A Review on Perfectionism

Tingting Fang,Fan Liu

doi:10.4236/jss.2022.101027

Abstract

Perfectionism is a personality trait that strives for high standards of performance and is accompanied by a tendency to critically evaluate oneself, which is closely related to individual mental health and has a profound impact on individuals’ work, study and life. Nevertheless, there are controversies in its nature and characters and whether its impact on mental health is positive or negative still exists in the domain of perfectionism, calling for further discussions. The article identifies key findings in the perfectionism literature, reviews and summarizes the current state of perfectionism research, including the conceptual dimensions of perfectionism, the cluster of perfectionism, and the negative and positive effects of perfectionism on mental health. Finally, several future research directions were discussed.

Highlights

Perfectionism is one of the hot topics in counselling psychology and clinical psychology since the 1990s; from the beginning of theoretical analysis to empirical studies, more and more researchers focus on perfectionism
Perfectionism is a personality trait that strives for high standards of performance and is accompanied by a tendency to critically evaluate oneself, which is closely related to individual mental health and has a profound impact on individuals’ work, study and life
The results showed that negative perfectionism was negatively related to life satisfaction and that groups scoring higher on the socially prescribed perfectionism dimension scored lower on the life satisfaction dimension

Summary

Introduction

Perfectionism is one of the hot topics in counselling psychology and clinical psychology since the 1990s; from the beginning of theoretical analysis to empirical studies, more and more researchers focus on perfectionism. There is still much controversy on the definition of its conceptual extension and core characteristics. As a personality trait that is closely related to mental health, more and more researchers believe that perfectionism may have negative influence on mental health, and positive influence (Ganske, Gnilka, Ashby, & Rice, 2015). This study is a systematic review of the literature, starting with the definition of the concept, in order to clarify some of the fundamental issues, so that the follow-up research can be better carried out

Definitions and Dimensions of Perfectionism

A Clustering Study of Perfectionism

Perfectionism and Mental Health

Findings

Conclusion