The federal government’s Canada Research Chairs program invests up to $311 million per year to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds. Chairholders are recognized to be national and international experts in the fields of engineering and the natural sciences, health sciences, humanities and social sciences. Brock University has 11 active Canada Research Chairs, with more to be announced. This monthly series profiles the work, and lives, of Brock’s Chairholders.

Not everyone gets to have their PhD dissertation signed — and ‘graded’ — by a world-famous rock star.

During her graduate years, Danielle Sirianni Molnar was inspired by Alice Cooper’s Man of the Year, a song about a highly successful, seemingly perfect man whose life falls apart.

A self-proclaimed perfectionist, Sirianni Molnar, now Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies at Brock, was shocked by the idea that perfectionism could have a dark side.

“This song opened up a whole new world to me, where people are putting these unrealistic expectations on themselves, being overly self-critical, and believing that perfectionism is what’s guiding them to success when really they’re being successful in spite of perfectionism,” she says.

Cooper ended up giving Sirianni Molnar his thumbs-up after one of his concerts.

“I got to go backstage, and I brought my dissertation, so he signed it and gave me an A-plus,” she recalls with a laugh.

That set Sirianni Molnar on a decades-long journey to explore how perfectionism manifests in teens. It was a path that eventually led her to be named Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Adjustment and Well-Being in Children and Youth.

She defines perfectionism as “demanding absolute perfection from the self or others.”

Characteristics of perfectionist teens include having excessively high standards, feeling chronically dissatisfied, even if they achieve their high standards, engaging in excessive comparison, and thinking they need to be ‘the best’ as a way of staving off feeling worthless.

Sirianni Molnar says that while striving for excellence is a good thing, it can be done without the “nasty baggage” of harshness and relentless pressure against oneself.

“I would ask the perfectionistic teen to think deeply about what it’s costing them and to come up with ways to reach for standards that are more reasonable, that are still excellent but not necessarily perfect, so that the teen can balance the benefits with the costs,” she says.

Sirianni Molnar can relate to the perfectionistic path. Tough times prevented her grandparents, who immigrated to Canada from Italy, from attending school at a young age. They drilled into her and her cousins the value of getting a good education.

For the most part, she took that advice to heart. But there was one point where her beloved grandmother — her ‘Nana’ — staged an intervention when the young student wasn’t making the “best decisions” early in her university education.

“I’ll never forget hearing the knocking on the door; I opened my dorm room door and there was Nana,” recalls Sirianni Molnar. “After a two-hour conversation with me about not wasting this educational opportunity, Nana gave me a homemade soppressata sandwich, a can of Pepsi and an apple, and said, ‘This is the start of your new education,’ and she laughed.

“That changed everything,” she says. “I’m here because of my Nana.”

Sirianni Molnar initially started out in the hard sciences, aiming to become a chemist. But an elective psychology course fascinated her, giving her insights into her own anxiety and perfectionistic tendencies.

She tuned into the Alice Cooper song while pursuing her master’s degree, with her PhD dissertation being centred on themes in the Alice Cooper song.

Tragically, Nana passed away shortly before Sirianni Molnar defended her dissertation. Her grandfather, ‘Nonno,’ came to the defense “to represent Nana because she was my best friend growing up.”

Now 103 years old, Nonno still follows her work and is proud of her CRC position.

Sirianni Molnar has had many accomplishments along the way. These include: co-editing the research volume Perfectionism, Health, and Well-being; being awarded the Ontario government’s Early Researcher Award; and establishing Brock University’s Developmental Processes in Health and Well-being Lab.

She aims to have her CRC work raise awareness of the many impacts of teen perfectionism.

“The end goal is to inform interventions aimed at fostering resilience and well-being among young people navigating the pressures of perfectionism,” she says.