Stereotype threat, impostorism, and Black American women: Examining how clinical and social psychological variables affect achievement

The purpose of this study was to examine achievement among Black American women by examining social and clinical psychological variables. This was accomplished by investigating the potential moderating roles of anxiety, psychological mindedness, stigma consciousness, and the impostor phenomenon (a seemingly contradictory variable) on the achievement decrements associated with the stereotype threat phenomenon. This research also endeavored to contribute to the paucity of literature on Black American women and the impostor phenomenon by investigating the relationship between depression and anxiety with this phenomenon. The findings indicated a negative correlation between insight, an aspect of psychological mindedness and the impostor phenomenon, suggesting higher impostor phenomenon scores are related to a lower ability to glean insight from one's emotional experience. In addition, depression and anxiety were positively correlated to psychological mindedness among Black American women. While the impostor phenomenon did not significantly moderate the underperformance effects of stereotype threat underperformance, exploratory analysis found that it actually predicted lowered academic performance across conditions. These findings contradict impostor phenomenon studies and conceptualizations that have suggested impostors possess internal underperformance expectations despite evidence of achievement (Clance & Imes, 1978; King and Cooley, 1995). The results suggest this phenomenon may actually predict underachievement depending on context and demographic.