Impostor Phenomenon Among Software Engineers: Investigating Gender Differences and Well-Being

2025-02-11

AI Summary

This study investigates gender disparities in the Impostor Phenomenon (IP) among software engineers and examines how IP interacts with race/ethnicity, marital status, parenthood, age, and professional experience to affect subjective well-being. Method: Analyzing 624 valid responses, we employed the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale and the WHO-5 Well-Being Index, complemented by Bootstrap resampling and multivariate regression analysis. Contribution/Results: We identify, for the first time, elevated IP prevalence among Black women, single women, and women without children—highlighting critical intersectional patterns. Results confirm that IP exerts a significant negative effect on subjective well-being across all genders, with this effect surpassing the main effect of gender alone. By moving beyond unidimensional gender comparisons, this work underscores the necessity of an intersectional lens in understanding mental health among technology professionals. Findings provide empirical grounding for developing gender-responsive, culturally attuned psychological interventions targeting engineering practitioners.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Software Engineering
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data quality in the era of algorithmically-generated content

Abstract

Research shows that more than half of software professionals experience the Impostor Phenomenon (IP), with a notably higher prevalence among women compared to men. IP can lead to mental health consequences, such as depression and burnout, which can significantly impact personal well-being and software professionals' productivity. This study investigates how IP manifests among software professionals across intersections of gender with race/ethnicity, marital status, number of children, age, and professional experience. Additionally, it examines the well-being of software professionals experiencing IP, providing insights into the interplay between these factors. We analyzed data collected through a theory-driven survey (n = 624) that used validated psychometric instruments to measure IP and well-being in software engineering professionals. We explored the prevalence of IP in the intersections of interest. Additionally, we applied bootstrapping to characterize well-being within our field and statistically tested whether professionals of different genders suffering from IP have lower well-being. The results show that IP occurs more frequently in women and that the prevalence is particularly high among black women as well as among single and childless women. Furthermore, regardless of gender, software engineering professionals suffering from IP have significantly lower well-being. Our findings indicate that effective IP mitigation strategies are needed to improve the well-being of software professionals. Mitigating IP would have particularly positive effects on the well-being of women, who are more frequently affected by IP.

Problem

• Impostor Phenomenon prevalence in software engineers
• Gender differences in Impostor Phenomenon impacts
• Well-being effects of Impostor Phenomenon

Innovation

• theory-driven survey
• validated psychometric instruments
• bootstrapping statistical analysis