Impostor Syndrome and Individual Competence

This talk will look in detail at how cognitive biases such as impostor syndrome impact our ability as technologists to continue learning, our professional output and how we collaborate within our communities and teams. Working with technology requires a lifelong commitment to learning and personal development to keep up with the fast-changing industry. For meaningful learning to take place, individuals need to have an accurate assessment of their current skill set which these biases prevent us from forming.

This talk will look at what these biases are and the costs they carry as well as who is impacted by biases like impostor syndrome, and what kind of tangible effects do these biases have on community participation, output and learning.

We will examine ways to better manage the effects of impostor syndrome for yourself as well as ways to address the effects for your peers and community members. Concrete ways to plan for and better manage the impacts of cognitive biases on our work will be examined. Cognitive biases extend beyond just impostor syndrome, so we’ll also look at issues like the Dunning-Kruger effect to see what context they add to our examination of biases’ impact on our self-assessment.