Date of Defense

4-22-2025

Date of Graduation

4-2025

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Patrick R Cundiff

Second Advisor

Felix Brooks

Abstract

Imposter syndrome (IS) is a psychological phenomenon that many people can experience throughout their life, especially for students pursuing higher education. It can be described as feeling unworthy of one's accomplishments, or being “found out” as a fraud. Certain demographics may suffer from imposter syndrome more than others, like students in STEM or first generational students. Thus, it is important to better understand the prevalence of imposter syndrome here at Western Michigan University. This issue was studied by conducting a survey among undergraduate students looking at demographic information and severity of imposter syndrome. The data was then coded and analyzed to better understand whether imposter syndrome is prevalent among undergraduates and if demographics like STEM students and first generational students suffer more from imposter syndrome. It was hypothesized that imposter syndrome was prevalent at moderate levels, and that STEM students and First-generation students had higher levels of imposter syndrome compared to their counterparts. A binomial test and multiple t-tests were conducted to test these hypotheses. The binomial test gave support to the hypothesis that moderate levels of imposter syndrome are present at WMU. However, the t-tests proved that there was no statistically significant difference between STEM and non-STEM students (p = 0.629) at moderate and above levels of IS. Similarly, there was no statistically significant difference between first generation and continuing generation students with no/low scores of IS (p = 0.870), and those with moderate and above levels of IS (p = 0.066). These findings suggest that there is a prevalence of imposter syndrome, but that there is no difference in the level at which different demographics experience imposter syndrome. A limitation to this study was that the sample size was small (n = 42). Further research, with a bigger sample, is needed to fully understand the prevalence and impact that imposter syndrome has on students at WMU.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access

Additional Files
Presentation.pdf (318 kB)
Defense Presentation
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