===== 🧠 Ego (Academic Definition) =====

**Ego** refers to the internalized sense of importance, identity, and self-worth — which in academic and clinical environments often becomes entangled with titles, recognition, authorship, and perceived intellectual superiority.

While a healthy ego can support confidence and leadership, an inflated or fragile ego often leads to dysfunction, rivalry, and resistance to criticism.

==== ⚖️ Types of Ego in Academia ====
  * **Constructive ego** – Drives responsibility, persistence, and high standards.
  * **Inflated ego** – Demands attention, authorship, or deference regardless of merit.
  * **Fragile ego** – Reacts poorly to feedback, competition, or visibility of others.
  * **Collective ego** – Institutional identity based on prestige, resistant to reform.

==== 🎭 In Practice ====
> A senior surgeon insists on being listed first author on a paper they barely contributed to — not out of need, but out of *ego maintenance*.

==== 🚨 Risks and Dysfunctions ====
  * Obstructs collaboration.
  * Undermines junior researchers and trainees.
  * Fuels academic theater and performative leadership.
  * Turns critique into conflict.
  * Blocks innovation out of fear of being overshadowed.

==== 📎 Related Terms ====
  * [[careerism|Careerism]]
  * [[academic_theater|Academic Theater]]
  * [[gatekeeping|Gatekeeping]]
  * [[institutional_prestige|Institutional Prestige]]


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**Bottom line**: *Ego can elevate a team — or suffocate it, if left unchecked. The more fragile the work, the louder the ego.*