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A controversial issue in sport perfectionism research concerns the degree to which athletes' perfectionistic tendencies are adaptive or maladaptive. Insight into this issue can be obtained by distinguishing between two perfectionism dimensions: perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns. Past narrative reviews concede that perfectionistic concerns are maladaptive in sport, but offer contrasting conclusions about whether athletes' perfectionistic strivings are adaptive or maladaptive (see Flett & Hewitt, 2005;Hall, 2006;Stoeber, 2011). To address this discrepancy, this review systematically documented, categorised, and quantitatively analysed 201 correlations from 31 studies on perfectionism in athletes. When bivariate correlations were regarded, the proportion of evidence associating perfectionistic strivings with adaptive characteristics in sport was slightly greater than the proportion of evidence associating the dimension with maladaptive characteristics in sport. When partial correlations were regarded (i.e., correlations that controlled for overlap with perfectionistic concerns), a clear majority of evidence associated perfectionistic strivings with adaptive characteristics and only a small minority associated it with maladaptive characteristics. Across both instances, though, considerable evidence (as represented by nonsignificant correlations) associated perfectionistic strivings with neither adaptive nor maladaptive characteristics. Collectively, these findings suggest that perfectionistic strivings among athletes are predominantly adaptive, occasionally neutral, and rarely maladaptive. However, this trend is only apparent when the negative influence of perfectionistic concerns is controlled. Implications of these findings on future research directions and applied sport psychology practice are discussed.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between goal orientations, perceptions of athletic aggression, and sportspersonship among elite male youth ice hockey players (M age = 13.08 years). Athletes (N = 171) completed questionnaires to assess their goal orientations, attitudes toward directing aggressive behaviors during competition, and non-aggression-related sportspersonship. In accordance with Vallerand, Deshaies, Cuerrier, Brière, and Pelletier (1996), sportspersonship was conceptualized as a five-dimensional construct. Multiple regression analyses revealed that high ego-oriented athletes were more inclined to approve of aggressive behaviors than those with low ego orientation. Players with higher levels of task orientation (rather than low task orientation) had higher sportspersonship levels on three dimensions. An analysis of goal orientation patterns revealed that regardless of ego orientation, low (compared to high) task orientation was more motivationally detrimental to several sportspersonship dimensions. The practical implications of these results are discussed in the context of Nicholls’s (1989) achievement goal theory.

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