Perfectionism and Anxiety: A Paradox in Intellectual Giftedness?
Citation: Guignard J-H, Jacquet A-Y, Lubart TI (
Perfectionism and Anxiety: A Paradox in Intellectual Giftedness?
Jacques-Henri Guignard 0
Anne-Yvonne Jacquet 0
Todd I. Lubart 0
Aldo Rustichini, University of Minnesota, United States of America
0 1 Centre National d'Aide pour enfant et adolescent a` Haut Potentiel, Centre Hospitalier Guillaume Re gnier , Rennes , France , 2 Laboratoire Adaptation Travail Individu, Universite Paris Descartes, Paris, France , 3 Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception , Universite Paris Descartes , Paris , France
Numerous authors reported a prevalence of perfectionism in gifted populations. In addition, an unhealthy form of perfectionism that leads to anxiety disorder has been described. Using self-report measures (CAPS and R-CMAS) with 132 children, we hypothesized that intellectually gifted children express a higher level of perfectionism and anxiety. Our results pointed out a paradox: the gifted group obtained a higher self-oriented perfectionism score than the control group in 6th grade, but present the same level of anxiety. In contrast, the gifted group showed the same level of perfectionism than nongifted 5th graders, but reported a higher anxiety level. Thus, the interplay between perfectionism and anxiety appears to be more complex than a simple linear relationship in giftedness.
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Perfectionism is viewed as a specific mode of functioning that
corresponds to a tendency to seek to be or to appear perfect.
Todorov and Bazinet conceive perfectionism as a personality
characteristic [1] and healthy perfectionism has been
distinguished from neurotic perfectionism [2]. In the first case, the
individual is able to define realistic objectives and gain
satisfaction after having reached these objectives. In the second
case, the individual fixes excessively high standards of
achievement. Because these personal standards are objectively
unreachable, they are associated with the uncomfortable feeling that
what has been accomplished is incomplete or imperfect. More
recently, perfectionism has been viewed as a multidimensional
personality trait related to psychological difficulties, distortions of
interpersonal relations and an erroneous relationship to success
[3]. According to this model, perfectionism is a three dimensional
construct including self-oriented, other-oriented and
sociallyprescribed perfectionism. Self-oriented perfectionism reflects
ones tendency to define high or unreachable personal standards
of achievement. It is linked to various traits and disorders
including depression, anxiety and hypomania. Other-oriented
perfectionism concerns individuals who have high expectations
for those in their social environment. Socially-prescribed
perfectionism is related to perceived environmental pressures.
Socially-prescribed perfectionists perceive pressure from others to
hold excessively high standards of achievement. Authors have
reported some findings on psychological distress induced by two
forms of perfectionism [4]. They collected data from 114
adolescents (10 to 14 years old) using the Children and
Adolescent Perfectionism Scale [5], an auto-evaluation scale that
measures self-oriented perfectionism and socially-prescribed
perfectionism. The results showed correlations between
selforiented perfectionism and two indices of psychological distress:
depression and anxiety. In addition, socially-prescribed
perfectionism was linked to depression, anxiety, social stress and
aggressive behaviours.
Perfectionism has been extensively examined in the literature
on giftedness [6], [7], [8], [9]. LoCicero and Ashby have
explored various dimensions of perfectionism with gifted children
(n = 83, m = 13 years old) and a group of non-gifted peers
(n = 112) [10]. The authors used a questionnaire measuring
personal standards of success (S) and the discrepancy between
achieved performances and personal standards of success (D).
They divided the distribution of S scores obtained into three
classes of equivalent size. The perfectionists had the highest
scores on S. The second dimension, D, was used to evaluate the
adaptive character of perfectionism. The distribution of the D
scores was split at the median forming two groups: adaptive
perfectionism (lower half of the distribution) and maladaptative
perfectionism (upper half of the distribution). The results indicate
that the gifted obtained a higher mean score on S, which shows a
tendency of this population to set higher criteria for success. In
addition, the gifted show the weakest mean score on D,
suggesting that high criteria of success are not necessarily a
handicap for gifted children.
If perfectionism is a personality facet that can be useful for the
expression of talent with high levels of accomplishment, it can
also be associated with anxious feelings if ones standards of
accomplishment are never met. Thus, strong feelings and
involvement, perfectionism, as well as non-challenging
schoolwork and parental expectations, were (...truncated)