Imposter Syndrome
In the imposter syndrome (or imposter phenomenon), highly successful people believe that they are less intelligent and capable than their peers and fear being exposed as such. In these papers, I develop and defend a theory of imposter syndrome as a form of motivated cognition. Specifically, I argue that (some) individuals with imposter syndrome are biased towards negative beliefs for the sake of self-motivation. The theoretical side of the project develops this theory and draws out its implications. The empirical side of the project uses paradigms from the motivated cognition literature to test the theory’s predictions.
Gadsby, S. (2023). Is imposter syndrome really a syndrome?. Culturico. (Blog Post)
Gadsby, S., & Hohwy, J. (2024) Negative performance evaluation in the imposter phenomenon. Current Psychology. 43, 9300–9308. (Published | Preprint)
Gadsby, S., & Hohwy, J. (2023). Incentivising accuracy reduces bias in the imposter phenomenon. Current Psychology, 42(32), 27865-27873. (Published | Preprint)
Gadsby, S. (2022). Imposter syndrome and self-deception. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 100(2), 247-261. (Published | Final Draft | Blog Post)
Eating Disorders and Misbeliefs
In these papers, I attempt to explain why some people with eating disorders (anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa) hold false beliefs about their own body size—why they believe that they are overweight when, in fact, they are thin (often dangerously so). I argue that such beliefs are caused by misleading experiences of body size, which stem from distorted body representations (see the ‘Body Representation’ project). I’m also interested in the implications of this account for the rationality of eating disorders.
Gadsby, S. (2023). Anorexia nervosa, body dissatisfaction, and problematic beliefs. Review of Philosophy and Psychology. (Published | Final Draft)
Gadsby, S. (forthcoming). Delusions in anorexia nervosa. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Delusion, ed. E. Sullivan-Bissett. Routledge. (Final Draft)
Gadsby, S., & Nanay, B. (2022). Is ‘feeling fat’ really a manifestation of underlying sadness?. Psyche. (Open Access | Turkish Translation)
Gadsby, S. (2023). The rationality of eating disorders. Mind & Language, 38(3), 732-749. (Open Access | Blog Post)
Gadsby, S., & Hohwy, J. (2020). Why use predictive processing to explain psychopathology? The case of anorexia nervosa. The Philosophy and Science of Predictive Processing, eds. S. Gouveia, R. Mendonça, & M. Curado. Bloomsbury. (Final Draft)
Gadsby, S. (2020). Self-deception and the second factor: How desire causes delusion in anorexia nervosa. Erkenntnis, 85(3), 609-626. (Published | Final Draft | Blog Post)
Academic context: Response.
Gadsby, S. (2019). Manipulating body representations with virtual reality: clinical implications for anorexia nervosa. Philosophical Psychology, 32:6, 898-922. (Published | Final Draft)
Gadsby, S. (2017). Explaining body size beliefs in anorexia. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 22(6), 495-507. (Published | Final Draft)
Gadsby, S. (2017). Anorexia nervosa and oversized experiences. Philosophical Psychology, 30, 594-615. (Published | Final Draft)
Measuring Misperception in Eating Disorders
In line with the claim that those with eating disorders believe that they are overweight because they perceive themselves as such, I attempt to measure the self-misperception associated with these disorders. In these papers, I document and discuss the methodological challenges faced by this task and try to overcome those challenges by developing novel paradigms.
Gadsby, S., Zopf, R., Brooks, K., Schumann, A., de la Cruz, F., Rieger, K., Murr, J., Wutzler, U., & Bär, K. (2023). Testing visual self-misperception in anorexia nervosa using a symmetrical body size estimation paradigm. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 56(11), 2149-2154. (Published | Preprint)
Gadsby, S. (2021). Visual self-misperception in eating disorders. Perception, 50(11), 933-949. (Published | Final Draft)
Engel, M., Gadsby, S., Corcoran, A., Keizer, A., Dijkerman, C., Hohwy, J. (2022) Waiting longer, feeling fatter: Effects of response delay on tactile distance estimation and confidence in anorexia nervosa. Brain and Behavior, 12(3), e2422. (Open Access)
‘Irrational’ Belief
Beyond my interest in the beliefs associated with eating disorders and the impostor syndrome, I am interested in beliefs more generally, particularly those that appear irrational. To that end, I work on issues related to the explanation and classification of delusional, conspiracist, and biased beliefs, as well as neurotypical beliefs.
Gadsby, S. (2024). Motivational pessimism and motivated cognition. Synthese. 203, 119, 1-18. (Published | Final Draft)
van de Cruys, S., Bervoets, J., Gadsby, S., Gijbels, D., & Poels, K. (2023). Insight in the conspiracist’s mind. Personality and Social Psychology Review. (Open Access)
Media Coverage: Salon.
Gadsby, S. (2023). Bad beliefs: automaticity, arationality, and intervention. Philosophical Psychology, 36(4), 778-791. (Published | Final Draft)
Tappin, B., & Gadsby, S. (2019). Biased belief in the Bayesian brain: a deeper look at the evidence. Consciousness and Cognition, 65, 107-114. (Published | Final Draft | Blog Post)
Clutton, P., & Gadsby, S. (2018). Delusions, harmful dysfunctions, and treatable conditions. Neuroethics, 11(2), 167-181. (Published | Final Draft)
Clutton, P., Gadsby, S., & Klein, C. (2017). Taxonomising delusions: content or aetiology?. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 22(6), 508-527. (Published | Final Draft | Blog Post)
Body Representation
These papers are about how we mentally represent our own bodies. Primarily, I’m interested in the cognitive ontology of body representations, which involves questions such as ‘How many body representations are there?’, ‘How are they related?’, and ‘What are their functional properties?’. To answer these questions, I draw from evidence of body representation distortion in eating (and other) disorders and, in turn, I apply models of body representation to understand this distortion.
Gadsby, S., & Hohwy, J. (2022). Predictive processing and body representation. The Routledge Handbook of Bodily Awareness, eds. A. Alsmith & M. Longo. Routledge. (Final Draft)
Gadsby, S. (2019). Body representations and cognitive ontology: Drawing the boundaries of the body image. Consciousness and Cognition, 74, 102772. (Published | Final Draft)
Gadsby, S., & Williams, D. (2018). Action, affordances, and anorexia: body representation and basic cognition. Synthese, 195(12), 5297–5317. (Published | Final Draft)
Gadsby, S. (2018). How are the spatial characteristics of the body represented? A reply to Pitron & de Vignemont. Consciousness and Cognition, 62, 183-168. (Published | Final Draft)
Gadsby, S. (2017). Distorted body representations in anorexia nervosa. Consciousness and Cognition, 51, 17-33. (Published | Final Draft)
Academic context: Response.