"An Eye-Opening Experience"

Advice from One Academic on Rejection

By Dr. Josh Ackerman

This article was originally published under the title of “Common Academic Experiences No One Talks About: Repeated Rejection, Impostor Syndrome, and Burnout” in Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Preparing for a discussion at SPSP, and for this commentary, about personal encounters with rejection was an eye-opening experience. For some of us, regular bouts with rejected manuscripts, grant proposals, award nominations, and so on mean that the sense of failure is always salient. For others, such as myself, these experiences fade into the ether, forming something like the “cosmic negativity background” of the universe, an ever-present but unseen feature of academic life. This blending of experiences makes it difficult to gauge the true frequency with which personal rejection occurs. This frequency came into full resolution, however, when I created a shadow CV for our SPSP symposium (see the Appendix).

Shadow CVs are a dark reflection of the typical CV; they include every case of rejection one has encountered over a career rather than just the successes, in all of the same categories you might normally publicize. These memorials to failure rose in prominence when several researchers shared their shadow CVs as a way of normalizing the experiences we often do not discuss in polite company (e.g., Looser, 2015; Stefan, 2010), much like the goal of our symposium. These garnered widespread interest, leading one of the posters to claim that his shadow CV “has received way more attention than my entire body of academic work” (Haushofer, n.d., p. 2).

As I put together my own shadow CV, it was a little disheartening to relive my rejections and to recognize how small the chances are of not being rejected in some pursuits. For instance, across the various academic jobs for which I have applied, I have a 5.1% success rate of moving from application to on-campus interview and only a 2.9% rate of receiving an offer. Also apparent were the rejection valleys, where negative experiences cluster together (e.g., a very successful colleague reports having 10 manuscripts rejected in a row and knowing another scholar who had around 20 such repetitions). By the time I finished documenting these failures, I was having serious doubts about my life choices. Now imagine posting everything on a big screen for hundreds of people to see, as happened at the SPSP symposium. As someone who struggles with the spotlight, let us just say this did not improve my opinion about the choices I have made in life. So why construct a shadow CV? It turns out, I actually found the process to be quite worthwhile; despite the downturns, it also revealed the progress that has happened in my career. Even displaying it for all to see was not as awful as I expected, perhaps because it was coupled with the sense of progress (or maybe I should thank dissonance reduction and affective forecasting failures). I recommend trying this exercise. You may find that your trajectory was better than you recall, that you feel an increased sense of resilience, or that although individual rejections still sting, they quickly blur into that cosmic background. And you may even want to share your shadow CV with others, helping to break the silence around rejection and normalize discussions about these experiences.

Beyond this idea, I have learned a number of lessons from dealing with rejection and by synthesizing best-practice suggestions from others (of course, these are anecdotal lessons, and additional research addressing the commonality and efficacy of these techniques would be quite valuable). One is: Do nothing. This piece of advice will not win any “most inspirational” awards, but it may be useful anyway. Consider the impact of psychological distance on how we feel and think (e.g., Bruehlman-Senecal & Ayduk, 2015; D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2004; Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, & Wheatley, 1998). First-time rejections in a domain are likely the most affectively arousing and difficult to cope with. These experiences may loom especially large for researchers with few concurrent projects, as a result of working in smaller academic communities, and for those whose work involves difficult-to-reach populations and long time horizons. Not everyone is in an equivalent position to absorb failure, and not every failure can be readily dismissed. But it does get easier (maybe not a lot easier!) as we learn how to predict what reviewers want, how to better frame our work, how to make better decisions, and how to emotionally regulate following rejection. Knowing that the intensity of rejection responses will somewhat diminish over time may help strengthen our resolve to move forward in the face of adversity. To mix metaphors, we are running a marathon through a forest, not a sprint from tree to tree.

Another, more active lesson is: Reframe attributions for rejection. Like many of us, I have sometimes attributed prior rejections to aspects of my identity, leading me to wonder whether I was good enough to succeed in this field. This type of response is interesting because it contradicts the standard self-serving attributional bias that often accompanies highly self-threatening feedback (Campbell & Sedikides, 1999). But it is also a response that predicts attrition from the field dangerously well (Gardner, 2009; Lovitts, 2001), perhaps because it feeds the impostor syndrome and burnout discussed in later sections of this article. To persist in research, a better strategy may be to sometimes assume that rejection is not about you as a person; it is about X, Y, Z, or any number of other external reasons. Blind use of this strategy is also a hallmark of narcissism (Stucke, 2003), but it can be used in reasonable and productive ways. For example, one method of reconstruing rejection is to focus on the big picture of our enterprise. I publish research because I hope to contribute to a larger dialogue, and I would guess most other scientists do as well. Rejections are often simply part of this dialogue rather than statements about our personal foibles or abilities. Conversely, by treating acceptance of manuscripts or grant applications as end goals, we may lose sight of the broader discussion’s value and give unnecessary weight to what are essentially individual points within that discussion. Perhaps it is due to privilege (and posttenure goggles?), but I have found the whole of my profession to be more meaningful from this vantage point, and each “no” I receive to be less powerful as a result.

