Five Stages Behind Academic Panic and the Fear of Incompetence
For students, the feeling of imposter syndrome may arise early on in our academic careers. This is all too common and may persist throughout the entirety of our academic journeys. Though we are familiar with this phenomenon, what is to be said about its derivative, academic panic? This is an experience I would describe as a continuous cycle of decreased academic performance as a result of debilitated confidence. I argue that this occurrence can be structured and described by five stages. Let’s put this into a scenario to better understand the concept.
(1) Jane is a student who normally performs at a A-average, but recently she received a B- as her final semester grade for Sociology 101. She tells herself that she will forgive herself and do better next semester in order to avoid this from happening again, though this incident lingers in the back of her mind. She begins to do well in the starting weeks of her second semester, but towards the middle weeks she begins to receive Bs more frequently on her assignments. From here she begins to lose confidence in herself but trusts that through improvement she can turn things around. (2) Though she is incredibly anxious Jane studies harder in order to work on raising her grades, but she receives a C on her next assignment. Jane begins to feel completely discouraged from studying harder because she does not know if that will have any effect on her performance and at this point her confidence has dropped tremendously. (3) From this point on she approaches her studies with fear and begins to experience increased anxiety whenever she is working, soemtimes driving her to the point of staring endlessly at a paper for hours because she is afraid she will not find the right thing to say. (4) This further drives her to submit work with a decrease in quality and the results increasingly diminish her confidence in her performance. (5) This becomes a constant occurrence for Jane and she finds herself stuck in an endless cycle of poor grades and a drained confidence in her academic performance.
Five stages can be outlined here:
Initial incident —
- Sets the foundation for fear of academic incompetence and a decrease in self-confidence
Solidifying Incident —
- A secondary, tertiary, etc. occurrence of unfavorable performance
- Solidifies and provides justification for fear and decreased confidence (i.e., “Based on my performance, I was correct to feel as though I am not as smart as I think I am”)
Sustained Distrust —
- Displays apprehension based on continuously decreasing confidence
- May exhibit obstinance. The individual feels invalidated or angered by others’ affirmations of character (i.e., “Don’t say you’re not smart, that isn’t true” or “it’s okay you’ll do better next time”) because they firmly believe that they are simply spiraling downhill in performance
Performance Regression —
- A chronic reduction in academic performance
- Contingent upon sustained distrust because fear of incompetence or lack of self-confidence may cloud their ability to perform well due to overthinking manifesting in physical forms that hinder one’s actions. This may include frequently zoning out or a paralyzed state of anxiety when thinking about performance or in the middle of performance (i.e., when studying)
Cycle Repetition of Stages Three & Four
- A relationship develops where stage four is performance reduces as a result of decreased confidence (because the former is contingent upon the latter)
Although there may be more micro-stages in between these stages, I believe that these are the key phases in academic panic because they allow us to identify where an individual stands in their own experience and, with that, how to begin tackling issues stemming from the targeted stage at hand.
These theorized stages are simply a result of observed behavior among my peers during my time as a UCLA student, and I currently do not have any solid empirical evidence to show for it. Although I have tried to find studies linking to this topic, I did not come across any. Perhaps my Boolean methods of research are just failing me because I do not know which keywords to use…
If anybody has any thoughts or knows of good studies or existing theories surrounding academic panic or fear of incompetence, please let me know in the comments, as this subject is of great interest and I would love to continue building upon it. My goal is to help more students tackle their fears so that they can untangle a debilitating cycle of academic stress.
Thank you for reading and remember that you are fully capable of conquering your anxieties and persevering to success!
This The Study Niche article was written by Marisol Lozano, a UCLA Sociology student.
