The Effects of Self-Criticism and Self-Oriented Perfectionism on Goal Pursuit
Powers and colleagues examined whether perfectionism helps or hinders people in reaching their goals, across five studies covering several life domains. The literature had been unsettled because perfectionism includes two things that usually travel together: high personal standards, sometimes called positive perfectionism, and harsh self-criticism when those standards are missed. Separating them produces a clear answer. Self-criticism was consistently associated with less progress towards goals. High personal standards, once self-criticism was statistically accounted for, were associated with more progress. So the striving is not the problem and the self-attack is, and studies that measure them together will find perfectionism looking harmless or harmful depending on which component happens to dominate the sample. This is the strongest available evidence for a distinction this vault uses often, between demanding standards and punishing yourself for failing them.
Powers and colleagues examined whether perfectionism helps or hinders people in reaching their goals, across five studies covering several life domains. The literature had been unsettled because perfectionism includes two things that usually travel together: high personal standards, sometimes called positive perfectionism, and harsh self-criticism when those standards are missed. Separating them produces a clear answer. Self-criticism was consistently associated with less progress towards goals. High personal standards, once self-criticism was statistically accounted for, were associated with more progress. So the striving is not the problem and the self-attack is, and studies that measure them together will find perfectionism looking harmless or harmful depending on which component happens to dominate the sample. This is the strongest available evidence for a distinction this vault uses often, between demanding standards and punishing yourself for failing them.
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Powers, T. A., Koestner, R., Zuroff, D. C., Milyavskaya, M. & Gorin, A. A. (2011). "The effects of self-criticism and self-oriented perfectionism on goal pursuit." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(7), 964-975. Five studies. Self-criticism negatively associated with goal progress; self-oriented perfectionism positively associated once self-criticism was controlled.
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211410246
DOI: 10.1177/0146167211410246