The Cheering Section I Didn’t Know I Needed

 

“Way to go!"

“You’re looking great!”

“Keep it up!”

 

He yelled and clapped as I ran by. I turned my head, smiled, and waved.

 

The occasion for this enthusiastic outburst?

I was running. At a park. By myself.

 

No, I wasn’t in a race. No, I wasn’t even running with anyone else, so there was no competition happening. And no, the trail isn’t hilly or treacherous. It’s completely flat, which is why I run there one day a week.

 

So why all the fuss?

 

I run a lot slower than I used to. In fact, some people might mistake my running for loitering— “Why is that woman just standing in the street? Oh, wait… she’s jogging. My bad.” So, a three-mile run gave me plenty of time to think about it.

 

Maybe he cheered because I looked older than most of the people out there, I thought to myself. When I did some quick calculations in my head, I realized he wasn’t wrong. Most runners on the trail are decades younger than me.

 

But the truth is that my running isn’t some statistical anomaly.  I’m not the only “older” runner out here. Millions of us lace up every week, including approximately 5.1 million women in my age group.

 

Clearly, the CBS Sunday Morning Show isn’t going to film a segment titled “Holy Smokes! 61-Year-Old Woman Runs Three Days a Week” with baffled world-renowned doctors weighing in on my “unprecedented athleticism.” So, nope, that can’t be it.

 

As I rounded the loop, there he was again. This time, I observed more: he appeared to be in his 80s, with all the typical signs of a coach, like the ball cap, the way his eyes seem to encourage, and the posture that says “coach.” And once more, with even more energy, he cheered.

 

“Looking strong!”

“You got this!”

 

The smile on my face was about as big a smile as I’ve had all week. And I admit that I picked up my pace a bit, wanting to meet his faith in me with a good performance.

 

It struck me then that we can all use a cheerleader sometimes. Or maybe every day.

 

Later, I stopped at Costco for a few things. Usually, my partner sends me shopping not just with a list but with a map (including aisle numbers). You see, I am as geographically challenged in the grocery store as I am on the highway. But this time, I was on my own. When I actually found the Mr. Clean sponges without a GPS, I felt absurdly proud, and honestly, I thought I deserved a cheer. “Way to go! You found the sponges! You’re killing it today!”

 

I may never know exactly why that man cheered me on. But I do know this: it made my day. And maybe, just maybe, it made his, too.

 

I plan to start fully embracing my inner cheerleader. I'm going to try to make my words an unexpected high-five: "I see you, and you're doing great," for no reason at all. It's not about fixing anything; it's just about making the world a slightly brighter place. And the best part? I've found that when you shine a light on someone else, you can't help but feel a little warmer and brighter yourself.

 

Psychologists even have a term for this: the Helper’s High. Research shows that encouraging others releases endorphins and dopamine, the same feel-good chemicals we get from exercise or laughter. That’s why cheering someone on doesn’t just lift their spirits; it also makes you feel good, too.

 

 So go ahead. Be someone’s surprise cheerleader today. You never know whose day you could brighten.

The Call Is Coming from Inside the Office

 

“They’re going to figure it out. Time’s up. I’m not half as smart as I’ve led them to believe.  Any moment now, they are going to learn the truth about me. I am an impostor.” The fear isn’t external. It’s inside me, a voice whispering like a horror-movie twist: The call is coming from inside the office.

This voice didn’t just show up in my first year as an assistant professor of psychology. That would’ve made sense. But the thing is, this voice showed up in year six, right after I had earned tenure and been promoted to an associate professor.  It grew louder in year 15 when I was asked to give a keynote address, and I wondered how in the world I ended up on this stage. It was sharp in year 27 when I chaired a department and felt like I had no idea what I was doing.  And yes, it is still there, yelling in my ear in my 31^st year as a professor.

Thirty-one years - a full career. I have taught numerous students, published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, presented more than 100 conference presentations, co-authored three books, and received numerous teaching awards, among other notable accomplishments. And still, some part of me waits for the knock on my door or the email in my inbox (the dreaded 5:00 pm Friday email), the moment someone says: “We made a mistake.  You’re not really supposed to be here”.

