Students' recollections of parenting styles and impostor phenomenon: The mediating role of social anxiety

Abstract

Clance and Imes (1978) introduced a phenomenon regarding individuals who tend to experience intellectual phoniness and covert perceived inadequacy, which they termed impostor phenomenon. The current study aims to investigate the relationship between the impostor phenomenon and social anxiety in adult students, while inspecting the latter variable's mediating role in the relationship between students' recollections of their parents' parenting styles and their current impostor expressions. The study comprised 247 students, 185 females and 62 males (Mage = 28.27, SD = 8.22), who completed online forms of the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS), and the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN). The participants' social anxiety was positively correlated (at medium to strong size) with their impostor expressions. Perceived parental care was indirectly associated with the students' impostor expressions through social anxiety for mothers and fathers, meaning that the sample's students who perceived their parents as less caring exhibited greater impostor expressions because they were more socially anxious. Also, perceived paternal overprotection was associated with the students' impostor expressions through social anxiety. Namely, students who perceived their fathers as more overprotective had greater impostor expressions because they were more socially anxious. The etiological significances and applied implications of these findings are discussed.