PhronesisWe apply the Displacement Framework to impostor syndrome, formalizing it as entrapment in a wrong attractor W_impostor — a self-concept fixed at 'not good enough' / 'I will be found out' that resists updating by contradicting evidence. The competence ground state S°_competence is defined as calibrated self-assessment: accurate mapping of achievement to capability, comfortable ownership of professional identity, and tolerable uncertainty without catastrophizing.
The wrong attractor is maintained by three mechanisms: attribution asymmetry (successes attributed externally to luck/charm; failures attributed internally to incompetence — making the self-concept epistemically unfalsifiable), the overperformance loop (impostor fear drives overworking, which produces success, which is attributed to overworking rather than competence, perpetuating the cycle), and challenge avoidance preventing disconfirming evidence from accumulating.
Nine formal propositions are derived covering: S°_competence as calibrated self-assessment, W_impostor as the unfalsifiable wrong attractor, attribution asymmetry as wrong-attractor maintenance, the overperformance loop as basin-deepening behavior, the success-escalation paradox (greater external success deepens rather than resolves the basin), stereotype threat as externally imposed structural D(ξ) distinct from individual attribution error, the effective displacement model D_effective = D_internal + D_ambient for marginalized group members, peer disclosure as normalization intervention, and distinguishing individual cognitive distortion from structural discrimination as critical for correct intervention selection.
The political risk of diagnosing marginalized people with 'impostor syndrome' when they face real structural discrimination is analyzed as misattributing ambient D(ξ) to internal wrong-attractor dynamics.