That’s impostor syndrome, and it's not a brief moment of doubt that most of us have every once in a while.  It’s a long-standing feeling that seems to greet me with every success, with every new role or committee assignment, with every new manuscript, and especially with every failure or mediocre review of my teaching or research.

So what is “impostor syndrome”?  Is this a real thing, or just self-doubt?  It is indeed a real thing, first identified back in the 1970s by Clance and Imes.  In their seminal manuscript, they define imposter syndrome as “an internal experience of intellectual phoniness in individuals who persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.” Yep, that sounds familiar. I have spent a career believing that I have fooled my students, colleagues, department chair, and dean. But it’s not a rational belief. More recent definitions of impostor syndrome reflect the irrationality of this belief.  Orbé-Austin and Orbé-Austin (2020) define impostor syndrome as “An internal experience of believing that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be, despite objective evidence of your success.”

This is the heart of the paradox. Despite a numerous and, dare I say, exhaustive list of academic achievements, I am still awaiting the knock on my door by someone with a box in their hand telling me the gig is up; pack and leave, sister. Orbe-Austin and Orbe-Austin’s research shows that it’s because we do not internalize our accomplishments.  You see, when we are making judgements about the causes of our successes (and we do this for our failures as well), we essentially have two paths – we can take credit for our success (“I won the Excellence in Teaching award this year because I am an excellent instructor”), or we can attribute that success to something external (“the award committee must have just drawn names from a hat this year and somehow my name was called”).  And for me, well, I usually attribute the causes of my successes to luck or hard work, because, you know, I am an impostor.

Perhaps the cruelest part of impostor syndrome is that no one ever talks about it. We are quick (thankfully) to celebrate achievements, promotions, degrees, and awards, but we rarely mention the fear that we may not have truly earned them. 

When I won a teaching award in 2021, I recall saying something like, ‘Oh, thank you so much.  This award is such an honor…” I might have been thinking, “What? Me? Are you sure you meant to choose me?” But I’d never say it out loud.  Imposter syndrome seems to thrive on silence, which only feeds the belief that we are the only ones.  We think that everyone else is confident, competent, and certain, and we are the outliers.  But are we?

Heck no!  The data suggests that a whole bunch of people have experienced impostor syndrome. Research suggests that nearly 70% of the general public will experience this syndrome at least once in their lifetime. Up to 82% of college students report experiencing impostor feelings at some point. The prevalence of impostor syndrome ranges from 30% to 60% among graduate and medical students. A 2019 study of U.S. employees found that 62% had experienced impostor syndrome at work. And it’s not just the “normal” people who experience impostor syndrome.  Last summer, I watched a video featuring some of the best actresses of my generation (Jodie Foster, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Aniston, and others).  At one point, Jennifer Aniston says that most of the time, she has no idea what she is doing. Jodie Foster quickly agreed and said she feels the same way.  What? Jodie Foster and Jennifer Aniston feel like they are frauds?!  And more recently, both Hoda Kotb and Joanna Gaines spent nearly an entire podcast talking about how they felt like impostors in their respective professions.  And these are all people who are the very best at what they do!

In short, it’s not just me!  Many people in various fields, including education, employment, and entertainment, have felt like a fraud at some point in their lives. Yet we hardly ever talk about it. And honestly, after 31 years in my career, I’d love to finally be done talking about it, too.

I used to think it would fade with time.  That one day I would feel secure.  Like a “real” professor.  Someone who belonged.  But impostor syndrome finds a way to adapt.  It kind of grows with you and finds new angles.  Sometimes after a talk, I would think, “Well, that wasn’t so great”.  Whenever I publish a paper, yes, I celebrate, but the self-talk says, “They must not have had many submissions”. But because I keep performing “good enough”, no one seems to suspect a thing, and I become an expert in hiding fear.

