Is perfectionism good, bad, or both? Examining models of the perfectionism construct

Perfectionism has been conceptualized as a personality variable that underlies a variety of psychological difficulties. Recently, however, theorists and researchers have begun to distinguish between two distinct types of perfectionism, one a maladaptive form that results in emotional distress, and a second form that is relatively benign, perhaps even adaptive. In this study, we compared varying models of the perfectionism construct using the best known measures of perfectionism. In a sample of 198 students, three competing models of perfectionism were examined using confirmatory factor analysis. A model that incorporated two factors, one corresponding to maladaptive perfectionism and the other adaptive perfectionism, was a better fit to the data than a unitary perfectionism model. We also examined the relations of the two types of perfectionism, Maladaptive Evaluative Concerns and Positive Striving, to a well known measure of psychological distress. Maladaptive Evaluative Concerns was more strongly associated with depression, anxiety, stress, and test taking anxiety. Overall, this study supports the validity of a distinction between two types of perfectionism, and points to the importance of this duality for measurement and research on perfectionism.