Perfectionism and achievement goals in young Finnish ice-hockey players aspiring to make the Under-16 national team

Abstract

Research on perfectionism suggests that is it useful to differentiate between perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns. Regarding the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework, the usefulness of this differentiation was recently demonstrated in a study with university student athletes (Stoeber, Stoll, Pescheck, & Otto, 2008, Study 2) that found perfectionistic strivings associated with mastery-approach and performanceapproach goals and perfectionistic concerns with mastery-avoidance, performanceapproach, and performance-avoidance goals. Because the study was largely exploratory and only investigated non-elite athletes, the aim of the present research was to replicate and extend these findings by investigating a sample of 138 young elite ice-hockey players, while adding further measures of perfectionism and using structural equation modeling (SEM) to confirm the relationships between perfectionistic strivings, perfectionistic concerns, and the 2 × 2 achievement goals. The SEM results showed that, also in elite athletes, perfectionistic strivings are associated with mastery-approach and performance-approach goals, whereas perfectionistic concerns are associated with mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals. Findings corroborate the importance of differentiating between perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns when regarding perfectionism in sports, because only perfectionistic concerns (and not perfectionistic strivings) are associated with maladaptive patterns of achievement goals.

Perfectionism and Performance

“…As mentioned earlier, most people who show elevated levels of perfectionistic strivings also show elevated levels of perfectionistic concerns, as indicated by the significant (and often high) positive correlations between perfectionistic strivings and concerns found in terms of general perfectionism and perfectionism in sport (e.g., Stoeber, Otto, Pescheck, Becker, & Stoll, 2007;Stoeber, Stoll, et al, 2009). This represents a problem because perfectionistic concerns-while not necessarily leading to impaired performance-have shown close links with characteristics and processes that may impair performance.…”

“…The two dimensions-perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns-are best captured when each dimension is measured with multiple scales (Frost et al, 1993;; for a sport example, see Stoeber, Stoll, Salmi, & Tiikkaja, 2009). However, there are single scales that represent proxy measures of the two dimensions.…”

Perfectionism and achievement goals revisited: The 3 × 2 achievement goal framework

“…To measure perfectionistic concerns, we also used two indicators: the 8-item SMPS subscale capturing concerns over mistakes ("People will probably think less of me if I make mistakes in competition") and the 5-item MIPS subscale capturing negative reactions to imperfection ( "I feel extremely stressed if everything does not go perfectly"), and again standardized the scale scores before combining them to measure perfectionistic concerns. The four subscales have demonstrated reliability and validity in previous studies (e.g., Madigan, Stoeber, & Passfield, in press;Stoeber, Stoll, et al, 2009) and are reliable and valid indicators of perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns (e.g., Gotwals et al, 2012;Stoeber & Madigan, 2016). Participants responded to all items on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).…”

“…Several studies have provided evidence that perfectionistic strivings and concerns show different relations with the 2 × 2 achievement goals in sports (e.g., Stoeber, Stoll, Salmi, & Tiikkaja, 2009;Stoeber, Uphill, & Hotham, 2009;Zarghmi, Ghamary, Shabani, & Varzaneh, 2010). Across studies, perfectionistic strivings have shown positive relations with masteryand performance-approach goals whereas perfectionistic concerns have shown positive relations with mastery-and performance-avoidance goals, suggesting that perfectionistic strivings are mainly approach-focused whereas perfectionistic concerns are mainly avoidancefocused (cf.…”

Actividades Multiaventura Para El Desarrollo Social Y Emocional en Población Infanto-Juvenil

“…Según Stoeber y Otto (2006) es importante distinguir entre los esfuerzos y las preocupaciones perfeccionistas, debido a que estas últimas son principalmente las que marcan el perfeccionismo en el deporte. Contrariamente, los esfuerzos perfeccionistas son asociados con características positivas tanto en el proceso como en el resultado (Stoeber, 2011(Stoeber, , 2014Stoeber, Stoll, Salmi y Tiikkaja, 2009).…”