Thomas Curran

Yeah, that's exactly right.

And recruiters, time after time, tell us that that's the most overused cliche in job interviews.

And I think it says something about what we consider to be socially desirable weaknesses, that if somehow we can communicate that we're willing to, you know, sacrifice ourselves in some way and push ourselves beyond comfort, that that is something they'll see as positive, something that they really want on their team or in their organization.

So that speaks really to the ubiquity of perfectionism at the moment.

So a lot of people associate perfectionism with really high standards, that's true.

But actually, perfectionism is far, far deeper than what we see on the surface.

Because what really matters is where it's coming from.

And where those excessive amounts of striving and high standards and go-getting attitudes that you see on the surface are coming from in the perfectionistic people is a place of lack.

a sense that i'm not good enough that i'm not perfect enough and i need to prove to other people all the time that i'm worth something that i matter in this world and the way that i do that is through being perfect because of course if i'm perfect i'll get their validation and that will make me feel better that will soothe those shame-based fears of not being good enough

So what we see in the lab is exactly what I experienced when I encountered that breakup in my own life.

When you put perfectionistic people in stressful situations, perfectionism will aggravate the stress.

So every time you go into the lab, you tell perfectionistic people to do stressful things, like maybe give a public talk or complete a competitive task against other people.

And in the end you say you didn't do very well or you failed.

What you'll see is perfectionistic people respond with intense amounts of self-conscious emotion, lots of shame, lots of guilt about having slipped up in some way, particularly if that slip up is public.

It validates in them a sense that that fear that they're not good enough.

Whereas people who score lower on the perfectionism scales, well, yes, of course, these things do have an impact on their emotional state, but it's a far less profound impact.

And they're able to bounce back quite quickly.

yeah perfectionistic people people who are higher in the perfectionism spectrum what you tend to see is they also score higher on what we would call self-sabotaging thought patterns so things like you you mentioned there worry rumination they're really hyper vigilant about where they sit relative to others how they're performing relative to others they find it very difficult to exist in the moment or be mindful or appreciate success's

And so perfectionistic people really find it difficult to thrive or flourish because they're constantly worried about what's going to go wrong or how other people are doing.

Yeah, so that's a really curious finding, actually, in the perfectionism literature.