Unhealthy Perfectionism Research Articles

Perfectionism and Perceptions of Parenting Styles in Male Youth Soccer

Although perfectionist orientations have been linked to a variety of cognitive, affective, and behavioral correlates in youth sport, little is known about antecedent factors that may influence adolescent athletes' perfectionist orientations. The purpose of this study was to determine whether perceptions of parenting styles differ as a function of adolescent athletes' perfectionist orientations. A total of 194 male youth soccer players (M age = 13.64 years; SD = 1.51; range, 10.67-16.25 years) completed measures of their perfectionist orientations in sport and of their perceptions of maternal and paternal parenting styles. Scores from the parenting style measure were calculated such that higher scores were reflective of higher parental authoritativeness (as perceived by the athletes). Cluster analyses conducted on perfectionism responses produced independent clusters of unhealthy perfectionists, healthy perfectionists, and nonperfectionists. MANOVA results revealed that both healthy- and nonperfectionists had significantly higher perceptions of maternal and paternal authoritativeness than unhealthy perfectionists (ps < .005). Results indicate that exposure to heightened authoritative parenting may play a role in developing healthy perfectionist orientations (or decrease the likelihood of developing unhealthy perfectionist orientations) in youth sport.

Perfectionism among Chinese Gifted and Nongifted Students in Hong Kong: The Use of the Revised Almost Perfect Scale

This study investigated the structure of perfectionism based on the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised with a sample of 320 gifted students aged 7 to 12 and a sample of 882 nongifted students of similar ages in Hong Kong. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses across the two student groups supported a common three-dimensional model that included constructs of high personal standards, order and organization, and perception of discrepancy between standards and performance. Both a rational approach and an empirical clustering procedure yielded three clusters of students interpreted as unhealthy perfectionists, nonperfectionists, and healthy perfectionists. Unhealthy perfectionists had pervasively high scores on all three dimensions, healthy perfectionists had high scores on standards and order and low scores on discrepancy, and nonperfectionists had pervasively low scores on all three dimensions. Implications of the findings for future research on perfectionism and the promotion of positive perfectionism are discussed.

Addressing Multidimensional Perfectionism in Gifted Adolescents with Affective Curriculum

This study investigated the effects of an affective curriculum on multiple dimensions of perfectionism among middle school (grades 6–8) gifted students. A quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group design was employed; all participants (N = 153) completed pre- and posttests of the Goals and Work Habits Survey. The experimental group received affective curriculum consisting of nine 45–50-minute lessons in a gifted classroom for 6 weeks. Among participants with moderate to high levels of unhealthy perfectionism, t-tests showed the experimental group reported lower scores on Concern over Mistakes than the control group. Results of paired t-tests further revealed significant decreases in Concern over Mistakes, Doubts about Actions, and Personal Standards among unhealthy perfectionists in the experimental group. Translating multidimensional perfectionism theory into classroom-based interventions was successful in helping students decrease self-critical evaluative tendencies; however, the study showed no evidence of enhancing healthy perfectionism. Future directions and recommendations are discussed.

Personality and perfectionism in chronic fatigue syndrome: A closer look

Objective: To test the hypothesis that people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) would differ significantly from a healthy control group on measures of general personality and perfectionism, specifically on measures of neuroticism and unhealthy perfectionism. Method: A total of 27 female CFS outpatients and 30 female healthy controls completed questionnaires, including the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised, the Multi-dimensional Perfectionism Scale and measures of anxiety and depression. Results: The CFS group was significantly more fatigued, anxious and depressed than healthy controls. They scored significantly higher on neuroticism and unhealthy perfectionism. Healthy and unhealthy perfectionism were positively correlated in the CFS group, but not in the control group. Conclusion: The present study confirms the link between neuroticism and fatigue and finds a link between unhealthy perfectionism and fatigue. A ‘healthy trait’, such as healthy perfectionism, when coupled with evaluative concerns is not necessarily healthy in a fatigued population. Researchers and clinicians should note the context in which apparently benign traits are expressed, and how they interact with other traits.

Healthy and Unhealthy Perfectionists Among Academically Gifted Chinese Students in Hong Kong: Do Different Classification Schemes Make a Difference?

This study investigated the identification and distribution of perfectionist types with a sample of 111 academically gifted Chinese students aged 17 to 20 in Hong Kong. Three approaches to classification were employed. Apart from the direct questioning approach, the rational approach and the clustering approach classified students using their scores on three constructs of the revised Almost Perfect Scale, which included high standards, order, and discrepancy between standards and performance. Despite the fact that the different approaches yielded different classification results, all three approaches generated profiles of three perfectionist types interpretable as nonperfectionists, healthy perfectionists, and unhealthy perfectionists, suggesting that healthy perfectionists tended to outnumber unhealthy perfectionists and nonperfectionists. Implications of the findings for working with perfectionist students and future research on perfectionism and perfectionist types are discussed.

