HERE’S THE BOTTOM LINE…
Interviews with perfectionistic teens suggested that the first lockdown offered them a break from their usual schedules and responsibilities, which gave them more time to focus on their healthy habits.
However, teenagers who were high in the internal need to be perfect, or who tended to have impossibly high expectations for themselves, seemed to have more trouble taking advantage of this break. They seemed to respond negatively to the shifts in their sleep schedules and had to remind themselves to relax, often trying to choose the most productive relaxation activities.
Last time, on the Young & The Perfectionistic…
Last week, The Young & The Perfectionistic covered part one of a recent study from the DPHWB lab that found that “extreme” perfectionists (e.g., who hold impossibly high standards for themselves and believe that other people will be disappointed in them if they are not perfect) were the only group to report fewer healthy habits during the pandemic, compared to before the pandemic. Check out Issue 4 “What Role Did Perfectionism Play in Changes to Healthy Habits During the Pandemic? Part One – Survey Says…” for more details!
In the current issue, we will share the findings from part two of this study, where we looked at interviews with teenage perfectionists during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Ontario to see why different forms of perfectionism were linked with healthy habits early on in the pandemic.
Reminder from Issue 4: Defining health-promoting behaviors and why they are important
Health-promoting behaviors are any daily actions that help to support good health and prevent illness, such as eating healthy and balanced meals, incorporating exercise into your daily routine, getting a good night’s sleep, and finding time to relax (Sirois, 2001; 2019; Vickers et al., 1990). These behaviors seemed to be especially important in promoting overall wellness during the pandemic. Specifically, engaging in these types of health behaviors have been linked with better physical well-being and infection prevention (e.g., Cummings et al., 2022) as well as better mental health (e.g., Shanahan et al., 2020) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
REMINDER FROM ISSUE 4: What do you mean by different forms of perfectionism?
Issues 2 and 3 of The Young & The Perfectionistic focused on perfectionistic cognitions, or automatic thoughts about the intense need to be perfect and avoiding mistakes. However, we can also think about perfectionism at the trait, or dispositional, level (Hewitt et al., 2017). At the trait level, perfectionism involves requiring absolute perfection yourself and/or others (Hewitt & Flett, 1991).
Among teenagers, researchers tend to focus on how and why teenagers demand perfection of themselves (Flett et al., 2016). This tends to happen through two pathways:
- Setting unrealistically high standards for yourself, or an internal need to be perfect
- Believing that other people in your life (e.g., parents, teachers, friends, coaches) expect you to be perfect and that they will be disappointed with you if you fail to live up to their impossibly high expectations, or an external need to be perfect
However, it does not have to be one or the other. In fact, some researchers suggest that different combinations of the internal and external pressure to be perfect can be linked with different outcomes (e.g., Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010; Rice & Ashby, 2007; Stoeber & Otto, 2006), including outcomes related to physical health (e.g., Molnar et al., 2020; Siriois et al., 2019; Sirois et al., 2021).
In the current study, we were interested if the way teenage perfectionists talked about their healthy behaviors during the first depended on whether they were:
- high on the internal need to be perfect,
- high on the external need to be perfect or
- high on both the internal and external need to be perfect.
We also looked at how these patterns may have differed for people who were low on both the internal and external need to be perfect, who are often considered to be non-perfectionists. However, please note that in part two of this study, all the participants were self-identified perfectionists so they should simply be considered to be relatively low on the internal and external need to be perfect, rather than non-perfectionists.
How did we examine this?
In part two of this study, we looked at whether the way 31 teenage perfectionists talked about healthy habits during the pandemic was linked to their form of perfectionism. To determine which form of perfectionism each participant fell into, we looked at their scores on a survey measuring perfectionism and grouped them into the following categories:
- High on both the internal and external need to be perfect
- High internal need to be perfect, low external need to be perfect
- Low internal need to be perfect, high external need to be perfect
- Low on both the internal and external need to be perfect
We then looked at how each group talked about healthy habits in interviews. These interviews asked young perfectionists about perfectionism and experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, including lockdown protocols, school experiences, and general experiences during COVID-19. It is worth noting that we did not specifically ask these young perfectionists about their healthy habits; these topics came up on their own, pointing to how important they were to our participants during the early stages of the pandemic. We collected all the quotes where our participants talked about healthy habits and examined group similarities and differences depending on their form of perfectionism.
What did we find?
Three themes related to healthy habits came out from the interviews. Specifically, the participants in part two of the current study talked about physical activity, sleep, and relaxation during the first lockdown.
Regardless of their form of perfectionism, most participants reported…
- Using physical activity (e.g., walking, biking, playing, working out) to cope with the pandemic
- Helped them to stay busy and to connect with friends and family
- Helped add some structure to their daily schedules
- Experiencing changes to their sleep schedules during lockdown
- Later bedtimes
- Later wakeup times
- Having more time for relaxation in their daily schedules during lockdown, usually later in the day
The group who was low on both the internal and external need to be perfect seemed to have the most positive attitudes towards these changes:
- Focused on the health benefits of having more time to exercise and be active
- Talked about getting extra sleep during lockdown as a positive thing
- Were the most aware of the extra opportunities for relaxation during lockdown, compared to the other three groups
In contrast, the other three groups (i.e., who expected themselves to be perfect, believed others expected them to be perfect, or both) had more negative attitudes towards the changes brought on by the pandemic.