A third lesson is: Take charge of what you can. Just as we may want to celebrate each of our successes (at least in the West; Miyamoto & Ma, 2011), we may also want to take a break following each rejection to let immediate feelings subside, as Kate referred to earlier. Take a walk, spend time with family, hit the gym. Dashing off an angry response to an editor or venting on academic social media is unlikely to be successful or encourage the type of professional image we probably want to convey. I know I have written many, many such responses, but instead of letting Reviewer 2 know how I really feel, I walk away instead of sending the response and revisit the review with a cooler mind. That said, if you are the kind of person who reacts to a dismissing decision letter by churning out pages of clear, convincing prose, go for it. An alternate way of taking charge is to head off rejection before it occurs. Consider those manuscript reviews you have received that have a negative tone and ignore what you think are the key points of your work. Remember, reviewers have little time to devote to reviews and are typically not compensated for their work, so small elements (e.g., grammar) could have a disproportionate impact on their evaluation of a manuscript. Do not ignore these elements and expect that reviewers will also disregard them. Proofread! Have others look at your manuscripts before submitting them. Send in the best work you can. You have probably heard these recommendations before. They are the bane of the idealistic scientist, who believes that the hypothesis or the result is all that matters, and not how they are communicated. The point here is to know what is in your control and what is not. And what is definitively under your control is submitting a product of which you are proud.

Furthermore, you may have more power than you realize in many situations. For instance, in the context of job applications, applicants who do not make the short list of promising candidates often hear nothing about their status from target institutions. Without an explicit rejection, how do you know when to begin crying into your pillow or your beer? Even those applicants who are more officially spurned may receive no input as to why. In such situations, why not ask for feedback from hiring committees? You might not always receive the level of detail you would like, but some people will be happy to respond, and you lose nothing by asking. In the end, taking control of whichever pieces of the research process you can may help ward off rejection, or at least help it sting a bit less.

Fourth: Know what you are getting into. When graduate students begin working with me, I give them a “handbook” of articles, blog posts, and other pieces of advice about what it takes to succeed in social psychology specifically and academia more broadly. Sometimes these reflect harsh truths, such as why academics stink at writing (Pinker, 2014) or why people leave academia (PsychBrief, 2017). But my favorite recommendation is a call to embrace the state of not knowing, otherwise known as “The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research” (Schwartz, 2008). The article’s central theme is that the feeling of stupidity, or not having the answer to a research question, is a feature of—not a bug in—the scientific enterprise. If researchers knew all the answers, we would be out of a job! By realizing that our profession is one that generates new knowledge, uncovers evidence, and engages in other activities of discovery, not one that involves having the answers up front, I think people can become more accepting of the fact that rejection must happen for progress to occur. A more field-specific bit of knowledge involves the importance of recognizing base rates. When it comes to successfully applying for jobs, grants, and even conference presentation slots, having good ideas is not all that matters. Large numbers of our colleagues may be comparably qualified and produce equally good work. When 200 applications are submitted for a single faculty position, for example, many very strong candidates will not (and cannot) be chosen. In this profession, we are not trained to embrace the concept of luck. It exists, though, and we should give it credit (as long as we do not allow this recognition to unreasonably diminish our motivation).

My final piece of advice is directed less to recipients of rejection and more to those with the structural power to influence recipient experiences. And that is: Do more. As a mentor, colleague, chair, or editor, each of us has the ability to improve the personal experiences (and workplaces and lives) of the people with whom we work. In departmental meetings and at conferences, be aware of the dynamics of providing feedback and the ways in which critical comments can be framed as collaborative rather than rejecting. When training students or junior faculty, we have even more power. Build new norms into your training. Consider one strategy for separating ourselves from the experience of rejection by stopping the practice of equating hypotheses with personal predictions (Schaller, 2016). “I/we hypothesize” is language that associates the success and failure of the hypothesis test with the researcher, not the idea. A good hypothesis should stand on its own, not on the back of whoever generated it. By explicitly avoiding the connection of one’s identity to one’s ideas, the focus is kept on those ideas and not on feeling personally rejected if the ideas are questioned or disregarded. Disassociating ourselves from our hypotheses might even have the added benefit of improving the reproducibility of our work as we remove personal biases and desires from the hypothesis-creation process. We can also train mentees to become better rejecters. When having students participate in journal or grant-review exercises, include feedback on the tone of those reviews, not just their content. Finally, every journal editor should follow a rule of editing or blocking needless negativity and ad hominem attacks from reviewers before releasing reviews to authors. There is no value in being passive on this issue. Together, small structural changes like these, coupled with more open communication about rejection, may help improve the status quo for everyone.