Perfectionism has risen steadily in young people since 1989. A meta-analysis pooling 164 samples and 41,641 students in the United States, Canada and Britain found increases on all three of the ways perfectionism is measured, holding when gender and country were controlled for. [curran-2019-perfectionism]
The three kinds, and why the distinction matters
Perfectionism is measured as three separate things, and they are not variations in intensity of the same thing. Self-oriented is what you demand of yourself. Other-oriented is what you demand of other people. Socially prescribed is what you believe other people demand of you.
The third is the one most consistently associated with distress, and it is different in kind from the other two: it is a belief about other people rather than a standard you hold. That matters practically, because the usual advice is to lower your standards, and lowering your own standards does very little about a conviction that everyone else’s have not moved.
A schematic of the linear upward trend reported by Curran and Hill across 164 samples between 1989 and 2016. Drawn to show the shape and the ordering of the three dimensions rather than reproducing measured scores.
What a rising trend tells you
That the explanation is not about individual character. This is the most useful thing the study offers, and it is easy to miss because the finding sounds like social commentary rather than something you can act on.
If perfectionism were a personal failing, it could not rise across an entire generation, because the same failing would have to appear in millions of people at once for no reason. A cohort trend points at the environment: what changed between 1989 and 2016 in how often people are measured, ranked and compared. That reframing is worth having if you have concluded that the problem is you. The evidence says the pressure went up.
Perfectionism is not high standards
The difference is not how high the bar is. It is what happens when the bar is missed, and whether anything below it counts for anything at all.
Somebody with high standards who falls short is disappointed, works out what happened, and adjusts. In perfectionism, falling short is read as information about what kind of person you are, which makes it unbearable rather than merely disappointing. And because partial success carries no credit, the effort has no payoff unless it produces the whole result, which is precisely the arithmetic that makes starting difficult.
| High standards | Perfectionism | |
|---|---|---|
| When the standard is missed | Disappointment, then adjustment | Evidence about the kind of person you are |
| Partial success | Counts, and is built on | Counts for nothing |
| Effect on starting | Neutral | Avoidance, because the outcome is uncertain |
| What drives it | Wanting the thing to be good | Wanting not to be found out |
| What the standard is for | The work | The self |
Why it produces avoidance rather than output
Because a task that cannot be done perfectly becomes a task that cannot be started. That is the mechanism behind the thing that confuses people most about perfectionists, which is how much they do not get done.
The reasoning runs underneath rather than out loud: if it will not be right, beginning it just produces evidence. So the essay is not started, the message is not sent, the piece of work sits at ninety percent for weeks because ninety is a failure and finishing would make it official. Understood this way, the procrastination is not a separate problem to solve. It is the standard doing exactly what it was always going to do.
Standards, or something else?
A prompt rather than a test. The last two items are the ones that separate perfectionism from simply caring about your work.
0 of 6 ticked
At this level the avoidance is usually costing more than the standard is gaining. This is treatable, and it is worth describing to a therapist as avoidance and self-criticism rather than as perfectionism, which tends to be heard as a strength.
This is the shape the research describes. Notice whether the fifth item is among yours, since that is the socially prescribed kind and it responds to different work than lowering your own bar.
Few of these suggests caring about your work without the machinery that makes it costly, which is worth knowing rather than dismissing.
A reflection prompt, not a screener. No validated questionnaire on this site measures perfectionism.
What actually shifts it
Not lowering the standard, which almost nobody manages by deciding to. What moves is the relationship between the standard and your standing as a person, and that changes through evidence rather than through argument.
The practical version is doing something deliberately at eighty percent and finding out what happens, which is usually nothing. Repeated, that is what loosens the link, and it is the same principle behind most exposure-based work. Our guides to self-compassion and self-sabotage cover the two things that most often sit alongside this one.
When to seek help
Speak to a doctor or a therapist if the pattern is producing avoidance that affects your work or study, if it comes with persistent low mood or anxiety, or if the self-criticism has become constant. Describe it as avoidance and self-criticism rather than as perfectionism, because the word is routinely heard as a strength and can lead to it being taken less seriously than it should be. If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, contact your local emergency services or a crisis helpline.
How MyFreud can help
The thing worth tracking here is not how much you achieved but what the standard cost: which tasks were avoided, which were held at nearly finished, and how the days after a missed standard actually went. That pattern is invisible day to day and obvious over a month. Our self-worth guide covers the wider picture, including imposter syndrome and people pleasing.
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