The impostor phenomenon is a pervasive psychological experience of perceived intellectual and professional fraudulence. It is not a diagnosable condition yet observed in clinical and normal populations. Increasingly, impostorism research has expanded beyond clinical and into applied settings. However, to date, a systematic review examining the methodological quality of impostorism measures used to conduct such research has yet to be carried out. This systematic review examines trait impostor phenomenon measures and evaluates their psychometric properties against a quality assessment framework. Systematic searches were carried out on six electronic databases, seeking original empirical studies examining the conceptualization, development, or validation of self-report impostor phenomenon scales. A subsequent review of reference lists also included two full-text dissertations. Predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria were specified to select the final 18 studies in the review sample. Of the studies included, four measures of the impostor phenomenon were identified and their psychometric properties assessed against the quality appraisal tool—Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale, Harvey Impostor Scale, Perceived Fraudulence Scale, and Leary Impostor Scale. The findings often highlighted that studies did not necessarily report poor psychometric properties; rather an absence of data and stringent assessment criteria resulted in lower methodological ratings. Recommendations for future research are made to address the conceptual clarification of the construct's dimensionality, to improve future study quality and to enable better discrimination between measures.

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IntroductionThe present systematic review investigates the psychological tools available for capturing high-stakes decisions involving life-death content and their psychometric properties. Valid measurement of these individual differences will provide crucial information in the personnel selection and training in fields where high-stakes moral issues exist (e.g., military, medicine). To our knowledge, this is the first systematic examination of such instruments.MethodsSystematic searches of 6 electronic databases were conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines. An appraisal tool evaluated the quality of identified measures. Twenty studies met pre-determined inclusion criteria. Moral decision-making was assessed with either a self-report scale (n = 3) or moral dilemmas (n = 17).ResultsThe findings identified two measures, the Defining Issues Test and the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale as psychometrically sound measures of moral decision-making. However, they are unlikely to be considered “gold standard” measures due to their theoretically specific, but limited, scope. Overall, the findings suggest that research in the area has been scattered. There is a lack of consensus on the definition of moral decision-making, and a lack of cross-validation on how different measures of moral decision-making relate to each other. This presents a gap between theory and empirical measurement in moral decision-making. Further work is needed for a unified conceptualization of moral decision-making to pave the way to both theory development and the development of well-validated measurement tools, and this review provides a critical foundation for both.