Perfectionism and social goals: What do perfectionists want to achieve in social situations?

Personality and Individual Differences 52 (2012) 919–924

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Perfectionism and social goals: What do perfectionists want to achieve in social situations? Sungok Serena Shim ⇑, Kathryn L. Fletcher Department of Educational Psychology, Teachers College (TC), Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 29 September 2011 Received in revised form 23 January 2012 Accepted 1 February 2012 Available online 3 March 2012 Keywords: Personal standards Concern over mistakes Perfectionism Social achievement goals Social content goals Social adjustment Social motivation

a b s t r a c t With a sample of 367 college students, the current study examined how two dimensions of perfectionism (PS: personal standards and COM: concern over mistakes) are related to social achievement goals and social content goals. COM was linked to less desirable types of social goals (e.g., social demonstrationapproach, social demonstration-avoid, popularity, and dominance goals) and had null relations with adaptive social goals (e.g., social development, intimacy, and nurturance goals). In contrast, PS was related to adaptive social goals (e.g., social development, nurturance, intimacy, and leadership goals) and had no relation with maladaptive social goals (e.g., dominance goals). Despite all these benefits, PS was also positively related to social demonstration-avoid goals, which have been consistently linked to psychological ill-being and negative social outcomes. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Perfectionism is a personality disposition, which encompasses the tendency to strive for perfection, intolerance for errors and mistakes, and evaluating oneself in an overly critical manner (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990; Hewitt & Flett, 1991). Different research programs have used various definitions and measures. However, various scales have shown statistical overlap and have formed two distinct factors if subjected to a factor analysis simultaneously. Self-oriented perfectionism, personal standards, and organization (i.e., perfectionistic strivings) tended to cluster together and socially prescribed perfectionism, concern over mistakes, doubts about actions, parental expectations, and parental criticism (i.e., perfectionistic concerns) tended to form a separate factor (Frost, Heimberg, Holt, Mattia, & Neubauer, 1993). To summarize, perfectionistic strivings are characterized by high standards but do not involve an overly critical evaluation of the self, whereas perfectionistic concerns involve hypersensitivity to externally imposed high standards and criticism (see Stoeber & Otto, 2006 for a review). Perfectionistic concerns have consistently been linked to maladjustment. However, perfectionistic strivings have not shown such deleterious effects and have often related to desirable outcomes (Stoeber & Otto, 2006). These associations with desirable ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 765 285 8500; fax: +1 765 285 3653. E-mail address: [email protected] (S.S. Shim). 0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2012.02.002

outcomes have prompted some researchers to argue that perfectionistic strivings may be beneficial, leading to terms such as adaptive, positive, or healthy perfectionism (Stoeber & Otto, 2006). However, not all researchers agree with the notion that a sub-type of perfectionism can be adaptive (Flett & Hewitt, 2006). Thus, we began our paper with an agnostic position regarding this debate but used the terms, perfectionistic strivings vs. perfectionistic concerns, when reviewing studies using different measures of perfectionism for brevity’s sake. Given that perfectionism involves striving for extremely high standards, perfectionism researchers have often examined goals in relation to perfectionism. The current study directs this line of inquiry into the social domain. Compared to the academic or sport related domain, little attention has been paid to social goals. However, social goals have been acknowledged as important for a wide array of outcomes such as academic adjustment, social adjustment, and psychological wellbeing (Ryan & Shim, 2006, 2008). The present research extends the current literature on perfectionism in important ways. First, perfectionism research has examined interpersonal relationship outcomes and social anxiety (Flett, Hewitt, Shapiro, & Rayman, 2001; Gilman, Adams, & Nounopoulos, 2011; Ommundsen, Roberts, Lemyre, & Miller, 2005; Shumaker & Rodebaugh, 2009). But we do not know the motivation underlying such social outcomes. Given that goals, by definition, initiate, energize, and direct behavior (Elliot, 2005), social goals may help explain certain associations between perfectionism and social outcomes. Second, various types of social goals have been examined in relation

