Women feel like imposters in disciplines from underrepresented racial and ethnic

groups, according to a new study.

The research follows up on a previous finding that in fields that value sheer
brilliance over hard work, such as mathematics and physics, fewer women graduate
with Ph.D.s. The researchers of that study couldn’t say whether some fields do, in
fact, require a greater degree of innate talent. But they concluded the belief
itself may “discourage participation among members of groups that are currently
stereotyped as not having this sort of brilliance.”

The new study extends that work by examining whether academics in “brilliance”-
oriented fields feel like they don’t belong. Based on surveying nearly 5000 STEM
(science, technology, engineering, and math) and humanities graduate students,
postdocs, medical residents, and faculty members at nine U.S. universities,
researchers found women in fields that value brilliance were more likely to report
feeling like frauds than their male peers. These feelings were more prevalent among
women from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups than among white and Asian
women. Graduate students and postdocs also reported doubting their abilities more
so than faculty members—especially in fields that value brilliance. (Respondents
who are nonbinary weren’t included in the study because of small sample sizes.)

The study’s findings indicate the problem is deeply rooted in the cultural
environment academics have to navigate—both within academia and beyond, says Sarah-
Jane Leslie, a philosophy professor at Princeton University who co-authored the
study, which was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology last week.
“It’s much harder to come up with examples in popular culture of women,
particularly women of color, who, like a Sherlock Holmes or a Dr. House, have that
kind of special raw brilliance,” she says. “Even when accomplished women, like a
Hermione Granger, are shown, their intellect is often grounded in hard work,
dedication, and long hours in the library, as opposed to some kind of wild, innate,
untaught intellect.”

Rachel Ivie, a senior research fellow at the American Institute of Physics, agrees,
adding that the study’s focus on the interactions between multiple aspects of ones’
identity—in this case, gender, race, and ethnicity—is particularly important. “If
we want to understand how fields like physics can retain the best talent, we have
to understand how the climate in physics is affecting people differently based on
their intersectional statuses,” she says.

Leslie and her colleagues, including Melis Muradoglu, the lead author of this
study, hope the findings spur academics to hold institutions accountable for their
workplace culture. “A lot of recommendations for how to manage imposter feelings
focus on what the individual can do—like, ‘just accept your own success’ or maybe
‘articulate how you’re feeling to a mentor or a colleague,’” says Muradoglu, a
Ph.D. candidate in psychology at New York University. The advice is “well-
intentioned and sometimes helpful, but the responsibility really should be on the
workplace to create welcoming environments for us.”

It may also be time to move away from terms like “brilliance” and “imposter
syndrome,” says Ebony McGee, an associate professor of diversity and STEM education
at Vanderbilt University who was not involved with this study. “People always want
to say that everybody gets imposter syndrome and it’s normal, but it’s not normal
when you are positioned as an imposter. Often, this is how you are perceived—not
how you’re perceiving yourself—and you internalize that