Using Neutrosophic Trait Measures to Analyze Impostor Syndrome in College Students after COVID-19 Pandemic with Machine Learning

Aug 6, 2026

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Impostor syndrome is characterized by attributing success to luck or external factors rather than one’s abilities, often producing persistent self-doubt and fear of being discovered as “fake.” This work introduces a neutrosophic trait measure framework, refined through refined neutrosophic sets, to represent the psychological trait structure. The study analyzes 200 undergraduate students for impostor syndrome, perfectionism, introversion, and self-esteem following the COVID-19 break in 2021. Neutrosophic trait-based labeling is then used to train machine learning models (SVM, K-NN, and random forest), with SVM achieving the best accuracy of 92.15%.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Impostor syndrome background and prevalence

Related psychological factors

Machine learning modeling overview

Proposed neutrosophic trait measure method

Refined neutrosophic sets representation

Data labeling using trait measures

Experiments and results

Models evaluated (SVM, K-NN, random forest)

Performance comparison

Conclusion

Findings and implications for post-COVID analysis

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems, Vol. 60, 2023 University of New Mexico Using Neutrosophic Trait Measures to Analyze Impostor Syndrome in College Students after COVID-19 Pandemic with Machine Learning Riya Eliza Shaju1;a , Meghana Dirisala2;a , Muhammad Ali Najjar3;a , Ilanthenral Kandasamy4 ;a;􀀃 , Vasantha Kandasamy5;a F Smarandache4 a School of Computer Science and Engineering (SCOPE), Vellore Institute of Technology, Katpadi, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, 632014, India; [1](1 riyaeliza.shaju2019@vitstudent.ac.in)[ riyaeliza.shaju2019@vitstudent.ac.in](1 riyaeliza.shaju2019@vitstudent.ac.in) [2](2 meghana.dirisala2019@vitstudent.ac.in)[ meghana.dirisala2019@vitstudent.ac.in](2 meghana.dirisala2019@vitstudent.ac.in) [3](3 muhammadali.najjar2019@vitstudent.ac.in)[ muhammadali.najjar2019@vitstudent.ac.in](3 muhammadali.najjar2019@vitstudent.ac.in) [5](5 vasantha.wb@vit.ac.in)[ vasantha.wb@vit.ac.in](5 vasantha.wb@vit.ac.in) 6 Dept of Math and Sciences, University of New Mexico, Gallup, NM, United States; [smarand@unm.edu](smarand@unm.edu)[ ](smarand@unm.edu)4 ; 􀀃 Correspondence: [ilanthenral.k@vit.ac.in](ilanthenral.k@vit.ac.in) ; Abstract. Impostor syndrome or Impostor phenomenon is a belief that a person thinks their success is due to luck or external factors, not their abilities. This psychological trait is present in certain groups like women. In this paper, we propose a neutrosophic trait measure to represent the psychological concept of the traitanti trait using re􀀌ned neutrosophic sets. This study analysed a group of 200 undergraduate students for impostor syndrome, perfectionism, introversion and self-esteem: after the COVID pandemic break in 2021. Data labelling was carried out using these neutrosophic trait measures. Machine learning models like Support Vector Machine(SVM), K-nearest neighbour (K-NN), and random forest were used to model the data; SVM provided the best accuracy of 92. 15% . Keywords: Neutrosophic psychology; Impostor syndrome; Neutrosophic trait measure; SVM, KNN; Random forest 1. Introduction Impostor Syndrome or Impostor Phenomenon is a person's internal conviction that their success has happened due to pure chance, an external error, or hard work but not their capabilities or intellect. Individuals with impostor syndrome fear that others will someday learn that they are fakes [1] . They feel they do not belong in their working or academic environment Shaju et al, Using Neutrosophic Trait Measures to analyze Impostor Syndrome ... despite quali􀀌cations, accomplishments, and achievements [2] . Impostor syndrome is appropriate to ethnic, racial, and gender groups [3], especially in creative arts-based careers where success is not readily quanti􀀌able [4] . Impostor syndrome was also thought to be prevalent in women and varies with gender. In 1978, psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes presented the concept of an Impostor phenomenon. Their research examined graduate and undergraduate women who were relatively successful but felt \overvalued" by their counterparts or supervisors and further felt like imposters [5] . Furthermore, this research established that the impostor phenomenon happened more in females than males. It is attributed to how different genders synthesize their success. Men believe success comes from within, while women consider that success comes from outside. To complicate matters, it emerges that the more educated and skilled a woman is, the more she doubts her abilities [6] . Due to this, women with IS often work more than others to 􀀌nally achieve the status they fear they have never earned. [5] coined the term Impostor Phenomenon (IP) to describe a sensation of internal intellectual phoniness that seemed especially widespread among a select group of female highachievers. They were terri􀀌ed of being labelled as \impostors" who did not belong \among all these brilliant, intelligent individuals." Rather than skill or competence, many ascribed their succ

FAQs

What is impostor syndrome and how is it described in the study?

Impostor syndrome is an internal conviction that success results from chance, external errors, or luck rather than personal capability or intellect. The study notes that individuals fear others will eventually realize they are not truly competent.

How does the paper use neutrosophic trait measures for analysis?

The paper proposes a neutrosophic trait measure framework to represent the psychological trait concept using refined neutrosophic sets. This framework is used to label data for subsequent modeling.

Which machine learning model performed best and what accuracy was reported?

Support Vector Machine (SVM) provided the best accuracy, reported as 92.15%. K-NN and random forest were also evaluated for comparison.

Aug 6, 2026

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