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to psychological well-being and academic and social adjustment (Elliot, Gable, & Mapes, 2006; Horst, Finney, & Barron, 2007; Jarvinen & Nicholls, 1996; Ryan & Shim, 2006, 2008). As a result, the nature and consequences of social goals have been identified. Accordingly, the current investigation is likely to contribute to the current debate on whether some aspects of perfectionism can be adaptive (Flett & Hewitt, 2006; Stoeber & Otto, 2006). 1.1. Perfectionism and goal pursuits Perfectionistic strivings seem to be related to high investment and making progress toward goals, flexibility in adjusting goals when necessary, and disengaging from unattainable goals and pursuing new alternative goals, and the eventual attainment of goals. In contrast, perfectionistic concerns may hamper such self-regulatory processes related to goal pursuits (Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010; O’Connor & Forgan, 2007; Powers, Koestner, Zuroff, Milyavskaya, & Gorin, 2011). The evidence is inconclusive in terms of the relationships between perfectionistic strivings and goal related satisfaction (Flett & Hewitt, 2006; Slade & Owens, 1998). Although goal progress has often been examined for self-chosen goals (e.g., losing weight) involving concrete standards (e.g., going to the gym three times a week), some researchers have examined perfectionism in relation to approach vs. avoidance motivational tendencies. Perfectionistic strivings involve approach tendencies, leading to pursuit of goals appetitive in nature (i.e., pursuing positive outcomes), while perfectionistic concerns involve avoidance tendencies, leading to pursuit of goals aversive in nature (i.e., avoiding negative outcomes) (Slade & Owens, 1998). Individuals with high perfectionistic strivings and those with high perfectionistic concerns tend to be driven by a desire for success and a fear of failure, respectively. In support of such a postulation, perfectionistic concerns were linked to the behavioral inhibition system that controls aversive motivation (O’Connor & Forgan, 2007). Some prior research has adopted the achievement goal theory perspective. Achievement goals can be distinguished according to the orientation to competence (mastery goals focusing on developing competence vs. performance goals focusing on demonstrating competence) and the valence of potential outcomes (approaching positive outcomes vs. avoiding negative outcomes). Among these resulting four different types of achievement goals (mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, performanceavoidance goals; Elliot & McGregor, 2001), a fear of failure predicts all goals except mastery-approach goals while a desire for success is related to two approach (mastery-approach and performanceapproach) goals. In prior studies, perfectionistic strivings predicted mastery-approach and performance-approach goals while perfectionistic concerns were related to performance-avoidance goals (Speirs Neumeister & Finch, 2006). However, an association between perfectionistic concerns and performance-approach goals (Verner-Filion & Gaudreau, 2010) and similar levels of mastery-approach goals for individuals characterized by high perfectionistic strivings vs. high perfectionistic concerns (Hanchon, 2010) have been reported. Taken together, in the academic domain, perfectionistic concerns tend to be associated with less adaptive motivational profiles as compared to perfectionistic strivings.

peer ratings of popularity (Jarvinen & Nicholls, 1996). Popularity goals were related to social satisfaction and peer ratings of popularity but also linked to negative attitudes about school and disengagement (Ryan, Hicks, & Midgley, 1997). Dominance goals were mostly related to low social satisfaction and low peer ratings of popularity (Jarvinen & Nicholls, 1996) as well as maladaptive forms of engagement and low achievement (Cillessen & Mayeux, 2004; Kiefer & Ryan, 2008). Even though both dominance and leadership goals emanate from a power motive, leadership goals are a more positive manifestation. Leadership goals were not examined in prior research but may yield positive outcomes related to leadership qualities such as prosocial behavior. The second approach involves the achievement goal theory perspective applied to the social domain. While social content goals represent the outcomes that students want to achieve in social contexts, social achievement goals represent an overarching purpose for engagement. Three types of goals mirroring academic achievement goals (mastery goals and performance-approach and -avoidance goals) have been proposed (Ryan & Shim, 2006, 2008): Social development goals involve reasons for ‘‘developing’’ social competence such as improving social relationships and social skills; social demonstration-approach goals represent the goals of ‘‘demonstrating’’ superior social competence, typically by garnering positive feedback from others and gaining social prestige; and social demonstration-avoid goals represent the goals of ‘‘concealing’’ inferior social competence, typically by avoiding negative judgments from others (Ryan & Shim, 2006). Research has shown that social development goals related to many positive outcomes while social demonstration-avoid goals consistently related to maladjustment (e.g., perceptions of social relationships, loneliness, social worry, fear of negative evaluations, depression when faced with interpersonal stress, and anxious solitary behavior). Social demonstration-approach goals related to heightened social-efficacy, peer ratings of popularity, but also positively related to aggression (Elliot et al., 2006; Horst et al., 2007; Ryan & Shim, 2006, 2008). Given that the current study is the first empirical investigation, there is no available data for hypotheses regarding the relationships between perfectionism and social goals. However, individuals with perfectionistic strivings may also strive for excellence in their social relationships (Flett et al., 2001), leading to the adoption of social development and social demonstration-approach goals. In contrast, given the sensitivity to others’ evaluations inherent in perfectionistic concerns, we expected that perfectionistic concerns would be related to high social demonstration-approach and avoid goals (Slade & Owens, 1998; Verner-Filion & Gaudreau, 2010). Perfectionistic concerns have been associated with undesirable social behaviors (Flett et al., 2001; Gilman et al., 2011; Ommundsen et al., 2005). Thus, we expected that perfectionistic strivings would be related to more positive social content goals such as intimacy, nurturance, and leadership goals while perfectionistic concerns would be related to less desirable social content goals such as popularity and dominance goals.