Dimensionality and Typology of Perfectionism: The Use of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale With Chinese Gifted Students in Hong Kong

This study investigated the dimensionality and typology of perfectionism based on the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale with a sample of 380 Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a five-dimensional model that includes constructs of personal standards, parental expectations, parental criticism, concern over mistakes and doubts, and organization. Clustering procedures yielded three clusters of students interpreted as unhealthy perfectionists, healthy perfectionists, and nonperfectionists. Unhealthy perfectionists had pervasively high scores on all five dimensions, healthy perfectionists scored high on standards and organization and low on parental criticism and concern over mistakes and doubts, and nonperfectionists had pervasively low scores on all five dimensions. Implications of the findings for future research on perfectionism and the promotion of positive perfectionism are discussed. Putting the Research to Use: The study promotes a better appreciation of the distinction between positive and negative perfectionism and the reality of the different types of perfectionists. With this view, educators, teachers, and parents should be careful to avoid assuming that all perfectionistic tendencies are dysfunctional or all perfectionists are maladaptive or unhealthy. More important, education practitioners should encourage students to strive for excellence with mastery goals of learning. In addition, students should not only be helped to set high standards and meet challenging goals with good planning and organization, they should also learn to recognize their own limitations and to appreciate that mistakes and failures are normal, informative, and situation specific. To promote positive perfectionism among students, this study suggests that one effective means might lie in efforts to enhance emotional intelligence through, for example, promoting emotional literacy or emotion-focused interventions.

Perfectionism and the experience of pride, shame, and guilt: Comparing healthy perfectionists, unhealthy perfectionists, and non-perfectionists

According to traditional views, perfectionists are prone to experience shame and guilt and unable to experience pride. Hamachek (1978), however, suggested that this applies only to neurotic perfectionists, whereas normal perfectionists are able to experience pride and are not prone to experience shame and guilt. Following Hamachek’s differentiation, the present study investigated 121 undergraduates and compared healthy perfectionists (high perfectionistic strivings, low perfectionistic concerns), unhealthy perfectionists (high perfectionistic strivings, high perfectionistic concerns), and non-perfectionists (low perfectionistic strivings) regarding proneness to shame, guilt, and pride and state shame, guilt, and pride following success and failure. As expected, healthy perfectionists reported more state pride and less state shame and guilt than unhealthy perfectionists and non-perfectionists. Moreover, healthy perfectionists indicated lower proneness to shame than unhealthy perfectionists and non-perfectionists. However, both healthy and unhealthy perfectionists indicated higher proneness to pride and higher proneness to guilt than non-perfectionists. Supporting views of perfectionism that differentiate between positive and negative forms of the construct, the present findings show that individuals, who strive for perfection, but are unconcerned about imperfections, may well experience pride and be prone to feel guilt, but not shame.

Psychometric Properties of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale With Australian Adolescent Girls

The psychometric properties of the Frost, Marten, Lahart, and Rosenblate Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (1990) are investigated to determine its usefulness as a measurement of perfectionism with Australian secondary school girls and to find empirical support for the existence of both healthy and unhealthy types of perfectionist students. Participants were 409 female mixed-ability students from Years 7 and 10 in two private secondary schools in Sydney, Australia. Factor analyses yielded four rather than the six factors previously theorized. Cluster analysis indicated a distinct typology of healthy perfectionists, unhealthy perfectionists, and nonperfectionists. Healthy perfectionists were characterized by higher levels on Organization, whereas unhealthy perfectionists scored higher on the Parental Expectations &amp; Criticism and Concern Over Mistakes &amp; Doubts dimensions of perfectionism. Both types of perfectionists scored high on Personal Standards.

Positive Conceptions of Perfectionism: Approaches, Evidence, Challenges

Almost 30 years ago, Hamachek (1978) suggested that 2 forms of perfectionism be distinguished, a positive form labeled "normal perfectionism" and a negative form labeled "neurotic perfectionism." Focusing on the positive, we present an overview of the different empirical conceptions of the 2 forms of perfectionism and a common framework for the 2 basic approaches: the dimensional approach differentiating 2 dimensions of perfectionism (perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns) and the group-based approach differentiating 2 groups of perfectionists (healthy perfectionists and unhealthy perfectionists). Moreover, we review the evidence demonstrating that (a) perfectionistic strivings are associated with positive characteristics and (b) healthy perfectionists show higher levels of positive characteristics compared to unhealthy perfectionists and nonperfectionists. Although questions on core facets, positive effects, and developmental antecedents of positive forms of perfectionism remain, our findings suggest that self-oriented perfectionistic strivings are positive, if perfectionists are not overly concerned about mistakes and negative evaluations by others.

