Workplace Causality Orientations Moderate Impostorism and Burnout: New Insights for Wellness Interventions in Graduate Medical Education.

Impostor phenomenon (IP) is strongly linked to physician burnout, but the nature of this association is not well understood. A better grasp of the mechanism between these constructs could shed new light on ways to mitigate physician IP and burnout. Grounded in self-determination theory (SDT), the present study explores whether and how residents' general causality orientations at work-impersonal, controlled, and autonomous-each moderate the effect of IP on physician burnout. We theorized that the autonomous orientation would buffer the facilitative effect of IP on burnout, while the controlled and impersonal orientations would each enhance it to varying degrees. Two hundred forty-three residents from the Universities of Saskatchewan, Calgary, and Alberta, across various programs, specialties, and years of training, completed a survey containing demographic questions and three previously validated instruments: the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale, Causality Orientations at Work Scale, and Oldenburg Burnout Inventory. We used partial correlation analyses to test our moderation hypotheses. In line with what we expected, the autonomous causality orientation buffered the facilitative effect of IP on burnout, while the controlled and impersonal causality orientations each enhanced it. Results suggest that possessing a stronger autonomous causality orientation (and creating learning/work environments that prime it) will dampen the effect of IP on burnout, while possessing a stronger controlled or impersonal causality orientation (and creating learning/work environments that prime them) will each augment it. Findings and their implications are discussed in terms of instigating theory-informed, system-level wellness interventions in graduate medical education.