2. Method

1.2. Perfectionism and social goal pursuits

2.1. Participants

To examine the relationships between perfectionism and social motivation, we adopted two approaches to social goals. First, the social content goal approach examines specific outcomes that students like to achieve from social relations. We examined five content goals drawn from Jarvinen and Nicholls (1996): nurturance, intimacy, leadership, popularity, and dominance. In general, intimacy and nurturance goals were linked to social satisfaction and

Three hundred and sixty seven college students in a university in the Midwestern region of the United States participated for course credit. The sample was predominantly European American (95%). The mean age of participants was 21.56 years old and 78.5% were female. They were freshman (32%), junior (13%), sophomore (30%), and senior (25%) students enrolled in various Educational Psychology courses.

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2.2. Measures A 7-point Likert-type scale was used for all measures ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha), and bivariate correlations among variables examined in the current study. 2.2.1. Dispositional perfectionism We focused on personal standards (PS) and concern over mistakes (COM), which have been identified as core aspects of perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns (Stoeber & Otto, 2006). The brief scales of Frost et al. (1990), developed and validated by Cox, Enns, and Clara (2002), were used to measure PS and COM. PS reflects the high standards that individuals set and the importance they attach to those standards for self-evaluation (5 items, ‘‘I have extremely high goals’’). COM refers to individuals’ negative reactions to mistakes and their tendency to interpret mistakes as failure and equate making mistakes to losing other people’s respect (5 items, ‘‘If I fail at work/school, I am a failure as person’’). 2.2.2. Social achievement goals The items for social achievement goals were drawn from Ryan and Shim (2006). The social development goal scale concerns a focus on developing social skills and relationships (6 items, ‘‘I feel successful when I learn something new about myself and how I relate to other people.’’). The social demonstration-approach goal scale concerns a focus on demonstrating social desirability and gaining positive judgments from others (6 items, ‘‘It is important to me to be seen as having a lot of friends.’’). The social demonstrationavoid goal scale concerns a focus on demonstrating that one is not socially undesirable and avoiding negative judgments from others (6 items, ‘‘I would be successful if I could avoid being socially awkward.’’). 2.2.3. Social content goals The items for social content goals were adapted from Jarvinen and Nicholls (1996). Students responded to various items describing what they want from a social situation or relationship. All items began with the stem ‘‘I like it when.’’ Five types of social content goals were measured: Nurturance goal items concern helping others (5 items, ‘‘I like it when I go out of my way to help them.’’), Intimacy goal items concern building intimate social relationships (6 items, ‘‘I like it when we know each other’s private feelings.’’), Leadership goal items concern serving as a leader in a social situation (5 items, ‘‘I like it when I’m in a leadership position.’’), Popularity goal items concern establishing high social status (5 items, ‘‘I