Multidimensional Perfectionism and Rogerian Personality Constructs

The Feelings, Reactions, and Beliefs Survey (FRBS) was administered to 141 undergraduate students to evaluate differences in Rogerian personality constructs among adaptive, maladaptive, and nonperfectionists. The groups differed significantly on 5 FRBS subscales; Fully Functioning Person, Struggling With Feelings of Inferiority, Openness to Feelings in Relationships, Feeling Ambivalent in Relationships, and Focusing Conscious Attention.

Perfectionism in Mathematically Gifted and Typical Czech Students

The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS; Frost, Marten, Lahart, &amp; Rosenblate, 1990) was administered to 219 youth in the Czech Republic. The sample was composed of both mathematically gifted and typical students. As previously found in U.S. samples, two distinct orthogonal constructs of perfectionism were identified, indicating that healthy and unhealthy perfectionism are not opposite poles on a single continuum but, instead, are independent constructs. In this sample, perfectionism was more problematic among the typical than among the gifted students. The relationship between perfectionism and parent-reported adjustment problems and psychosomatic conditions was fairly weak. Asthma was related to parental pressures, and depression was related to concerns over making mistakes; but the magnitude of the relationship was quite modest. The strongest and most consistent result was found in migraine headaches, with the migraines negatively related to high personal standards and a healthy pursuit of excellence.

A hierarchical structural analysis of perfectionism and its relation to other personality characteristics

This study examined components of perfectionism and their relation to other personality constructs, based on data on the Frost et al. [Frost, R. O., Heimberg, R. G., Holt, C. S., Mattia, J.S., & Neubauer, A. L. (1993). A comparison of two measures of perfectionism. Personality and Individual Differences, 14, 119–126; Frost, R. O., Marten, P., Lahart, C., & Rosenblate, R. (1990). The dimensions of perfectionism. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 15, 245–261] Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Brief Symptom Inventory, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in a population of academically talented students. The six scales of the MPS had been well recovered factor-analytically before. On a somewhat higher level of generality, four intercorrelated factors, Concerns and Doubts, Personal Standards, Organization and Parental Pressure were found to underlie self description on the MPS. This finding was consistent with previous observations. Two orthogonal higher-order factors were extracted from the intercorrelations of these four dimensions. These two factors could be clearly interpreted as healthy and unhealthy perfectionism; similar factors had been observed before in analyses of the scale scores on the MPS. This hierarchical structure of four first-order and two second-order factors could be well replicated in a second sample of subjects. The various factors on both levels showed distinct patterns of correlations with a large range of personality characteristics as measured by the other questionnaires mentioned above. In particular, healthy perfectionism was correlated with conscientiousness, unhealthy perfectionism with lack of self-esteem. Given this pattern of correlations, healthy and unhealthy perfectionism appear not to be opposite poles of one continuum, but distinct, independent factors, which are embedded in the overall personality in different ways.

Perfectionism and Eating Attitudes In Competitive Rowers: Moderating Effects of Body Mass, Weight Classification and Gender

One purpose of the present research was to determine the relationship between perfectionism and eating attitudes among national level rowers. A second purpose was to determine if body mass, weight classification and gender moderate perfectionism-eating attitude relations. Rowers from New Zealand and Australia (W=449) completed the Positive and Negative Perfectionism Scale (PANPS; Terry-Short, Owens, Slade and Dewey, 1995), the Eating Attitude Test-40 (EAT-40; Garner and Garfinkel, 1979), and the Short Form of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MC-SDS; Reynolds, 1982). In addition, a Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated from the height and weight measurements of each participant. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that, after accounting for social desirability effects. Negative (unhealthy) Perfectionism scores were positively related to disturbed eating attitude scores, whereas Positive (healthy) Perfectionism scores were unrelated to disturbed eating attitude scores. In addition, body mass, weight classification and gender operated in a conjunctive fashion to produce a maximum moderator effect. That is, relations between Negative Perfectionism and disturbed eating attitudes were strongest for female lightweight rowers with higher BMI scores. Recommendations for future research are discussed.

Sources of stress for Australian dental students

The Dental Environment Stress questionnaire was used to identify and quantify sources of stress for 205 Australian Bachelor of Dental Surgery students. A factor analysis revealed negative self-efficacy beliefs accounted for almost one third of the total variance, and despite higher stress levels reported by females, a marked similarity in the dominant patterns emerged for males and females. In testing for differences in residency status, international students expressed significantly more stress from peer pressure, and this is discussed within a socio-cultural context. Irrespective of gender, residency status, and class year, students ranked examinations and grades as the single most stress-inducing concern. Overall, stress intensity tended to escalate over time, peaking in the fourth year of training. It is suggested that dental students may be prone to unhealthy perfectionism, placing them at risk for the harmful consequences of chronically elevated stress levels.