Hillary Clinton's occasional irritable outbursts on the campaign trail were accompanied by a sound of tut-tutting from observers: she can't hack it; she's not in control.

Had she been a man, these outbursts of anger would have been interpreted as assertiveness, intolerance of fools, a sign of status.

A Yale psychologist who worked in Clinton's office has produced a report demonstrating that while people accept anger in men, in women an outburst of temper betrays incompetence. In a simulated job interview, researchers discovered that angry men were perceived to deserve more status and a higher salary; when female candidates got angry, it was assumed they were not up to the job.

These findings, unfortunately, merely echo what women tend to feel about themselves.

Women contemplating a role in public life tend to be assailed with feelings of unworthiness; they lack the sense of entitlement that many men unquestioningly own.

More women than men are prey to what psychologists call impostor syndrome: they are convinced that the minute they experience some kind of success, they will be exposed as fakes.

When women start a new job, they tend to feel they are "faking it", a feeling that doesn't always lift once they have mastered their new role. Some women spend years just waiting to be found out. And the extra exposure that public or political life entails makes this anxiety even more acute.

Not only do many women fear exposure, but they also believe their own assumptions that they are not good enough. Cognitive therapists often have to tackle "distorted thinking", in which a patient magnifies their own faults, or applies a mistake in one part of their life to condemn their whole character.

Women who doubt their abilities often find it hard to separate who they are from what they do. They will say: "I'm not the creative type" or, "I'm not cut out for political life" – even, "I'm not leadership material." A man, meanwhile, is more likely to say: "Let's give it a try. I'm sure I could do it."

Part of the reason behind this lies in childhood. However egalitarian we think we are in the way we treat our sons and daughters, countless studies show that girls are still raised differently to their brothers: encouraged to talk about their feelings and to pay attention to their relationships with others.

While girls are taught the importance of pleasing others, boys are taught to judge themselves in terms of external rewards, and quickly become conscious of status. By the time they are entering the public and work arena, women have learned that it is better not to outshine their peers, because doing so would make them less popular. They have also seen plenty of evidence that female celebrities are treated more harshly than men in the popular press. There is a general sense of "how dare she?" that is seldom applied to men.

Because they were raised to value agreement and compromise in the political arena, women tend to shy away from conflict. Fear of disapproval tends to make them hold back from, for example, asking for a pay rise. And too often they hold back from assertiveness, even on the presidential campaign trail, for fear of coming across as shrill.