like it when I’m the most popular.’’), and Dominance goal items concern having power over others (6 items, ‘‘I like it when I make them do what I want.’’). As we have used only five out of the six subscales available in the original measure, added one item, and adjusted the wording of some items to better suit college students, we re-established the construct validity of the scale by running a confirmatory factor analysis. Using the LISREL program, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on covariance matrices and the maximum-likelihood estimation method was used to estimate model parameters. The results indicated that the five-factor model fit the data reasonably well, v2 (345, N = 367) = 1124.2, RMSEA = .08, CFI = .94, NNFI = .92. 3. Results The analyses were conducted by utilizing both a variable-centered (i.e., multiple regression) and a person-centered approach (i.e., cluster analysis). In general, perfectionism researchers have utilized one of these two approaches in previous studies but rarely both (Stoeber & Otto, 2006). A variable-centered approach is effective in estimating the unique contribution of one variable while controlling for the levels of other variables. However, in reality, individuals often show combinations of such dimensions and thus, the use of cluster analysis complements our regression analyses by examining the effects of the aggregates of variables. 3.1. Multiple regression analysis We conducted a series of multiple regression analyses to examine the effects of PS, COM and their interaction on social goals. The interaction term was included to address the issue whether PS without COM could be particularly beneficial. As shown in Table 2, all regression models were significant Fs (3, 361) > 3.06, ps < .05. PS significantly and positively predicted all social goals except social demonstration-approach and dominance goals. COM positively predicted demonstration-approach, demonstration-avoid, leadership, popularity, and dominance goals. For social development-approach goals, PS by COM interaction was significant and simple slope tests (Aiken & West, 1991) indicated that COM had a smaller coefficient when the level of PS was high (1 SD above the mean), b = .29, t = 5.05, p < .001, than when the level of PS was low (1 SD below the mean), b = .56, t = 7.13, p < .001. 3.2. Person centered approach using hierarchical cluster analysis To examine groups of students, as defined by their perfectionistic traits, we conducted a hierarchical cluster analysis with Ward’s method. Up to four clusters, each additional cluster yielded a

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, reliability coefficients, and inter-correlations among variables. 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

2

3

4

5

Personal standard Concern over mistakes Development goals Demonstration-approach goals Demonstration-avoid goals Nurturance goals Intimacy goals Leadership goals Popularity goals Dominance goals

– .39 .28 .18 .29 .22 .16 .29 .13 .08

.01 .39 .46 .03 .05 .29 .25 .43

.15 .29 .54 .47 .21 .30 .14

– .52 .11 .16 .40 .52 .55

– .12 .17 .25 .25 .26

Mean SD Cronbach’s alpha

4.95 1.10 .85

3.18 1.40 .87

5.28 .99 .85

3.15 1.31 .89

4.13 1.24 .89

6

7

8

9

10

– –

Note. rs > |.14| are significant at p < .01; |.11|< rs < |.14| are significant at p < .05.

– .59 .32 .43 .07

– .28 .41 .05

– .60 .52

– .43

–

5.31 .82 .71

5.07 .98 .79

3.89 1.10 .72

3.92 1.10 .82

2.33 1.26 .88

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Table 2 Predicting social goals by personal standards and concern over mistakes. Dependent variable

Predictor variable PS: personal standards

Development goals Demonstration-approach goals Demonstration-avoid goals Nurturance goals Intimacy goals Leadership goals Popularity goals Dominance goals

COM: concerns over mistakes

***

.39 .02 .26* .26* .25* .30** .22* .02

.13 .42*** .61** .06 .23 .48* .66** .71***

PS X COM .24 .15** .28 .04 .27 .28 .50 .30

F (3, 361) ***

11.99 24.65*** 29.54*** 7.29*** 3.06* 17.29*** 9.67*** 31.71***

R2 .09 .17 .19 .06 .03 .12 .07 .21

Note. * p < .05 ; ** p < .01; *** p < .001. Standardized coefficients are shown.

