 2020; Zanchetta et al., 2020).”

“Standard intervention approaches for IP assume a dispositional approach and thus involve extended periods of counselling or coaching (Clance & Imes, 1978; Zanchetta et al., 2020).”

“Psychologists conceptualize impostor phenomenon as a genuine manifestation of self-doubt [16], increasingly recognized as a subclinical cognitive trait [17].”

“Individual approaches, such as counselling and reflective journaling, help address personal challenges and develop coping strategies [1, 15, 55].”

“These interventions are restricted to student groups (Chang et al., 2022), young employees (Zanchetta et al., 2020), and clinical faculty (Deshmukh et al., 2022), mostly in healthcare.”

“Our results align with research on executive coaching effectiveness using a randomised control trial design (Evers et al., 2006; Grant et al., 2009, 2010; Moen & Federici, 2012; Moen & Skaalvik, 2009; Zanchetta et al., 2020).”

“The fear of success—a psychological phenomenon characterized by apprehension about the consequences of achievement— can manifest in behaviors that undermine personal and professional growth [13].”

“Initial institutional responses could include psychoeducational sessions that normalize IP, structured peer discussion, coaching or mentoring programs, and cognitive reframing strategies, all of which have emerging evidence in high-achieving or health-professional populations [52].”

“4) Practice affirming mentees : Using affirmations and positive self-talk can also mitigate the negative expectations brought by IP [27, 29–32].”

“The behavioral strategy of asking for help has been linked to positive outcomes, such as increased academic engagement, resilience toward learning challenges, higher grades, and easier post-degree transitions into the 1978; Zanchetta et al., 2020 ).”

“Additionally, negative emotions such as fear and depression have been identified as significant predictors of the impostor phenomenon (Zanchetta et al., 2020 ; Maftei et al., 2021 ).”

“…self‐regulation and personal autonomy to be ‘overcome’ and to mitigate ‘negative outcomes’—‘This research suggests that interventions aimed at reducing the personnel consequences of the IP in the career and work context should focus on implementing a growth mindset’ (Zanchetta et al. 2020, 2).”

“Early‐career participants expressed strong emotional responses to rejection, often perceiving it as a validation of their in-adequacy on imposter phenomenon, especially among women in male‐dominated environments (Zanchetta et al. 2020).”

“In fact, a workplace intervention study found that one-on-one coaching was more effective in reducing imposter phenomenon than group-based training session [40].”

“…self-esteem, and cognitive reappraisal among medical students with imposter syndrome [46]; another study suggested that one-on-one coaching was more effective than group training in reducing imposter syndrome, with both coaching and group training focusing on fostering a growth mindset [47].”

“Within IP research, Zanchetta et al. [53] showed that a coaching program for young professionals significantly reduced impostor scores, primarily through a reduction in fear of negative evaluation and an increase in self-enhancing attributions.”

“Zanchetta et al. found that individualized coaching was more effective than group training in reducing impostor phenomenon scores and the fear of negative evaluation, with benefits sustained at five-week follow-up [29].”

“It can manifest as low self-confidence and a reluctance to seek career advancement, ultimately hindering professional growth [4].”

“An intervention inspired by research from the area of Psychology [8] was designed to evaluate whether coaching could reduce the impostor feelings of software professionals.”

“It refers to intense thoughts about fraud (Zanchetta, et al., 2020) as well as fear of failing to repeat past achievements in the future, and also fear of being revealed as an impostor (Pulliam & Gonzalez, 2018).”