The Psychology of Perfectionism in Sport, Dance and Exercise by Hill Andrew

Author:Hill, Andrew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2016-07-29T16:00:00+00:00

Overview of the group-centered studies

Two articles have reported the results of a study conducted with a sample of 194 vocational dance students between fourteen and twenty years of age (Cumming & Duda, 2012; Quested et al., 2014). These adolescent and young adult dancers were intensively involved in their activity with an average of thirty hours per week of dancing. Participants completed measures of concerns over mistakes and doubts about actions (two indicators of ECP) and a measure of personal standards (one indicator of PSP). Results of cluster analyses divided the sample in four clusters of perfectionism that were mostly interpretable in light of the four subtypes defined in the 2 × 2 model of perfectionism. Non-perfectionism represented 17% of the dancers (n = 33) with low scores on the three measures of perfectionism. Pure PSP represented 31% of the dancers (n = 60) with high personal standards, average scores on concerns over mistakes, and low doubts about actions. Mixed perfectionism represented 21% of the dancers (n = 41) with high scores on the three measures of perfectionism. However, it is important to highlight that concerns over mistakes was substantially higher than personal standards—which would typically create challenges in interpreting this cluster as evidence for a subtype of mixed perfectionism. Finally, pure ECP represented 31% of the dancers (n = 60) with low personal standards, moderate concerns over mistakes, and high doubts about actions.

Cumming and Duda (2012) have assessed four negatively valenced outcomes (i.e., negative affectivity, social physique anxiety, physical symptoms, and exhaustion) and one positively valenced outcome (i.e., positive affectivity). Quested and her colleagues (2014) have reported additional analyses on two negatively valenced outcomes (i.e., body dissatisfaction and fear of failure) and two positively valenced outcomes (i.e., intrinsic motivation and self-esteem). In both articles, the researchers have reported the results of ANOVAs in which they corrected for the fact that multiple dependent variables were simultaneously examined. Although this decision was appropriate to minimize type II errors (i.e., rejecting a null hypothesis that should not be rejected), the small sample size may have boosted the likelihood of type I errors (i.e., not rejecting a null hypothesis that should be rejected). In such cases, null hypothesis testing is likely to lead to erroneous conclusions and both groups of researchers made the commendable decision to report effect sizes (i.e., Cohen’s d) to help reinterpreting their findings.

Results of the analyses pertaining to Hypothesis 1 indicated that pure PSP was associated with a better outcome than non-perfectionism for eight out of nine outcome variables. The absolute average Cohen’s d effect size was 0.26, thus indicating a small to moderate advantage of pure PSP over non-perfectionism. This advantage was more marked for intrinsic motivation and positive affect (d = 0.81). It was less pronounced for self-esteem (d = 0.26) and four out of the six negatively valenced outcomes (d = −0.12 to −0.27). Of particular concerns, pure PSP was associated with higher physical symptoms (d = 0.22) and fear of failure (d = 0.24) than non-perfectionism.

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