Why Smart People Feel Like Frauds: The Psychology of Impostor Syndrome and Its Hidden Benefits

Why Smart People Feel Like Frauds: The Psychology of Impostor Syndrome and Its Hidden Benefits Incompetent people tend to see themselves as not just competent, but highly competent. So, at any rate, holds the theory of the “Dunning-Kruger effect,” previously featured here on Open Culture. But does the converse also hold: do highly competent people tend to see themselves as incompetent? That would seem to be an implication of what’s been called “impostor syndrome,” a persistent sense of inadequacy relative to one’s status or position, unsupported by any objective evidence. If you yourself have been afflicted with that condition, it may be a tad hasty to take it as a sign of your own effectiveness, but as the Harvard Business School’s Arthur C. Brooks explains in the clip above, it may nonetheless benefit you to lean into it. “What all strivers I’ve ever met have in common is that, the higher they climb and the more success they have, the more insecure they feel in their own succ

Added 24 Mar 2026