The Pros And Cons Of Perfectionism

Perfectionism is a personality trait that is described as the person’s need for purity and spotlessness by setting high performance goals, which are accompanied by extreme self-evaluations and concerns for other’s evaluations about self (socially prescribed perfectionism) (Stoeber, Joaichm & Julian, 2010). Perfectionists need to have everything right, and as a result it can interfere with their relationships and opportunities in life. It can especially make relationship difficult with others (Stoeber, Joaichm & Julian, 2010). When individuals with perfectionism fail in any task or consider themselves incompetent after a failure they often self-criticize which hurt their self-esteem and often result in depression (Stoeber, Joaichm & Julian, 2010).
Perfectionism is considered as a multidimensional characteristic which has many positive and negative aspects (Stoeber, Joaichm & Julian, 2010). Hollender (1978), explained that perfectionists feel depressed when they find it difficult to meet their high standards and others expectations. Perfectionism becomes dangerous when individuals do not take opportunities due to the fear of failure and rejection. Perfectionists always think of extremities and consider their less than perfect performance a complete failure. They over generalize the situation and criticize themselves. These …show more content…
normal perfectionists and neurotic perfectionists. Those with normal perfectionism have very high standards for themselves but they do not show dissatisfaction from their hard work while people with neurotic perfectionism always expect impossible and criticize themselves for failures and poor performance. They never feel satisfied with their work and constantly need social approvals. Neurotic perfectionism is developed when approvals from others are given only on the perfect results while normal perfectionism results due to the process of observation and modeling (Henderson,