It's Okay to Be Perfect


Sports psychologists have long maintained that perfectionism in sports causes problems. It was believed that when athletes aimed to be perfect the result was higher competitive anxiety manifesting in both the athletes' thoughts and their bodies (I'm sure you know what happens to the body prior to competition when you're really anxious and afraid of making mistakes).



Therein lies what Flett and Hewitt (2005) have called the "perfectionism paradox": although in many sports athletes are expected to deliver perfect performances, perfectionism in athletes has been shown to be related to characteristics that may undermine their performance.



There is a way out of this paradox, however. Research suggests that there are, in fact, two different types of perfectionism: positive perfectionism and negative perfectionism. Negative perfectionism includes doubts about actions, feelings that one has not performed as well as one should, and negative reactions to mistakes. Positive perfectionism includes having high standards and striving for excellence.



Joachim Stoeber and a group of psychologists at University of Kent studied perfectionism and competitive anxiety in four groups of athletes. What makes their research particularly interesting is that they differentiated between "striving for perfection" (positive perfectionism) and "negative reactions to imperfection" (negative perfectionism). What they found was that only negative reactions to imperfection were related to high competitive anxiety. Striving for perfection appeared to be unrelated to anxiety.



Even more interesting was that once the researchers "removed" the influence of negative reactions to imperfection from athletes' competitive anxiety scores, striving for perfection resulted in lower anxiety and higher self-confidence.



So perfectionism is not necessarily maladaptive, although it could be. When perfectionism takes the form of striving for excellence, and when negative reactions to imperfection are controlled, perfectionism may be quite adaptive.



This type of perfectionism -- adaptive perfectionism -- may even result in an athlete who is less anxious and more self-confident than one who does not have this perfectionistic tendency.


So go ahead. Strive to be perfect. Just don't be upset if you aren't.

It is, after all, our imperfections that make us human. And it's precisely our humanness that makes sports great. Think about it. How much fun would it be to watch robots run the Boston Marathon? Or two androids playing tennis? How much fun would the Olympics be if you already knew the outcome?


Our fun, our enjoyment, our participation in sports stems from both the possibilty of our achieving superhero status and the possibilty that we will just be mortal. And if today is the day that we are the later, remember that as long as we continue to strive for perfection, there will always be the chance that we may achieve it.



References:

Stoeber, J., Otto, K., Pescheck, E., Becker, C., & Stoll, O. (2007). Perfectionism and competitive anxiety in athletes: Differentiating striving for perfection and negative reactions to perfection. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 959-969.



Flett, G. L., & Hewitt, P. L. (2005). The perils of perfectionism in sports and exercise. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 14-18.

0 comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)