Working together as a team, we all came to realize that addressing uncomfortable topics such as imposter phenomenon is important to build resilience among faculty and students

Levy, Arkene

Padilla, Maria

Rajput, Vijay, MD

Wrench, Algevis

English

NSU Works

be Still Volume 6 Article 29 Fall 2022 Imposter Phenomenon and Dunning-Kruger Effect: Leveraging Internal Conflicts for Professional Growth and Wellness Arkene Levy Nova Southeastern University, alevy1@nova.edu Algevis Wrench Nova Southeastern University, awrench@nova.edu Maria Padilla Nova Southeastern University, mpadilla@nova.edu Vijay Rajput MD Nova Southeastern University, vrajput@nova.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/bestill  Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the Other Mental and Social Health Commons Recommended Citation Levy, Arkene; Wrench, Algevis; Padilla, Maria; and Rajput, Vijay MD (2022) "Imposter Phenomenon and Dunning-Kruger Effect: Leveraging Internal Conflicts for Professional Growth and Wellness," be Still: Vol. 6, Article 29. Available at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/bestill/vol6/iss1/29 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Osteopathic Medicine at NSUWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in be Still by an authorized editor of NSUWorks. For more information, please contact nsuworks@nova.edu. IMPOSTER PHENOMENON AND DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT: LEVERAGING INTERNAL CONFLICTS FOR PROFESSIONAL GROWTH AND WELLNESSAUTHORS Arkene Levy, Ph.D.Algevis Wrench, Ph.D.Maria Padilla, M.D.Vijay Rajput, M.D. 1ABOUT THE AUTHORS  Dr. Arkene Levy is the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion atthe Dr. Kiran C Patel College of Allopathic Medicine (NSU MD), where sheis also an Associate Professor of Medical Education. She currently leadsseveral funded projects that positively impact the physical and mentalhealth of vulnerable groups in the South Florida community. Dr. Algevis Wrench is Assistant Professor of Medical Education atNSU MD. She is an active member of the Latino Medical Association(LMSA) where she mentors the NSU MD student chapter in research andprojects related to mental wellness. Dr. Maria Padilla is the Executive Associate Dean for Academic andStudent Affairs at NSU MD and is a passionate advocate for integratingand supporting student wellness activities throughout the schools’curriculum. Dr. Vijay Rajput is Chair of the Department of Medical Education atNSU MD and has an extensive background in faculty and studentmentorship around wellness and professional development.AUTHORS' STATEMENTWorking together as a team, we all came to realizethat addressing uncomfortable topics such asimposter phenomenon is important to buildresilience among faculty and students.This piece is a collective effort of the authors and is inspired by our love of teaching,science, medicine, and daily interactions with our peers and students. Mental wellness isa topic that is dear to all our hearts. We are all passionate about using wellness as a toolto enhance learning in the classroom, and to build trust between future health providersand patients. We came together as a team because we have all been impacted byimposter phenomenon (IP) at some point in our lives or careers, and we have learned torecognize and mitigate it as it creeps up.We are passionate about sharing tools and resources that can help others to do thesame. We are all immigrant faculty of color with intersectional identities that have madeour journeys as medical educators both rewarding and challenging. We all interact withdiverse groups of students with similar identities and backgrounds, and this hasheightened our passion for addressing IP. As medical educators, we believe wellness iscritical to delivering culturally competent medical care and addressing internal conflictsthat negatively impact teaching and clinical skills acquisition is paramount. Our hope isthat this piece stimulates curiosity and action for those with whom it resonates.So, what really is imposter phenomenon (IP)?IP also known as imposter syndrome or imposterism is a psychological state in which highachieving individuals fail to internalize their accomplishments and have persistent feelings of self-doubt and professional fraudulence, despite their successes. Individuals with IP display an inability toaccurately self-assess their performance and have diminished self-confidence and fear of failure.Imposter phenomenon is quite the opposite to the Dunning-Kruger’s effect (DKE), a specific form ofillusory superiority in which people overestimate their own skills, knowledge, expertise andachievements.Often defined as “being ignorant of one’s own ignorance” DKE describes the scenario where lesscompetent individuals overestimate their abilities and do not have enough insight to know that theyare incompetent and fail to recognize competency in others. In other words, they don’t know whatthey don’t know. The truth is that we all have felt overly confident about our knowledge and skills atone point and felt unjustly like underachievers more often than not.When we did our first session with year one medical students on IP, we were all uncomfortable anddoubted whether we were equipped to really teach students about the topic. However, the two-hoursession went well, and we were able to plan other sessions for more health professions students atNSU. We came to the realization that although IP and DKE appear to be opposite psychologicalstates, they both are associated with inaccurate self-assessment of one’s own abilities, and bothreflect a state of inner conflict that can have negative implications in personal and professionalinteractions, if not addressed.The implications of IP among medical educators and medical students are multifacetedas it negatively affects social, emotional, and psychological well-being and is linked tohigher levels of stress, anxiety, depression, burnout, and poor interpersonalrelationships. Similarly, DKE masks the true competencies of an individual and can be abarrier to professional development, skills acquisition and accepting constructivefeedback. We believe that is crucial to increase awareness about IP and DKE in acompetitive and a demanding medical education environment. It is vital to providevulnerable individuals with tools and there are several academic assessment tools thathave been used including the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale, and The CognitiveReflection Test.Mentorship, practicing mindfulness, peer support, and institutional support are strategiesthat have been successfully established that can assist. Our team have used four key stepsto tackle imposter syndrome. When feelings of self-doubt creep up, we ask ourselves“What is prompting these feelings of imposterism?” Secondly, we try to reframe our thoughtsto focus on our successes and accomplishments and third to “choose” to have a positiveattitude towards the situation. The last step involves making a commitment to ourselves torelease negative feelings by pursuing enriching activities such as Yoga, art, physicalexercise or choosing any supporting activity that makes us feel whole.Mentorship has also been shown to help individuals to become more self-aware.Metacognition is an awareness of one's thought processes and an understanding of thepatterns that are behind those thoughts. Reflecting on our thinking habits is a wonderfulway to improve your abilities to personal thinking patterns. Breaking the cycles ofnegative thought is not easy but replacing a negative thought with a positive one canhelp boost our self-esteem and offer personal power in our decision making.The promotion of mental health wellness is very important to everyone andpodcasts such as A Beautiful Mindset and Who Am I to Talk About Impostor Syndromeand mindfulness applications (Ten Percent Happier, Calm and Headspace) can helpreframe your thoughts. The practice of gratitude and making a regular list of positiveaccomplishments also are quite helpful and very easy to do.When our internal conflicts get in the way of living a happy and healthy andproductive life, then it’s not only important but necessary to dig deeper so we can all beempowered not only for professional growth but for individual growth. When we resolveour internal angst and get in touch with our talents and overcome negative self-talk wecan develop our self-confidence and improve our wellness-mind, body and spirit. Thesestrategies have certainly helped us to grow as individuals and we continue our inner worksince after all, we are a work in progress!

Imposter Phenomenon and Dunning-Kruger Effect: Leveraging Internal Conflicts for Professional Growth and Wellness

https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1192&context=bestill

Imposter Phenomenon and Dunning-Kruger Effect: Leveraging Internal Conflicts for Professional Growth and Wellness

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