Life Satisfaction, Happiness, and the Growth Mindset of Healthy and Unhealthy Perfectionists Among Hong Kong Chinese Gifted Students

Abstract

This study used clustering to classify Chinese gifted students based on their scores on the High Standards and Discrepancy subscales of the Almost Perfect Scale–Revised (APS-R). The interpretation of the three clusters as nonperfectionists, unhealthy perfectionists, and healthy perfectionists was supported by results comparing these groups on their responses to measures of mindset and well-being. Healthy perfectionists were the happiest and the most satisfied with life. Unhealthy perfectionists scored significantly higher than healthy perfectionists and nonperfectionists on the measure of the fixed mindset, suggesting that targeting mindset change could be an effective intervention for unhealthy perfectionists. Finally, a simple method with suggested cutoff scores on the two APS-R subscales was developed for practitioners to identify unhealthy perfectionists for intervention.