Positive Perfectionism: Seeking the Healthy “Should”, or Should We?

Abstract

Using a prospective design we examined the\rnomological network of positive and negative perfectionism by considering\rrelations with optimism, pessimism, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and\rvariables of health and psychological well-being. Positive perfectionism was\rfound to have a large amount of variance in common with optimism and conscientiousness\rand negative perfectionism was found to share a large amount of variance with\rpessimism and neuroticism, but not enough to be considered redundant in either\rcase. Importantly, both positive and negative perfectionism were found to add\rsignificant incremental validity to the prediction of the criterion measures\reven after controlling for the influence of time one variables. Implications of\rthese findings for future research on perfectionism are discussed.