The Casual Relationship of Parental Bonding with Self-Handicapping and Self-Confidence with Mediating Role of Imposter Phenomenon in Graduate Students

The aim of the current study was to examine a model of casual relationship of parental bonding with self-handicapping and self-confidence, with mediating role of imposter phenomenon in graduate students of ShahidChamranUniversity. The sample of this study were 400 graduate students (239 female and 161 male) who were selected by stratified random sampling method. The instruments of this study consisted of Parental Bonding Instrument, Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale, Defensive Self-Presentation Tactics Scale and Esoteric Analogies Test. Path analysis and bootstrapping were used to examine the direct and indirect paths of original model. The findings of the present study indicate that high maternal care leads to increased self-confidence. Low paternal care and paternal protectiveness lead to imposter phenomenon in students. Also, the imposter phenomenon was a positive predictor of self-handicapping. Furthermore, the results indicated that the indirect paths of low paternal care and paternal protectiveness, with self-handicapping, mediated by imposter phenomenon, were significant. A modified model was also tested and fitted better to the data.