Life history theory is an evolution-based theory that outlines the differences in species’ behaviors related to growth and reproduction. Fast-spectrum life history strategies are associated with impulsive, risky behavior, while slow-spectrum life history strategies are associated with cautious, conscientious, risk aversive behaviors. Perfectionism is a personality trait characterized by two dimensions: perfectionistic strivings and self-evaluative perfectionism. Each dimension has exhibited an association with careful, conscientious decision-making, as well as high standards for performance; it was hypothesized that high scores on both dimensions of perfectionism would be associated with slow life history strategies and related indicators. Participants consisted of 287 individuals (42.8% male, 57.2% female) from the general United States population who completed self- report questionnaires (via MTurk) related to their overall life history strategies, related specific traits (i.e., sociosexuality, future discounting, delayed gratification), and perfectionism. A general measure of slow life history strategy, the Mini-K, was correlated with perfectionistic strivings perfectionism, but contrary to expectations, was not correlated with self-evaluative perfectionism. Multiple regression analyses that controlled for gender indicated that the Mini-K and sociosexuality together accounted for 8% of variance in perfectionistic strivings perfectionism. These results provided insight into the extent to which life history strategy predicts each domain of perfectionism
