An Experimental Investigation of Standard Setting in Clinical Perfectionism

This study investigated if clinical perfectionism leads to resetting standards higher following both success and failure. A sample of 206 participants (74% female) completed an online experiment consisting of three sets of a nonverbal reasoning task and were asked before each set to select how many...

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Main Authors: Egan, Sarah, Dick, M., Allen, Peter
Format: Journal Article
Published: Australian Academic Press Pty Ltd 2012
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/24423
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author Egan, Sarah
Dick, M.
Allen, Peter
author_facet Egan, Sarah
Dick, M.
Allen, Peter
author_sort Egan, Sarah
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This study investigated if clinical perfectionism leads to resetting standards higher following both success and failure. A sample of 206 participants (74% female) completed an online experiment consisting of three sets of a nonverbal reasoning task and were asked before each set to select how many of the trials they aimed to get correct. Each set was followed by feedback regarding performance. Half of the participants received ‘difficult’ items for set 2, to allow investigation of failure effects. There was a significant relationship between clinical perfectionism and the standards that were set for the first set; however, there was no relationship with standard setting following success or failure. Instead, previous actual success or failure was the best predictor of goal setting. Consequently, clinical perfectionism was associated with setting higher standards in general, but not resetting standards higher following success or failure. Findings suggest that while clinical perfectionism plays a role in standard setting prior to performance, following performance actual success or failure becomes the best indicator. The implications of these findings for the cognitive behavioural model of clinical perfectionism are discussed.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-244232017-09-13T15:55:04Z An Experimental Investigation of Standard Setting in Clinical Perfectionism Egan, Sarah Dick, M. Allen, Peter This study investigated if clinical perfectionism leads to resetting standards higher following both success and failure. A sample of 206 participants (74% female) completed an online experiment consisting of three sets of a nonverbal reasoning task and were asked before each set to select how many of the trials they aimed to get correct. Each set was followed by feedback regarding performance. Half of the participants received ‘difficult’ items for set 2, to allow investigation of failure effects. There was a significant relationship between clinical perfectionism and the standards that were set for the first set; however, there was no relationship with standard setting following success or failure. Instead, previous actual success or failure was the best predictor of goal setting. Consequently, clinical perfectionism was associated with setting higher standards in general, but not resetting standards higher following success or failure. Findings suggest that while clinical perfectionism plays a role in standard setting prior to performance, following performance actual success or failure becomes the best indicator. The implications of these findings for the cognitive behavioural model of clinical perfectionism are discussed. 2012 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/24423 10.1017/bec.2012.16 Australian Academic Press Pty Ltd restricted
spellingShingle Egan, Sarah
Dick, M.
Allen, Peter
An Experimental Investigation of Standard Setting in Clinical Perfectionism
title An Experimental Investigation of Standard Setting in Clinical Perfectionism
title_full An Experimental Investigation of Standard Setting in Clinical Perfectionism
title_fullStr An Experimental Investigation of Standard Setting in Clinical Perfectionism
title_full_unstemmed An Experimental Investigation of Standard Setting in Clinical Perfectionism
title_short An Experimental Investigation of Standard Setting in Clinical Perfectionism
title_sort experimental investigation of standard setting in clinical perfectionism
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/24423