Perfectionism in sport and dance: A double-edged sword

The author provides comments on the contributions to this special issue on perfectionism in sport and dance focusing on how they provide further support for the view that perfectionism is a "double-edged sword." In addition, the author gives his personal view on using the tripartite model versus the 2 x 2 model of perfectionism as an analytic framework and, in conclusion, outlines future research on perfectionism in sport and dance that he thinks is needed to further advance our knowledge

Domains of perfectionism: Prevalence and relationships with perfectionism, age, gender, and satisfaction with life

Perfectionists have been described as people who want to be perfect in all domains of their lives. Few studies to date, however, have investigated what domains people are perfectionistic in. Using two samples (109 university students, 289 Internet users), the present study investigated how being perfectionistic in 22 domains of life was related to perfectionism, age, gender, and satisfaction with life. Across samples, work and studies were the domains that most participants reported being perfectionistic in, followed by bodily hygiene, spelling, and presentation of documents. Whereas age, gender, and satisfaction with life showed significant relationships with selected domains of life, perfectionism showed significant positive correlations with the overall score (number of domains affected by perfectionism) and with being perfectionistic in individual domains. Further analyses showed that self-oriented perfectionism, rather than socially prescribed perfectionism, was responsible for these correlations. The findings indicate that, in most domains, being perfectionistic is internally motivated and not externally motivated. Moreover, they show that, while some perfectionists may be perfectionistic across domains, most perfectionists are perfectionistic only in selected domains

Perfectionism

Perfectionism is a personality disposition characterized by striving for flawlessness and setting exceedingly high standards for performance, accompanied by tendencies for overly critical evaluations. It is a disposition that may pervade all areas of life, particularly areas in which performance plays as major role (e.g., work, school). Therefore, it comes as no surprise that perfectionism is a common characteristic in competitive athletes

Trait anxiety and pessimistic appraisal of risk and chance

Previous research on anxiety and risk has primarily focused on the subjective probability of negative events. Prevalent definitions, however, regard risk as having two dimensions: (i) probability and (ii) utility. Furthermore, previous results remained ambivalent to whether inflated subjective risk was due to trait or to state anxiety. Finally, response-set explanations often could not be ruled out. This article presents two studies in which risk appraisal was investigated with a new text-completion method. Participants were given texts about various possible negative and positive events with omissions for the two risk dimensions. A musical mood-induction procedure was used to induce state anxiety. The participants then completed the texts by choosing the most plausible risk descriptions. Results of both studies show a global effect of trait anxiety on the appraisal of probability and utility for both positive and negative events whereas neither state anxiety nor control variables like social desirability or depression could explain any variance in the appraisal of risk and chance

Anxiety and the regulation of complex problem situations: Playing it safe?

According to Schönpflug, an ecologically valid model of behavioral regulation should contain antecedent, focal, and consequential problem variables while allowing for a classification of primary versus auxiliary actions. To study individual differences in dynamic problem solving, the task simulation RISK is introduced. Within this task, highly anxious subjects were expected to demonstrate a greater safety expertise because of a hypothesized tendency to focus on risks and modify them. The results, however, indicated a preference for a more narrow focus: Highly anxious subjects directed their regulatory efforts primarily to focal and consequential problem variables. Yet, in RISK, this was a safe and also successful strategy

Impact factor stories: Anxiety, Stress, & Coping

Anxiety, Stress, & Coping provides a forum for scientific, theoretically important, and clinically significant research reports and conceptual contributions. It deals with experimental and field studies on anxiety dimensions and stress and coping processes, but also with related topics such as the antecedents and consequences of stress and emotion. Welcome are papers contributing to the understanding of the relationship between psychological and physiological processes, specific for stress and anxiety. The journal’s Impact Factor has increased impressively over the past three Impact Factor years. It moved from 0.588 in the 2007 JCR® to 1.127 the subsequent year, with a further jump to 1.545 in the recently released 2009 JCR®. Below, we ask the editors for their thoughts on these increases

Moral perfectionism and moral values, virtues, and judgments: Further investigations

In a first psychological investigation of moral perfectionism, Yang, Stoeber, and Wang (2015) adapted items from the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale to differentiate perfectionistic personal moral standards and concern over moral mistakes. Examining a sample of Chinese students, Yang et al. found that personal moral standards showed unique positive relationships with moral values, virtues, and judgments, whereas concern over moral mistakes did not. The present study aimed to replicate Yang et al.’s findings in a sample of Western students (N = 243), additionally including measures of moral identity and moral disengagement. Furthermore, the study examined whether moral perfectionism explained variance in moral attitudes beyond general perfectionism. Results largely replicated Yang et al.’s findings. Personal moral standards (but not concern over moral mistakes) showed unique positive relationships with moral values, virtues, and judgments and a unique negative relationship with moral disengagement. Furthermore, moral perfectionism explained significant variance in moral attitudes beyond general perfectionism. The present findings suggest that moral perfectionism is a personality characteristic that is relevant in both Asian and Western cultures and explains individual differences in moral attitudes beyond general perfectionism

Measuring facets of Worry: A LISREL analysis of the Worry Domains Questionnaire

In the development of the Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ) for the measurement of nonpathological worry, (Tallis, Eysenck & Mathews, 1992. A questionnaire for the measurement of nonpathological worry. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 161–168) Tallis et al. had used cluster analytical procedures to establish the number of worry domains. The resulting structure of the WDQ, however, was never adequately tested. This study therefore examined the WDQ's structure by use of confirmatory factor analysis comparing models of different factor structures. In the first sample of 466 participants, a five-factor model yielded the best fit to the data, characterized by highly correlated yet distinct domains of everyday worrying as they were originally proposed. This model was cross-validated with a second sample of 503 participants, showing stable factor loadings across samples. Whereas these analyses displayed a good fit of the five-factor representation for the item-based models, overall fit of all models was more prominent when items were aggregated (subscale models). Implications of the results and suggestions for future research are discussed

Perfectionism, fear of failure, and affective responses to success and failure: The central role of fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment

This study investigated how different aspects of perfectionism in athletes (N = 388) related to the different fears of failure proposed by Conroy et al. (2002), and how perfectionism and fears of failure predicted positive and negative affect after imagined success and failure in sports competitions. Results showed that perfectionistic personal standards showed a negative relationship with fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment and a positive relationship with positive affect after success, whereas perfectionistic concern over mistakes and perceived parental pressure showed a positive relationship with fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment and with negative affect after failure. Moreover, fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment fully mediated the relationship between perfectionistic concern and negative affect and between coach pressure and negative affect. The findings demonstrate that fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment is central in the perfectionism-fear of failure relationship and that perfectionistic concern about mistakes and perceived coach pressure are aspects of perfectionism that predict fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment and negative affect after failure

Somatic symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder from the DSM-IV: Associations with pathological worry and depression symptoms in a nonclinical sample

The present study investigates specificity of the six somatic symptoms that are associated with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), according to the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. A nonclinical sample of 183 students provided severity ratings for (a) restlessness, (b) easily fatigued, (c) difficulty concentrating, (d) irritability, (e) muscle tension, and (f) sleep disturbance. In addition, they responded to questionnaires assessing pathological worry and depression symptoms. Partial correlations and multiple regression analyses indicated that only muscle tension showed a unique relation to pathological worry. In contrast, difficulty concentrating was exclusively related to depression symptoms. Present findings corroborate psychophysiological findings that elevated muscle tension is a specific characteristic of pathological worriers. Moreover, they suggest that the problem of unclear boundaries between GAD and major depression may be reduced if future revisions of the somatic symptom list for GAD emphasize muscle tension while de-emphasizing difficulty concentrating