|
COPYRIGHT 2005 University of South Alabama
Perfectionism is formally defined as "the setting of excessively high standards of performance in conjunction with a tendency to make overly critical self-evaluations" (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990, p. 450). It is a trait (dispositional, stable), not state measure. To Antony and Swinson (1998), stability implies that characteristics, such as perfectionism, affect behavior across situations and over time. In extreme cases, perfectionists evaluate their experiences dichotomously, what Bums (1980) calls "all-or-none" thinking, usually labeled good or bad. They are also characterized as overemphasizing precision, neatness, order, and organization. In a somewhat distorted view of others, perfectionists contend that successful individuals achieve their goals with minimal effort, few (if any) errors, high self-confidence, and little or no emotional distress (Burns, 1980). All of these characteristics are relevant for competitive athletes.
In the general psychology literature, perfectionism has been studied with respect to both constructive, also called normal, healthy, and positive, and destructive manifestations, also referred to as neurotic, unhealthy, self-destructive, and negative (Hamachek, 1978; Hewitt and Flett (1990, 1991). Healthy aspects of this disposition include positive achievement striving, self-actualization, personal adjustment, high goal orientation, conscientiousness, self-confidence, and success (Flett, Hewitt, Blankstein, & Mosher, 1991). Negative perfectionists, on the other hand, are overly self-critical, rarely feel competent in carrying out their responsibilities and duties, and consistently doubt the quality of their performance (Hewitt & Flett, 1990, 1991). High perfectionists coped more poorly with stress and suffered greater depression than their less perfectionist peers. In their review of related literature, Hewitt and Flett (1996) concluded that perfectionism was significantly associated with maladaptive coping and heightened negative affect in educational and clinical settings.
In their comparison of normal and neurotic perfectionism, Frost et al. (1990) contend that "Normal perfectionists are those who set high standards for themselves yet feel free to be less precise as the situation permits. Neurotic perfectionists, on the other hand, set high standards but allow little latitude for making mistakes; thus they never feel that anything is done completely enough or well enough" (p. 450). The authors conclude that "the psychological problems associated with perfectionism are probably more closely associated with these critical evaluation tendencies than with the setting of excessively high standards" (p. 450). Whether these characteristics are associated with competitive athletes has yet to be determined.
While perfectionism has been studied extensively in the general psychology literature, to date, it has received surprisingly little attention by theorists and researchers in sport psychology. In the context of competitive sport, it is feasible to surmise that extreme perfectionism can undermine athletes' efforts to maintain their participation in sport, because it is a condition that consistently reinforces failure and perceived low competence. In general, manifestations of neurotic perfectionism might have deleterious effects on the athlete's enjoyment, emotions, and performance (Frost & Henderson, 1991; Zinsser Bunker, & Williams, 1998).
Another plausible hypothesis about the deleterious effects of perfectionism in sport that perfectionistic athletes may be more likely than normal perfectionists or nonperfectionists to feel less gratification from sport and, therefore, are more likely to experience chronic stress and withdraw from sport participation. This is because perfectionistic behavior increases "both the frequency of stressful events or failures and the negative psychological impact of stressful events" (Hewitt & Flett, 1996, p. 419), and is highly associated with trait and state anxiety (Flett et al., 1994). These characteristics have been identified as predictors of low enjoyment in and eventual withdrawal from competitive sport (Anshel, 2003; Zinsser, et al., 1998). It is important to identify athletes who are at risk for engaging in negative self-evaluation in sport settings as has been addressed in the general psychology literature (e.g., Alden, Bieling, & Wallace, 1994; Flett, Hewitt, Endler, & Tassone, 1994). Negative self-appraisal has been linked to increased intensity and greater frequency of perceived stress, particularly in response to making mistakes (Frost & Henderson, 1991; Frost & Marten, 1990). While the current study has not focused on identifying neurotic, as opposed to normal perfectionism, it is important to describe the potential harm of this disposition in sport environments.
The most common inventory used to measure perfectionism is the Multiple Perfectionism Scale (MPS). The MPS is a 35-item inventory that consists of six subscales, concern over mistakes (CM), personal standards (PS), parental expectations (PE), parental criticism (PC), doubts about actions (D), and organization/order (O). Frost et al. (1990) define the multiple dimensions of perfectionism in the following manner. The CM dimensions refers to "negative reactions to mistakes, a tendency to interpret mistakes as equivalent to failure, and a tendency to believe that one will lose the respect of others following failure" (p. 453). PS reflects the person's tendency to set "very high standards and the excessive importance placed on these high standards for self-evaluation" (p. 452). PE is defined as "the tendency to believe that one's parents set very high goals and are overly critical" (p. 453). PC consists of the tendency of parents to engage in consistent, often critical, evaluation of their child, coupled with the child's tendency to place considerable value on these evaluations. D is "the tendency to feel that projects are not completed to satisfaction" (p. 453). Finally, O refers to "the importance of and preference for order" (p. 453). While each sub-component of perfectionism may be independently determined, the sum of the latter five sub-scales reflects a general perfectionism score.
To date, there has been a virtual absence of research on perfectionism among competitive athletes. In one rare study in this area, Frost and Henderson (1991) examined the relationship between perfectionism and the athletes' negative reactions to mistakes experienced during athletic competition using the MPS. A secondary focus of their study was to determine links between perfectionism and the athlete's thoughts 24 hours before a "major" competition. The athletes' thoughts following errors were identified and then related to their scores on the dimensions CM and DA scales on the MPS. The results indicated high associations between athletes who rated high on CM and competitive anxiety (r = .47), between CM and failure orientation (r = .70), while a negative relationship was found between CM and trait sport confidence (r = -.61). Further, high scorers on the CM dimension were more likely to react negatively to mistakes during competition and to experience more negative thoughts prior to competition than low CM scorers. The researchers concluded that perfectionistic athletes feel threatened, resulting in increased state anxiety, because they perceive evaluative situations as opportunities for failure. In two other sports studies using the MPS to measure perfectionism, Gould, Udry, Tuffey, and Loehr (1996) found that selected dimensions of perfectionism were associated with burnout among young (junior) competitive tennis players. Hall, Kerr and Matthews (1998) found that perfectionism was a significant predictor of state cognitive anxiety among competitive runners.
The study of perfectionism, in both positive and negative forms, has strong implications for sports competitors. In a favorable direction, perfectionist athletes (and coaches, for that matter) tend to have very high, yet realistic, self-expectations, set challenging, yet attainable, goals, and make internal causal attributions (Anshel, 2003). The tendency to set high standards infers a strong association between high quality performance and making causal attributions of high effort. Failure outcomes are interpreted as a need to improve future performance rather than as a manifestation of low ability.
On the negative side, however, unhealthy perfectionists will likely experience more frequent and highly intense stress due to harsh self-criticism and difficulty in feeling gratification from performance improvement and meeting realistic expectations (Hall et al., 1998). As Hall et al. have concluded, since perfectionists set excessively high standards, "they do...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