I wish I could say that I didn’t always feel this way, but on my bookshelf in my office, I have

this book that I have been carrying around with me since 1986. My mother gave it to me when I was an undergraduate at the University of Delaware.  I think it was around the time I was getting ready to defend my Senior Honors Thesis, and for sure, I thought I was a fake and the committee, finally, would figure out that I not only deserved to fail my defense, but heck, they better not award me that bachelor's degree either. I did pass that day, received my bachelor's degree, and went on to have a successful career as a social psychologist.

I am not free from impostor syndrome.  Not yet, and maybe not ever.  But I have stopped treating it as if it were the truth. Nowadays, when the self-talk says, “they are so going to figure you out”, I say back, “Figure out what?  That I care deeply about my students? That I’ve worked hard? That I’d show up, again and again, for 31 more years?” If that’s what “they” figure out, then maybe I’m exactly who I’ve claimed to be all along.

How about you?  Do you think you’ve had moments of impostor syndrome? Curious if any of this rings true for you? Try the Clance Impostor Syndrome Scale and see how you score.

Not Dead, Not Stronger: Rethinking the Phrase That Won’t Die

 

“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” We’ve all heard the saying (maybe even sang along to the Kelly Clarkson tune), but when I think of the things that didn’t kill me, “stronger” is not the word that comes to mind. The problem with this phrase isn’t just that it’s inaccurate—it’s that it pressures survivors to perform strength instead of honoring their real, messy journeys. So why do we keep saying it?

Reflecting more deeply on this question, I considered some of my own life experiences, focusing on whether they made me “stronger” (they obviously did not kill me, or I would not be able to write this blog). I recall a situation from my seventh-grade year. My younger sister and I were sledding down a neighbor’s driveway on a flexible flyer sled (I would later question just how flexible this sled actually was). My sister was on top of me as we sped down the driveway.

Another kid, sledding right next to us, decided to have a little fun and veered into our lane. It was entertaining to play chicken with the kid until I realized we were headed straight toward a tree at the bottom of the driveway. I yelled for my sister to “bail,” but she either did not hear me or did not understand that I meant, “Please get off of my back right now, or we are going to crash into this tree, and I am going to break my arm.” Needless to say, we crashed into the tree, and I broke my arm. The real trauma, though, was not breaking my arm; it was what happened next. My sister and I walked home to break the news of my injured arm to my parents, only to learn that this was not a good time to summon them. You see, their marriage was in deep trouble (they would divorce a year later), and by then, my brothers, sister, and I had learned to read the room pretty well. Our reading of the room on this particular day suggested that we better not tell them just yet. So, I waited it out. My older brother and younger sister (yes, the one who refused to “bail”) doted on me and assured me that everything would be all right. I am grateful that we had one another. Eventually, my parents pulled themselves together enough for my mom to take me to the ER, where I left with a six-week cast. Did this experience make me stronger? For sure, a broken arm is never going to be stronger than one that was never broken, but I would still have to answer the question with a “yes,” although I am not sure “stronger” is the right word. This situation taught me that I can endure pain, that I can put another’s needs before my own, and that I can rely on other people (my brother and sister) for comfort. So, yes, the phrase, with some qualifications, may apply in this case. Let me tell you about another life event, though.

