(PS6-78) Imposter Phenomena Among College Students with ADHD: The Unexpected Role of School Belonging

Imposter phenomena (IP) is associated with feelings of self-doubt and self-perceived underachievement which can limit academic success and is highly associated with anxiety and depressive disorders.5 The executive functioning deficits associated within ADHD may be met with criticism and blame leading these individuals to develop negative self-concepts, although no studies have directly measured IP among individuals with ADHD. A sense of school belonging signifies feelings of acceptance, respect, inclusion, and support,6, 7 potentially reducing IP.8 This study aimed to examine IP, measured by The Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale and school belongingness, measured by the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale among college students with and without ADHD. Participants (N = 274, Mage = 19.77, 73.1% women, 59.0% White, 16.8% Black, 10.9% Hispanic, 4.8% other) were adult students recruited from a public university in the Southeast region of the United States through a research credit database for Psychology 101. Data was collected via Qualtrics and analyzed on SPSS 29.0. We conducted a univariate ANOVA to determine the difference in average IP among students with and without ADHD, including covariates of age, college semesters, symptoms of depression, and symptoms of anxiety. We found that those with ADHD reported significantly higher IP (M = 3.67, SD = .74) than participants without ADHD (M = 3.11, SD = .80), F(1, 175) = 5.41, p = .021, Ƞp2 = .030. We then conducted a univariate ANOVA to determine if average IP differs by ADHD status, ethnic identity, and/or gender identity, including covariates of age, semesters enrolled in college, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms. Results indicated that neither gender nor ethnicity predict IP, nor did they interact with ADHD diagnosis to predict differences in IP. We conducted a linear regression analysis examining if ADHD moderates the effect of school belongingness on IP to further investigate the difference in mean IP among those with and without ADHD using Hayes PROCESS macro for SPSS. The overall model was statistically significant (F(7, 173) = 14.23, p < .001, R2 = .365), and results showed a significant main effect of ADHD on IP, b = -2.057, t(173) = -3.24, p = .001. Further, there was a significant interaction effect, indicating the effect of school belongingness on IP was moderated by ADHD, F(1, 173) = 14.27, p < .001, R2 = .052. School belongingness was negatively associated with IP among students without ADHD (β = -.214, p = .059), indicating support and acceptance was associated with lower feelings of self-doubt and fears of failure. Intriguingly, among students with ADHD, IP increased as school belongingness increased, b = .66, t(173) = 3.78, p < .001. This counterintuitive finding led us to speculate that high levels of support and encouragement may generate perceived pressure to perform well in college. Alternatively, our data may suggest students with ADHD may engage in more comparison against peers, leading to increased self-doubt and negative perceptions of one’s competence. Monitoring students with ADHD who appear to have strong relationships at school for IP may prevent future incidents of poor academic performance. Further implications and future directions will be discussed.