Jung Min (Ethan) Cha

Dr. Ilkowska
PSYC 1101-C
Research Paper: Motivation and Emotion
Oct 26, 2013
Perfectionism is first divided into two broad types: perfectionistic
strivings and perfectionistic concern. While perfectionistic strivings is
rooted to high individual standards in ones activities and mindset, such as
academics and emotions, perfectionistic concern is entrenched in ones
negative feelings of inconsistencies, or so called discrepancies.
Previous psychologists first investigated the link between
perfectionism and stress. People with perfectionistic strivings have a
tendency to strive more and focus on the rewards and feeling of
mastery than people with lower standards. Moreover, they seem to
demonstrate a better ability to cope with stress than others. On the other
hand, people with perfectionistic concerns resulted with helpless and lack
of control attitudes and were prone to self-criticism.
Another relationship explored was the negative correlation between
self-control and stress. Self-control refers to attempts to override or alter
ones dominant response tendencies and to interrupt undesired
behaviors and has been recognized as a defensive element against
stress. High level of self-control presents individuals with a wide range of
positive results; however, lack of self-control often leads to not only
person but also social problems.
An important correlation is how self-control correlates to two types
of perfectionism. While self-control is positively correlated to self-oriented
perfectionism, it is negatively correlated to socially-oriented
perfectionism. Self-oriented perfectionists tend to have not only high
standards but also motivation to strive more. But socially-oriented
perfectionists had a decreased level of motivation and control. Moreover,
amongst socially-oriented perfectionists, self-criticism was negatively
correlated to goal progress.
Through Almost Perfect Scale-Revised validated by college
freshmen, researchers, Achtziger and Bayer, first indicated high standards
as a part of perfectionistic striving and discrepancies as a part of
perfectionistic concern. And in order to investigate self-control, they
characterized self-control as controlling thoughts, emotions, impulses,
and performance and measured it through Self-Control Scale (SCS). After
having finalized the research preparation, they focused on college
freshmen for their first three months, for they went through high selfcontrol demanding situations, such as adapting to new life situations as
for instance moving away from home, looking for a job, finding new
friends, being confronted with new academic requirements and so on.
After three months of measuring their stress, they predicted a
significant relationship between the two types of perfectionism and stress
level: discrepancy positively correlated to stress and high standard
negatively correlated to stress. They believed that the students measures

of self-control mediated the relationship between the two types of

perfectionism and stress level.
In order to measure stress level, Achtziger and Bayer employed
Perceived Stress Scale that, depending on the results, concludes life as
unpredictable, uncontrollable, [or] overloaded. After having taken such
measures, they concluded, through countless statistical testing, that selfcontrol definitely had a strong impact in ones ability to cope with stress,
and self-oriented perfectionists dealt with stress better than sociallyoriented perfectionists.
[Reference: Achtziger and Bayer, 2012, Self-control mediates the link
between perfectionism and stress, Motivation and Emotion, Volume 37
Issue 3, Pages 413-423]