Experiential avoidance, impostor phenomenon and fear of negative evaluation among Indian college students

Experiential avoidance (EA), impostor phenomenon (IP), and fear of negative evaluation (FNE) are theoretically related cognitive-emotional constructs that undermine psychological well-being and academic functioning in college students, yet their predictive and moderating interrelationships have not been empirically examined within a unified framework. This quantitative, correlational, cross-sectional study tested seven hypotheses in a convenience sample of 303 Indian college students (aged 18–25 years) using the Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (BEAQ), Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS), and Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (BFNE). Due to violations of normality, Spearman's rank-order correlations, simple linear regression, and PROCESS Macro Model 1 moderation analysis (Hayes, 2022) were employed. All seven hypotheses were supported. Significant positive intercorrelations were found among all three variables (rs = 0.52– 0.59, p < 0.001). Experiential avoidance significantly predicted both IP (β = 0.528, R² = 0.279) and FNE (β = 0.582, R² = 0.339), and IP significantly predicted FNE (β = 0.568, R² = 0.323). Moderation analysis revealed that EA significantly attenuated the IP–FNE relationship (ΔR² = 0.042, p < 0.001), with the full model explaining 47.4% of variance in FNE. These findings identify experiential avoidance as a functionally central construct and suggest that ACT-based interventions targeting EA may reduce both impostor beliefs and evaluative fear in Indian college student populations.