Perfectionism In Context: Broadening the Narratives

Since its formal conceptualization in 1990, prominent researchers have defined perfectionism as stemming primarily from individual personality differences and early parenting experiences. This perspective produced decades of fruitful research defining perfectionism’s multiple factors (e.g., striving for achievement, fear of critical judgment from others, self-critical evaluation
for mistakes) and mental health sequelae (e.g., anxiety, depression, eating disorders, suicide),
predominantly within majority populations.

Recent research retrospectives have called for increased attention to the ways in which holding a marginalized identity status may influence the development and phenomenology of perfectionism (Smith et al., 2022).

The APA (2021) further identified this blind spot in the field at large, calling for increased representation of racial diversity in research topics, samples, and researchers. This talk will explore the value of broadening our framework to include the potential impacts of racial/ethnic identity status on the lived experience of perfectionism. A scoping review (PRISMA-ScR) will be presented, illustrating the field to date consideration of race/ethnicity in relation to empirical article topics, sample demographics, researcher demographics, and journal outlets. The lecture will include recent empirical findings and relevant theories about the impact of living in a racialized context on dimensions of perfectionism, ultimately raising more questions than answers.