Author(s)

Tingting Fang¹, Fan Liu²

¹School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China.
²School of Education Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China.

Perfectionism is a personality trait that strives for high standards of performance and is accompanied by a tendency to critically evaluate oneself, which is closely related to individual mental health and has a profound impact on individuals’ work, study and life. Nevertheless, there are controversies in its nature and characters and whether its impact on mental health is positive or negative still exists in the domain of perfectionism, calling for further discussions. The article identifies key findings in the perfectionism literature, reviews and summarizes the current state of perfectionism research, including the conceptual dimensions of perfectionism, the cluster of perfectionism, and the negative and positive effects of perfectionism on mental health. Finally, several future research directions were discussed.

Perfectionism, Mental Health, Positive Perfectionism, Negative Perfectionism

Fang, T. and Liu, F. (2022) A Review on Perfectionism. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 10, 355-364. doi: 10.4236/jss.2022.101027.