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‘When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud, and take everything away from me?’
Tom Hanks, winner of two Oscars, four Golden Globes and six Emmys, interviewed in 2016
First coined in a 1978 research paper on high-achieving women in the workplace, the term ‘imposter syndrome’ describes those who believe they have less talent that others think, who attribute any personal successes to luck, and who worry that they’ll ultimately be exposed as the frauds they perceive themselves to be. This kind of reflexive self-doubt is not so much a ‘syndrome’ as it is a widespread state of psychological distortion, with roughly 70 per cent of people experiencing it at some point in their lives. In this video from BBC Ideas, Sandi Mann, a psychologist and lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK, discusses the roots of imposter syndrome and details some practical ways to fight it.
Video by BBC Ideas
Website: We Are Tilt
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Architecture
Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China
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Spirituality
Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan
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Thinkers and theories
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Animals and humans
An artist and ants collaborate on an exhibit of ‘tiny Abstract Expressionist paintings’
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Mathematics
How a curious question about colouring maps changed mathematics forever
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Meaning and the good life
The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor
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Cities
The rise and fall of Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong’s infamous urban monolith
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Art
Inside the unique creative space where ‘outsider’ artists find their form
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Gender
When aggression is viewed as brilliance, it hurts women in science, and science itself
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