If the sledding accident taught me fleeting resilience, another childhood moment taught me the opposite: that some wounds don’t heal into strength. As I mentioned, my parents' marriage was deeply troubled, partly because my father was an alcoholic. My mother was desperate to save her family, evidenced by her strong commitment to attending Al-Anon meetings (which support families of alcoholics). So, when I was around 12 years old, she dropped off my brothers, my sister, and me at the mall (this was a typical thing to do in the 1970s) while she attended her Al-Anon meeting, which was about 10 minutes away. We did what kids do at a mall while my mother took care of her needs. Everything was fine until the mall closed, and my mother was not there to pick us up when she said she would. The mall security guard let us wait inside the mall doors and frequently drove by to check on us, but we didn’t know what to do. Remember, this was before cell phones. Additionally, we were all relatively young at the time, with ages ranging from 6 to 13, and lacked the life experience to either contact her or someone to come and get us. I recall feeling panicked—did something bad happen to my mother? Was she abandoning us? What if no one ever came to get us—would we end up as “mall children” (I am not even sure what that means)? Again, this experience did not kill me, but did it make me stronger? NO! It did not make me stronger. What it did was instill a fear of abandonment that I still have to this very day. A few years ago, my partner and I were coordinating a trip to campus – she had to be on one end of campus, and I had to be on the other. She said, “I will drop you off and pick you up whenever I am done.” My reaction? “No, that's not going to work for me.” You see, even now, with access to a cell phone and the ability to call a dozen people for a ride and with Uber just a click away, I am not going to put myself in a situation where I have no way out. Sometimes, the things that don’t kill us do not make us stronger. Research backs this up: trauma can rewire the brain for hypervigilance, not strength. My fear of abandonment isn’t a failure of resilience—it’s proof that survival leaves scars.

So why do we use this phrase so often? As a social psychologist, I can think of several reasons why we cling to it. For one, we dislike psychological discomfort, which social psychologists refer to as cognitive dissonance. When we or others face hardship, we alleviate dissonance (the discomfort of pain without purpose) by reframing the experience as character-building or as a pathway to personal growth and resilience. When we hear about other people’s misfortunes, such as getting sick, being in a car accident, or losing a loved one, it makes us feel uneasy. One way we ease that discomfort is by rationalizing the situation and believing that they will ultimately prevail. After all, it will make them stronger.

Another reason we tend to cling to this phrase is what social psychologists refer to as belief in a just world. People want to believe that the world is fair—that bad things lead to good outcomes and that suffering has a purpose. This makes perfect sense! We want to learn from our experiences, whether positive or negative. I want to believe that my ill-fated sled ride has meaning. And it does. I learned, at a young age, how to endure pain and how to be empathetic—traits that have served me well throughout my life. Even the prospect of being a mall child had a purpose; I now know the situations that make me feel safe. Those events in my life were meaningful. Similarly, when I learn that the flood that took someone’s home led them to a new city where they discovered a more fulfilling career and a supportive community, it reinforces that deep human desire to make sense of suffering. Even if the pain doesn’t disappear, finding meaning in it helps us move forward. However, we must be cautious not to assume that every hardship automatically brings strength. Sometimes, growth comes despite the pain, not because of it—and that’s an important distinction.

And that leads me to my point—maybe what doesn’t kill us doesn’t necessarily make us stronger; perhaps it makes us more resilient. The person who lost their house in a flood and ended up couch surfing for the next two years? Resilient. But even resilience isn't a straightforward path. It's not guaranteed, it’s not always visible, and it certainly isn’t something we owe the world after experiencing pain. Resilience can manifest in smaller ways, such as asking for help or simply surviving another day. Resilience doesn’t always come with a big triumphant moment—it can be quiet, messy, or slow. Sometimes, just making it through is enough. For some people, the pressure to “bounce back” quickly or to emerge stronger from every hardship can feel like an additional burden. We need to make space for all the ways people respond to pain without measuring their worth by how much they’ve “overcome.”

So instead of insisting that every hardship should produce strength, we might focus on validating pain, supporting healing, and allowing people the grace to emerge as they do—changed, perhaps, but not always stronger. And that’s enough.

Who Decided I’m Retirement-Ready? (Spoiler: Not Me.)

 

“Congratulations on your retirement.” Wait, what? I’m not retiring! I’m only 61 years old! 

