Establishing construct validity evidence for the Sport Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale

Psychology of Sport and Exercise

2008

Objectives: In the psychology of sport and exercise, the question of how perfectionism affects performance is highly debated. While some researchers have identified perfectionism as a hallmark quality of elite athletes, others see perfectionism as a maladaptive characteristic that undermines, rather than helps athletic performance. Against this background, the purpose of the present study was to investigate how different aspects of perfectionism predict performance and performance increments.Method: A study was conducted with 122 undergraduate athletes to investigate how perfectionism during training affects performance and performance increments in a series of trials with a new basketball training task. Two aspects of perfectionism were examined: striving for perfection and negative reactions to imperfection. Design:The design was a correlational prospective design.Results: Results showed that striving for perfection during training predicted higher performance in the new task. In contrast, negative reactions to imperfection predicted lower performance when athletes attempted the task for the first time, once the positive influence of striving for perfection on task performance was partialled out. However, negative reactions to imperfection did not undermine performance in the consecutive trials. On the contrary, athletes with both high levels of striving for perfection and high levels of negative reactions to imperfection showed the greatest performance increments over the series of trials. Conclusion:The findings suggest that perfectionism is not necessarily a maladaptive characteristic that generally undermines sport performance. Instead, when learning a new training task, perfectionism may enhance performance and lead to performance increments over repeated trials.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Perfectionism and performance in a new basketball training task: Does striving for perfection enhance or undermine performance?

Stoll

Lau

Psychology of Sport and Exercise

2008

“…To measure perfectionism, we followed a multi-measure approach (Stoeber & Madigan, 2016) and used four subscales from two multidimensional measures of PERFECTIONISM AND ACHIEVEMENT GOALS 5 perfectionism in sport: the Sport Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (SMPS; Dunn et al, 2006) and the Multidimensional Inventory of Perfectionism in Sport (MIPS; Stoeber, Otto, Pescheck, Becker, & Stoll, 2007). To measure perfectionistic strivings, we used two indicators: the 7-item SMPS subscale capturing personal standards (e.g.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perfectionism and achievement goals revisited: The 3 × 2 achievement goal framework

Madigan

Psychology of Sport and Exercise

Passfield

2017

Design: Cross-sectional.Method: We examined self-reported perfectionistic strivings, perfectionistic concerns, and the 3 × 2 achievement goals in 136 junior athletes (mean age 17.0 years).Results: The results of structural equation modeling showed that PS were positively associated with task-, self-, and other-approach goals and negatively with task-and selfavoidance goals. In contrast, PC were positively associated with task-, self-, and otheravoidance goals and negatively with task-and self-approach goals.Conclusions: The findings suggest that PS and PC show different profiles also with the 3 × 2 achievement goals which may help explain why the two perfectionism dimensions show differential relations with achievement-related outcomes in sport.

“…Consequently, researchers have begun to use domainspecific measures of multidimensional perfectionism when examining how perfectionism relates to specific domains of peoples' lives such as sport, parenting, sexuality, and morality (Dunn et al, 2006;Snell, Overbey, & Brewer, 2005;Stoeber, Harvey, Almeida, & Lyons, 2013;Yang, Stoeber, & Wang, 2015).…”

Section: Physical Appearance Perfectionismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical appearance perfectionism explains variance in eating disorder symptoms above general perfectionism

Personality and Individual Differences

Yang

2015

Document VersionPublisher pdf Stoeber, J., & Yang, H. (2015). Physical appearance perfectionism explains variance in eating disorder symptoms above general perfectionism. Personality and Individual Differences, 86,[303][304][305][306][307] Physical appearance perfectionism is a domain-specific form of perfectionism comprising two components: hope for perfection and worry about imperfection (Yang & Stoeber, 2012).Previous studies found that physical appearance perfectionism is related to eating disorder symptoms, particularly the worry about imperfection component, but did not address the question of whether physical appearance perfectionism explains variance in eating disorder symptoms above general perfectionism. The present study investigated the question examining 559 female university students. Physical appearance perfectionism explained an additional 9-17% of variance in eating disorder symptoms above the 11-20% variance explained by general perfectionism. The findings suggest that physical appearance perfectionism plays an important role in disordered eating beyond general perfectionism.