The destructiveness and public health significance of socially prescribed perfectionism: A review, analysis, and conceptual extension

Socially prescribed perfectionism predicts next-day binge eating behaviors over 20-days.

“…The PMOBE suggests that individuals high in SPP actively create situations conducive to binge eating. The evidence linking SPP with binge eating is in keeping with conceptual ties between socially prescribed perfectionism and impulsivity and empirical links that this perfectionism dimension has with deficits in self-control (see Flett et al, 2021). Further, the PMOBE is consistent with the perfectionism social disconnection model (Hewitt et al, 2006), which posits that perfectionistic individuals tend to experience both objective social disconnection (i.e., severed or impaired interpersonal relationships such as conflict with those around them) and subjective social disconnection (i.e., the psychological experience of isolation, such as low levels of social support and loneliness), which results in psychopathology such as eating disorders.…”

“…For example, counselors and clinicians working with emerging adults may want to focus on addressing aspects of SPP and/or self-critical perfectionism, especially at a daily level, to reduce harmful binge eating behaviors and maladaptive reactions and responses to stressful situations in general but especially those that involve actual or perceived social evaluation. Other potential themes to target include the tendency for people with high socially prescribed perfectionism to attach irrational importance to be being perfect and to have an externalized view of the self that increases their hypersensitivity to social cues and social feedback (for a discussion, see Flett et al, 2021). Perfectionism is a pervasive and transdiagnostic risk factor for eating disorder symptoms more broadly (Fairburn et al, 2003).…”

Perfectionism and its role in depressive disorders.

“…Over the past several decades, researchers have proposed several different models of perfectionism (e.g., Dunkley et al, 2000; Frost et al, 1990; Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010; Shafran et al, 2002). Of these models, one of the most widely used and researched is the Comprehensive Model of Perfectionistic Behaviour (CMPB), a descriptive model of perfectionism developed to try and capture a multilayered and multidimensional conceptualization of the perfectionistic personality style (see Flett et al, 2021; Hewitt et al, 2003; Hewitt & Flett, 1990). We believed this description would aid in understanding the complexity of the construct and its role in psychopathology.…”

“…Hence, our early work highlighted the importance of perfectionism in depression and underscored that a multidimensional conceptualization was appropriate, especially with respect to depression. The careful development of clinically validated multidimensional measures that assessed various trait dimensions of perfectionism (Hewitt & Flett, 1990) as well as the other elements of the CMPB (Flett et al, 2021; Hewitt et al, 2003), allowed us to address the role of perfectionism in depression in earnest. Indeed, we subsequently developed stress mechanisms models, positing that individuals with perfectionism are predisposed to developing depression through heightened exposure and reactivity to stressors.…”

Perfectionism unbound: An integrated individual and group intervention for those hiding imperfections

“…It is associated with different forms of psychopathology in both clinical and nonclinical samples, suggesting that the higher the perfectionism the higher the suffering (Dimaggio et al, 2015, 2018; Hewitt & Flett, 1991, 1993; Hewitt et al, 1992; Sherry et al, 2007). Second, the nature of perfectionism is highly complex and multidimensional, deeply affecting the whole life of persons and their subjective and intersubjective experience (Ayearst et al, 2012; Flett et al, 2022; Smith et al, 2022).…”