A Relationship between Perceived Parental Autonomy and ImposterSyndrome among Adolescents

Abstract

The concept of self is structured from building blocks acquired throughout life.
A child’s concept of self receives its foremost influence from their parents, impacted by the
positive or negative parenting practices employed during the early phases of life. Perceived
parental autonomy, a construct explained as the perception of freedom and volition given to
children by their parents to govern their own lives, has significant impact on self-image, selfefficacy and the basic concept of self. A weaker self-concept, owing to low self-esteem and
self-efficacy is characteristic to imposter syndrome- a belief that one’s accomplishments are
misattributed to them and occurred as a result of external factors, thus creating a sense of inadequacy and fraudulence. A quantitative cross-sectional approach was used to measure the
correlation between perceived parental autonomy and imposter syndrome amongst college
students in Islamabad, Pakistan using Perception of Parent Scale and Young Imposter Scale.
Statistically significant correlation was found between the two constructs, showing that increased autonomy increases the likelihood of development of imposter syndrome in Pakistani
context. This study offers empirical evidence to further the conversation around imposter syndrome and inform parenting methods in Pakistani context. It aims to link the diverse domains
of social psychology, developmental psychology and sociology.