The perfectionist as the conrunner

 


Since I started my research into this topic for my doctoral thesis. I've observed an interesting phenomenon. Every time I mention my research area I get told that the person I'm taking with either, is a perfectionist or there aunt / boss / wife / dog is one. Now I'm not saying they aren't but that means everybody I know is a perfectionist or knows somebody who is. That's a lot of perfection in the world!

In reality it all depends on how we define a perfectionist. As in many cases the psychological definition may not be what the layman is describing when they describe their boss as a perfectionist. For example Marc Hollender in his paper Perfectionism (1966) defines perfectionism as "The practice of demanding of oneself or others a higher quality of performance than is required by the situation" To this he adds the proviso that the perfectionist must characterise their behaviour as perfectionist. This is a difficult area since self-report may be flawed.

At this time perfectionism was regarded as a variant of obsessive compulsive disorder and linked to "oral masochism" (what ever that is!!!). Hollander set out to differentiate between compulsiveness and perfectionism. To do this he examined the clinical background of patients. Hollender separates those who strive to do well and derive pleasure from a job well done from those who are "exacting for the sake of being exacting" He argues that the former are not perfectionists, although other researchers have argued against this since. For example in 1979 Hamacheck was postulating the difference between what he termed "Normal" and "Neurotic" perfectionism. This built on differences noted by W.H. Misseldine (1963), who suggested that there were differences between those who gained satisfaction from striving and whose best efforts were still not enough suggesting that this striving is a form of perfectionism.

Hamacheck states that a distinction between neurotic and normal perfectionism is that neurotic perfectionists demand a higher performance from normal perfectionists. This higher performance is rarely achieved, which in turn reduces the chances of such people feeling good about themselves. Normal perfectionists appear able to create boundaries to their performance and take into consideration the fact that they themselves have limitations. In general " . . . neurotics worry about their deficiencies and concentrate on how to avoid doing things wrong, the normals focus on their strengths and concentrate on how to do things right".

The normal perfectionist is reported as reflective in attitude and more relaxed and careful than their neurotic counterparts. Neurotics on the other hand are seen to be more anxious and confused as well as, "emotionally drained before a new task is even begun" (pp28). This pre-task stress is interesting and may be responsible for the procrastination reported in perfectionists by Burns (1980), Sorotzkin (1985) and Frost (1990). The desire for perfection and the need to avoid failure leads to avoidance strategies. Although Frost reports a correlation between procrastination and Overall Perfectionism as measured by the Multi-dimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), he measured not the extent of procrastination but whether the subject reported it as a problem. He also found a correlation between his subscale Personal Standards and frequency of procrastination rather than the extent to which it was a problem. Frost's findings suggest that there is a larger correlation between perfectionism and fear of failure than with task evasiveness.

It is this fear of failure and procrastination that we need to consider when we look at the perfectionist as a conrunner. The stereotype of the perfectionist is a person who plans everything to the last detail and must get things right. Often they are thought of as workaholics. But as we've seen there is more than one type of perfectionist. The neurotic perfectionist is as far from this stereotype as can be. My own research has split them further into Anxious Perfectionists who are worried about their own performance and the Irritable Perfectionist who is worried about the performance of those who work for them. Both are equally damaging to themselves and others.

If you give an anxious perfectionist a task there is a strong risk that it will not be completed. There are two mechanisms at work here. Firstly the work may be done, but will never be of a standard that the perfectionist is happy with. The will revise it until they are satisfied. Unfortunately their nature is that it will never be good enough to be satisfactory, hence it will need further revision and in the end it will never get submitted. (This apparently happens quiet often with PhD theses!) The second mechanism I call the Rimmer Effect (After the character in Red Dwarf). In one episode Rimmer has an exam to qualify as an officer. He has six months to study for the exam and starts to draw up a revision timetable. He revises the timetable and then revises it again, this is a extension the first mechanism however it is much more damaging since he spends so much time planning his revision he ends up with 30 seconds to revise before his exam. This is task avoidance by planning. The perfectionist works out ways of completing the task but the plan is never completed partly for the same reasoning as the first mechanism but the Rimmer effect also gives a built in protection to the perfectionist self image. " The task was so difficult that I couldn't work out a satisfactory solution" in other words the task was impossible solutions were looked for but none would have worked. Rimmer tried to organise his revision but it was just too big a task!

The added problem of the Rimmer effect is that there is no real work done on the task itself. While if a perfectionist has at least done work on the task itself, as in the first example others could step in and salvage what has been done. Often in these cases no further work needs to be done since it is already of a high standard. However, if you have an Arnold Rimmer on your committee then somebody has to take over the task normally at a late date and start basically from scratch. The perfectionist is not being lazy they are protecting themselves from failure, often generating more work for themselves in the process than if they were able to do the task set them.

This fear of failure is also apparent in some people as fear of failure of subordinates. Not much work has been done in this area as yet and it has only recently been examined in a new scale developed at the University of York, Personality and Stress Research Group (i.e. ME!), but it is related with anxious and neurotic perfectionism measures. People who exhibit this behaviour can be very difficult and stressful to work for. They are demanding and tend not to tolerate the slightest mistakes from those who work for them. Obviously this is not the type of person you want as Con Chair (or is it?). At the moment there is nom real examination of this type of personality but we hope to be working on it soon.

So the question is do we want perfectionists on a convention committee. Well all is not lost; we haven't looked at the "normal" perfectionists yet. My own research also threw up a group of perfectionists I termed Relaxed Perfectionists. These are people who although do strive for the best result are capable of accepting there short comings. The are comfortable in accepting that occasionally they will fail to reach the goals they set. This does not stop them trying the best they can only it does not effect their self-image if they fail.

People like artisans and surgeons have been used as an example o how to view relaxed perfectionists. There self image is robust enough to allow them to fail occasionally without the drop in their self esteem that affects neurotic perfectionists. If you give one of these people a task they will try and do it to their best ability within the time constraints given. The perfect committee member!

There is a rider to all this discussion however, Hollender states Although perfectionism is a generally pervasive trait, it may be especially pronounced in certain areas while a few others may be entirely excluded. In other words we all have our bugbears.

A.Michael Rennie B.Sc., M.Phil.
Personality and Stress Research Group
Department of Psychology
University of York

All opinions are purely that of the author.