When they talked about physical activity…
None of these groups mentioned focusing on the “silver lining” of having more time to be active and the benefits this may have for their overall health
When they talked about sleep…
Both groups with high levels of the internal need to be perfect, or who put pressure on themselves to be perfect, mentioned that the shifts to their sleep schedules had a negative impact on their day-to-day lives
For example, one participant mentioned that sleeping in throws off her whole schedule for the day and reduces her motivation to do her schoolwork
The group who primarily felt pressure from others to be perfect (I.e., high levels of the external need to be perfect) credited the changes to their sleep patterns to feeling unmotivated and like they have nothing better to do
When they talked about relaxation…
Both groups with high levels of the internal need to be perfect, or who put pressure on themselves to be perfect, talked about having to make active attempts to relax
In describing what they do to relax, they seemed to talk about completing new tasks and trying to do relaxation activities that they considered to be worthwhile
These groups seemed to have trouble letting go of their perfectionistic standards and need to be productive during the pandemic
In Conclusion…
Interviews with perfectionistic teens suggested that the first lockdown offered them a break from their usual schedules and responsibilities, which gave them more time to focus on their healthy habits.
However, teenagers who were high in the internal need to be perfect, or who tended to have impossibly high expectations for themselves, seemed to have more trouble taking advantage of this break. They seemed to respond negatively to the shifts in their sleep schedules and had to remind themselves to relax, often trying to choose the most productive relaxation activities.
Altogether…
Part one and part two of this study indicate that the early stages of the pandemic gave teenagers a welcome break from their regular lives, where they were able to make time for healthier habits.
However, “extreme” perfectionists, who hold impossibly high standards for themselves and believe that other people will be disappointed in them if they are not perfect, were the most likely to engage in fewer healthy habits during the pandemic (as seen in Study One). Study Two revealed that one key barrier to engaging in healthy habits in an effective way during the pandemic is having difficulty letting go of self-driven perfectionistic standards.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS STUDY, CHECK OUT:
Blackburn, M., Methot-Jones, T., Molnar, D. S., Zinga, D., Spadafora, N., & Tacuri, N. (2022). Assessing changes to adolescent health-promoting behaviors following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-methods exploration of the role of within-person combinations of trait perfectionism. Personality and Individual Differences, 189, 111492. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111492
PLEASE NOTE: The information presented in this blog is intended for information purposes only. It is not intended to be used as diagnostic criteria. Perfectionism is not a recognized psychological disorder. The information in this blog is NOT a substitute for advice by an appropriate health professional. If you are experiencing distress, please contact an appropriate health professional.
OTHER HELPFUL REFERENCES IN THIS POST:
Cummings, J. R., Wolfson, J. A., & Gearhardt, A. N. (2022). Health-promoting behaviors in the United States during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Appetite, 168, Article 105659. https://doi.org/j.appet.2021.105659
Flett, G. L., Hewitt, P. L., Besser, A., Su, C., Vaillancourt, T. Boucher, D., Munro, Y., Davidson, L. A., & Gale, O. (2016). The child-adolescent perfectionism scale: Development, psychometric properties, and associations with stress, distress, and psychiatric symptoms. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 34, 634-652. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282916651381
Gaudreau, P., & Thompson, A. (2010). Testing a 2 x 2 model of dispositional perfectionism. Personality and Individual Differences, 48, 532-537. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.11.031
Hewitt, P. L., & Flett, G. L. (1991). Perfectionism in the self and social contexts: Conceptualization, assessment, and association with psychopathology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(3), 456-470. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.3.456
Hewitt, P. L., Flett, G. L., & Mikail, S. F. (2017). The comprehensive model of perfectionistic behavior. In Perfectionism: A Relational Approach to Conceptualization, Assessment, and Treatment (pp. 25-63). The Guilford Press.
Molnar, D. S., Sirois, F. M., Flett, G. L., & Sadava, S. (2020). A person-oriented approach to multidimensional perfectionism: Perfectionism profiles in health and well-being. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 38(1), 127-142. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282919877754
Shanahan, L., Steinhoff, A., Bechtiger, L., Murray, A. L., Nivette, A., Hepp, U., Ribeaud, D., & Eisner, M. (2020). Emotional distress in young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence of risk and resilience from a longitudinal cohort study. Psychological Medicine, 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1017/s003329172000241x
Sirois, F. M. (2001; 2019). The Wellness Behaviors Inventory. Unpublished manual. University of Sheffield.
Sirois, F. M., Toussaint, L., Hirsch, J. K., Kohls, N., & Offenbacher, M. (2021). A person-centered test of multidimensional perfectionism and health in people with chronic fatigue syndrome versus health controls. Personality and Individual Differences, 181, Article 111036. https://doi.org.10.1016/j.paid.2021.111036
Sirois, F. M., Toussaint, L., Hirsch, J. K., Kohls, N., Weber, A., & Offenbacher, M. (2019). Trying to be perfect in an imperfect world: A person-centered test of perfectionism and health in fibromyalgia patients versus healthy controls. Personality and Individual Differences, 137, 27-32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.08.005
Stoeber, J., & Otto, K. (2006). Positive conceptions of perfectionism: Approaches, evidence, challenges. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(4), 295-319. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957PSr1004_2
Vickers, R. R., Conway, T. L., & Hervig, L. K. (1990). Demonstration of replicable dimensions of health behaviors. Preventative Medicine, 19(4), 377-401. https://doi.org/10.1016/0091-7435(90)90037-k
