Imposter Phenomenon and Self-Handicapping among Medical Students: Moderating Role of Self-Care

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between the imposter phenomenon and self-handicapping behaviors among medical students (MBBS), with a focus on the moderating role of self-care. For this purpose, a sample of N=300 medical students (n=150 men and n=150 women) from private as well as government medical colleges of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and Lahore were assessed, and the data was collected via demographic form and three questionnaires measuring the study variables. The Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (Clance, 1985), Self-Handicapping Scale (Kaur & Raji, 2022), and Self-Compassion Scale Short-form's subscale named self-care (Raes et al., 2011) were used to measure one of the study variables. Correlational analysis, as well as regression and moderation analyses, were performed in order to explore the relationships between the study variables. The statistical analysis revealed that the imposter phenomenon positively correlated with self-handicapping. The interaction effect of the imposter phenomenon and self-care on self-handicapping came out to be significant. The moderator graph showed that self-care weakened the relationship between the imposter phenomenon and self-handicapping. Moreover, the t-test findings revealed that female medical students scored higher on all the study variables except self-care than their male counterparts.