AUTHOR=Brauer Kay , Barabadi Elyas , Aghaee Elham , Alrabai Fakieh , Elahi Shirvan Majid , Sendatzki Rebekka , Vierow Linnea Marie 

TITLE=Impostor Phenomenon and L2 willingness to communicate: Testing communication anxiety and perceived L2 competence as mediators

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1060091

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1060091

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>The Impostor Phenomenon (IP) describes experiences of perceived intellectual fraudulence despite the existence of objectively good performances, and it is a robust predictor of experiences and outcomes in higher education. We examined the role of the IP in the domain of second language (L2) acquisition by testing its relations with a robust predictor of L2 use, willingness to communicate (WTC). We collected self-reports of 400 adult Iranian L2 learners and tested the associations between the IP and WTC. As expected, we found a negative association between IP and WTC (<italic>r</italic> = −0.13). When testing a mediation model with perceived competence and communication anxiety as parallel mediators, we found evidence for full mediation <italic>via</italic> perceived competence. Our findings show the importance of considering self-evaluations in the domain of L2 acquisition. Further implications and limitations are discussed.</p>