Impostor Syndrome as skill/dominance mismatch

So, to distinguish types of impostor syndrome, I'll refer to the type I typically work with as "unfulfilled ambition". I feel comfortable saying that its cause is a pre-existing self-definition of being unworthy as a person, with the ambitions being driven by a desire to fix or eliminate this unworthiness.

Why? Because altering the perception of unworthiness fixes the problem, as one is no longer seeking the validation that the goals cannot provide. Afterward, people either change goals or enjoy them for what they are, instead of seeking them to fix the hole inside themselves where self-worth was supposed to be.

This is not consistent with the predictions of your model, AFAICT. You hypothesize that impostor syndrome is about altering perceived competence, but people with unfulfilled ambition do not have an inaccurate assessment of their competence. The hypothetical author doesn't believe themselves incapable of writing a book, but rather they seem themselves as a non-author who managed to get a book published. A "real" author would have accomplished more, they think.

While it's true that they are always comparing themselves unfavorably to those who have greater skill, they are not confused as to what their actual skill is. Your model, if I understand it correctly, claims that the author should not keep trying to status climb, since the purpose is to avoid the threat of status claims.

If you succeed to convince yourself that your problem is lack of skill, then working on improving your skill is a rational reaction (given your beliefs), isn't it?

Or maybe the causality is the other way round. People who habitually work on improving their competence are more likely to get into the Impostor situation (and then they continue doing what they always did).

IIUC, you're now contradicting the major premise of your article: that the function of impostor syndrome is to avoid apparent status competition by appearing too competent. So unless you explicitly exclude unfulfilled ambition-style impostor syndrome from your model, ISTM to be a direct refutation of the premise.

A second type of impostor syndrome that's been brought up by others in the thread is "people make a big deal of my skill that I consider modest or unworthy of such praise", which seems functionally more similar to unfulfilled ambition than to the model your article describes. Again, the person experiencing the syndrome does not misperceive their skill, but doesn't consider it to be terribly important.

Why doesn't this match your model? Let's look at a counter-example: using one's competence to claim higher status. Consider the stereotype of the arrogant engineer who believes they know everything, rebelling against the "suits" -- who are likely taller, physically stronger, and far more socially dominant.

If your model were predictive, this should not be possible, or at least not common enough to be a stereotype. The arrogant engineer probably has actually been personally beaten up by people like the people they are going against! Your model predicts that this person should be downplaying their competence, not using it as a weapon.

Next, let us contrast your model with a simpler one: "people can be differently-calibrated regarding what competence levels equate to a role/identity, or a particular level of status". This model elegantly predicts the existence of all the subtypes of impostor syndrome that have to date been reported in this thread, and includes the possibility of overestimation by the arrogant engineer.

Finally, the one category of behavior people have that seems to match your model -- downplaying one's skills so as not to appear arrogant -- is generally not referred to as impostor syndrome. People who are trying not to appear arrogant, out of modesty or lack of confidence, do not generally describe themselves as feeling like an impostor or fake. In order to feel like an impostor or fake from the inside, some kind of dissonance is required between an inside view and an outside view.

That is, I cannot view myself as a "fake" unless I have some concept of what would be "real", in order to experience a discrepancy between the two. In each subtype of impostor syndrome, the two things being compared are different (e.g. whether I "feel like" an author, or whether people's amount of praise feels "appropriate"), but the concept is the same: there is a dissonant comparison.

IOW, I contend that people who are actually experiencing a desire to downplay competence to avoid status competition are highly unlikely to call what they are experiencing "impostor syndrome" or "feeling like a fake". And conversely, that people who do describe their experiences as feeling like a fake or impostor, are highly unlikely to be downplaying their competence to avoid status competition. (vs. merely feeling their competence to be overrated or their status to be under-validated.)

To define an experimental model, I mean that if you take those groups of people, and then determine what exactly is going on in their heads -- by fixing it -- then you could experimentally show that the experience of "fakeness" requires contrasting status perceptions, while downplaying one's competence does not imply an experience of "fakeness".

That is, I don't think that the thing you have described in this article can be meaningfully labeled "impostor syndrome", and that actual people experiencing the thing you have described would be much more likely to self-label as "being modest" or "lacking confidence" or something similar, rather than impostor syndrome.

(This is further supported by the number of people in the comments who have experienced one form of impostor syndrome or another, being confused by your model.)

I would suggest renaming your model and adjusting its explanation accordingly.

I suppose the same situation can be described using different words, so it is difficult to argue what is the correct framing. (I still think this is falsifiable in principle, e.g. by measuring the serotonin levels, but no one probably did that.) To me, this sounds like "people treat me better than I deserve", which means "I don't deserve to be treated well", which is kinda the thing I am pointing towards.

And yeah, the predictions are there to make something sufficiently non-ambiguous. Actually, only the prediction with weightlifting is like that, because what "makes the patient feel stronger or more popular" is also debatable.

If Adam is a 10 in dominance but a 7 in skill*, he probably has what he needs to stay on top but he may feel like an imposter if he compares himself to Bob (6 dominance, 10 skill).  Adam is skilled enough to understand that Bob is better in certain ways.

*Whatever these numbers mean.  This model is for illustration only.