On the Distinction Between Personal Standards Perfectionism and Excellencism: A Theory Elaboration and Research Agenda

Abstract

Research on perfectionism is flourishing, but the unspecified distinction between perfectionism and the pursuit of excellence is a lingering issue that urgently needs conceptual, theoretical, and empirical attention. In this article, excellence and perfection are defined as distinct goals that form the basis of two different but related constructs. To move this idea forward, the term excellencism is introduced. Perfectionism and excellencism are defined and their similarities and differences are illustrated using symbolic logic and adjectives from the English lexicon. A point is made to clearly indicate that excellencism is a required reference point for reassessing the healthiness or unhealthiness of personal standards perfectionism. Using the law of diminishing returns as an analogy, a theory-driven rationale is proposed, and three alternative hypotheses are formulated. Showing that personal standards perfectionism is associated with better, comparable, and worse outcomes compared with excellencism offers the needed and sufficient conditions for respectively supporting the hypothesis that perfectionism is a healthy, unneeded, or deleterious pursuit. The propositions advanced in this theoretical article are more than incremental, and their practical implications are far-reaching: If personal standards perfectionism yields no added value or deleterious outcomes over and above excellencism, then excellence rather than perfection should be promoted.

Multidimensional Perfectionism and the Big Five Personality Traits: A Meta–Analysis

“…Thus, because partialling removes the neurotic element from perfectionistic strivings, one might speculate whether partialled perfectionistic strivings are more similar to excellencism than to unpartialled perfectionistic strivings. However, whereas excellencism is conceptualized as being associated with increased efficiency in task completion (Gaudreau, ), partialled and unpartialled indicators of perfectionistic strivings are associated with decreased efficiency in task completion (Stoeber & Eysenck, ) and decreased research productivity (Sherry et al, ). Consequently, additional research applying the recently developed measure of excellencism (Gaudreau & Schellenberg, ) is needed to further clarify the distinction of partialled perfectionistic strivings and excellencism.…”

The relentless pursuit of perfectionism: A review of perfectionism in the workplace and an agenda for future research

“…Before reviewing perfectionism's complex and multidimensional conceptualization, we believe it is necessary to first illuminate how it differs generally from other, related constructs. First, perfectionism differs from excellence striving in terms of the nature and difficulty of the pursued goals as well as the intensity and approach with which individuals pursue their goals (see Gaudreau, , for a thorough discussion). The pursuit of excellence involves the tendency to set and to strive toward achievable performance standards in an effortful and engaged fashion, whereas perfectionism refers to striving for flawlessness accompanied by persistent negative self‐evaluations and conditional self‐acceptance (Gaudreau, ).…”

“…First, perfectionism differs from excellence striving in terms of the nature and difficulty of the pursued goals as well as the intensity and approach with which individuals pursue their goals (see Gaudreau, , for a thorough discussion). The pursuit of excellence involves the tendency to set and to strive toward achievable performance standards in an effortful and engaged fashion, whereas perfectionism refers to striving for flawlessness accompanied by persistent negative self‐evaluations and conditional self‐acceptance (Gaudreau, ). Second, despite perfectionists' preoccupation with avoiding failure, perfectionism is a broader construct than fear of failure , which constitutes a tendency to feel anxious in situations involving the possibility of failure (Conroy, Kaye, & Fifer, ).…”

Internet‐based cognitive behaviour therapy for perfectionism: More is better but no need to be prescriptive

“…It is now widely accepted that both dimensions of perfectionism previously identified in factor analysis (e.g., Bieling, Israeli, & Antony, 2004), perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns, are risk factors for psychopathology (Shafran, Cooper, & Fairburn, 2002;Flett & Hewitt, 2014;Gaudreau, 2018;Blasberg, Hewitt, Flett, Sherry, & Chen, 2016;Limburg, Watson, Hagger, & Egan, 2017). Perfectionistic strivings involve seeking to attain relentlessly demanding, extremely high, and often unrealistic standards for the self (Sirois & Molnar, 2016).…”