Recently, a campus-wide email announced that I was stepping down as department chair—and suddenly, the retirement congratulations started pouring in. But the message never said I was retiring. Why did everyone assume that’s what it meant? And now that I think about it, people have been asking me about retirement for a while now—friends, colleagues, neighbors. I am not even thinking about retirement…. except maybe for retirement planning books I have been reading.  And, yeah, I listen to a podcast about psychologists who are contemplating retirement.  I also joined an affinity group for my professional organization with retiring psychologists.  But other than that, I hardly think about retirement 😊, so why are people asking me if I will retire? I am only 61 years old.  Here's the thing - we don't ask just anyone about retirement. We ask people who look like they are old enough to retire. Do I look like I am old enough to retire?  It didn’t start that way.

You see, for all of my life (well, apparently not ALL of my life), I looked very young for my age. Consider these two experiences from my rookie faculty days:  I'll never forget walking into a faculty committee meeting. Before I could even take a seat, someone blocked my path and said, 'This meeting is for faculty members.  I said, “I am a faculty member.  My name is Beth Dietz”.  I knew why she stopped me.  I did not look old enough to be a faculty member.  To be sure, this picture of me appeared in the campus newspaper when I was promoted and tenured (I was 36 years old). Looking back on it now, no wonder people assumed I looked more like a student than a faculty member. I recall

another time when I pulled into a parking space in the section of the parking lot reserved for “Faculty and Staff.”  I was no sooner out of my car when the person who parked a few spaces down was at my door, letting me know in no uncertain terms that this area of the parking lot was reserved for faculty!  But I was faculty.  Why can’t people see that?  Oh yeah, because I looked like I was 12. My appearance didn’t just affect assumptions about my age—it also played into deeper gendered expectations about authority and professionalism.

Ugh, I hated that.  It was challenging enough to be a female professor, where I was frequently referred to as Miss or, more simply, by my first name, “Beth, I missed class last week, so I need to take the exam this week.” My male colleagues rarely complained that they were called anything but “Dr.”.  When you are taught by someone who looks more like your little sister, well, no wonder I was rarely addressed as “Dr.”.   I also didn’t like that I got carded all the time. I was old enough to drink at 18, so why am I still being carded at 35?

I rarely got sympathy for my youthful looks from anyone.  “Someday, you will appreciate that you look so young.”  I didn’t doubt that someday I would appreciate it, but not that day…or the next.  I wanted gray hair.  I wanted wrinkles.  I wanted to look old.  I wanted RESPECT. That’s really what it was.  I just wanted to be respected and thought looking old would get me that respect. Instead, it’s getting me pushed right out the door.

I am not sure when I started to “look my age.” Sure, I am mostly gray now, and I have wrinkles and jowls. Being department chair for four years probably aged me more than I realized. To be fair, I do not fear aging or looking older. But I guess I didn’t expect the stereotypes to be applied so soon. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2021), the median retirement age is 64 for men and 62 for women. Okay, so maybe people assume I will retire soon because I am close to the average retirement age.  However, for professors in higher education, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP, 2020) reports that a significant portion of faculty retire between 65 and 70, with some continuing into their 70s. Yes, I am close to 65 but nowhere near 70.

It’s ironic—and infuriating—how quickly societal scripts flip on us. For decades, I fought the "young woman" label, craving the privilege that ties competence to age (and, let’s be honest, to masculinity). Now, seemingly overnight, I’ve been typecast as "retirement-ready"—not because of my plans, but because of a few gray hairs and the assumption that older faces get shown the door.

Social psychology explains this as shifting standards bias -  the same traits (youth/age) are interpreted differently depending on context. At 30, my baby face made me "unqualified"; at 61, it’s presumed I’m "done." We don’t just see age—we have a script for it, often unconsciously. And the bias is gendered: studies show men are more likely to be viewed as "seasoned" with age, while women are pushed toward "obsolete" earlier. Case in point: the median retirement age for women in the U.S. is 62 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2021), yet professors—especially women—are often asked years before they intend to leave (AAUP, 2020).

So here’s my question: Who decided I’ve aged out of my career—and why does their timeline override mine? Maybe it’s time to retire the stereotypes instead. 

Here’s my plan: I’ll retire when I want to. Until then, I’ll keep teaching, keep writing, and maybe—just maybe—help rewrite the script.