Perfectionism is increasing
Curran & Hill (2022) published “Young People’s Perceptions of Their Parents’ Expectations and Criticism are Increasing Over Time: Implications for perfectionism” in Psychological Bulletin. The work of Hewitt and Flett defines the three kinds of perfectionism as follows:
Socially prescribed perfectionists are very self-critical. They feel immense pressure to be the best and worry others will reject them. Perceived external standards (which can come from family, workplace culture, society, etc.) can lead to anxiety and low confidence.
Other-Oriented Perfectionists hold others to high standards and can be critical and judgmental—can leave destruction in their wake. It’s hard to build working relationships under these conditions, which is one reason this variety is so detrimental.
Self-oriented perfectionists are organized and conscientious. They set high standards for themselves in their lives and careers, but are able to go after their goals. High self-oriented perfectionism is generally associated with the most “adaptive” traits correlated with greater productivity and success, including resourcefulness and assertiveness. They show higher rates of positive emotion and motivation. (Wilding, 2021)
Here’s the Curran & Hill abstract:
Recent evidence demonstrates rising self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed perfectionism among young people from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada (Curran & Hill, 2019). One reason why perfectionism is increasing may be that rising competitiveness and individualism are requiring parents to engage in anxious, overly involved, and/or overly controlling forms of parenting. Yet, data to support this claim are limited and contested. In two meta-analyses, we expanded upon and tested this claim by examining whether excessive parental expectations and harsh parental criticism are correlated with perfectionism (Study 1) and whether these perceived practices are changing over time among American, Canadian, and British college students (Study 2). In Study 1, meta-analyses found small-to-moderate positive mean weighted effects of parental expectations and parental criticism on self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionism, and large positive mean weighted effects of parental expectations and parental criticism on socially prescribed perfectionism. In Study 2, using cross-temporal meta-analysis, we found that mean levels of parental expectations and parental criticism had linearly increased between 1989 and 2019 among college students. With rising competitiveness, individualism, economic inequality, and pressure to excel at school and college as the societal background, increases in parental expectations and parental criticism offer the most plausible explanation for rising perfectionism to date.
It appears that high levels of parental expectations and parental criticism more often produce socially prescribed perfectionism with low to moderate levels of both more often associated with self- or other-oriented perfectionism. I find the last sentence of the abstract most disturbing since there are some positive features in self-oriented perfectionism. As usual, it is finding the realistic balance between expectations others impose and one’s own personal goals that may be the solution, as tricky as it is to achieve.