significant improvement in the fit indices, such as R2, Semi-partial R2, RMSSTD, Pseudo T-test, and Pseudo F statistics. The five-cluster solution did not improve the indices much and contained two clusters with a similar pattern but slightly different means of PS and COM. Thus, we selected the four-cluster solution. A one-way MANOVA revealed a significant multivariate main effect for cluster, Wilks’ k = .07, F (6, 726) = 289.90, p < .001, partial g2 = .71. Based on the cluster means (see Table 3), we labeled cluster 1 as ‘‘High PS/High COM,’’ cluster 2 as ‘‘High PS/Low COM,’’ cluster 3 as ‘‘Low PS/High COM,’’ and cluster 4 as ‘‘Low PS/Low COM.’’ Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVA) were conducted. We found significant multivariate main effects for cluster on the three social achievement goals, Wilks’ k = .78, F (9, 873) = 10.35, p < .001, partial g2 = .08, and on the five social content goals, Wilks’ k = .77, F (988.68) = 6.93, p < .001, partial g2 = .09. Significant univariate main effects were obtained for all of the goals Fs (3, 362) = 2.82–24.91, ps < .05, partial g2s ¼ :02—:15, except intimacy goals, F (3, 362) = 1.34, p = n.s. We followed up with multiple comparisons using the conservative Bonferroni’s method and the estimated marginal means and multiple comparison results are presented in Table 4. 4. Discussion The current research represents the first investigation of perfectionism in relation to social goals and contributes to our understanding of how individuals with perfectionism approach their social relationships. In the regression analyses, PS was related to desirable goals such as social development, nurturance, intimacy, and leadership goals but not associated with less desirable goals such as social demonstration-approach and dominance goals. A significant PS by COM interaction indicated that PS ameliorated the positive effect of COM on social demonstration-approach goals. However, at the same time, it is premature to conclude that PS is completely adaptive. The pattern found in the current study is inconsistent with the proposal linking perfectionistic strivings to approach tendencies (Slade & Owens, 1998). It seems that perfectionists with high standards pursue both approach (i.e., social development goals) and avoidance goals (i.e., social demonstration-avoid goals). The resulting conflict of pursuing goals opposite

in nature can be quite stressful and may lead to psychological illbeing (Flett & Hewitt, 2006). The association between PS and social demonstration-avoid goals suggests that individuals with high PS are concerned if others negatively judge them. It may be the case that these individuals may consider their reputation among others as an indicator of social competence and thus, adoption of social demonstration-avoid goals may simply indicate their strivings toward excellent performance in the social domain. However, it may not be the complete explanation, as PS was not related to social demonstration-approach goals. Future research should elucidate this intriguing pattern. Regression analysis revealed that COM was related to social demonstration-approach, social demonstration-avoid, popularity, leadership, and dominance goals, but not to social development, nurturance, and intimacy goals. Pursuing popularity, leadership, and dominance may not be necessarily bad. But the exclusive pursuit of such goals without an interest in making authentic connections or building supportive relationships with others could be problematic. Leadership, popularity and dominance are more ‘‘visible’’ or external markers of social standing within a group, consistent with an emphasis on extrinsic motivations for social success. Individuals with COM may be predisposed to endorse goals focusing on tangible outcomes that can be obtained from the social relationship (e.g., garnering positive judgments or avoiding negative appraisals from others), rather than enjoying and improving the social relationship itself (e.g., deepening the relationship). In a relatively recent review, Stoeber and Otto (2006) maintained that perfectionistic strivings have positive effects especially if the perfectionists are not overly concerned with negative evaluation. Is PS a good trait as long as COM is not present? Alternatively, is COM without PS particularly toxic? Empirical evidence exists for this claim (e.g., Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010; Powers et al., 2011). Our results are consistent with these studies: The results from our cluster analysis clearly demonstrated that CL3 (Low PS/High COM) is associated with the worst profile in terms of social goal pursuits and CL1 (High PS/High COM) showed more negative profiles than CL2 (High PS/Low COM). However, the present results diverge from the past research in important ways. The comparisons between CL2 (High PS/Low COM) and CL4 (Low PS/Low COM), and between CL1 (High PS/High

Table 3 Means of personal standards and concern over mistakes by cluster. Dependent variable

1 High PS/High COM (N = 73)

2 High PS/Low COM (N = 97)

3 Low PS/High COM (N = 105)

Personal standards Concern over mistakes

.98 1.29

.75 .79

.43 .55

Note. The scores are standardized.

(.85–1.11) (1.17–1.40)

(.63–.86) (.89–.69)

(.54–.32) (.45–.65)

4 Low PS/Low COM (N = 93) 1.06 .82

(1.18–.95) (.93–.72)

Multiple comparisons by Bonferroni’s method 1 > 3; 1 > 4; 2 > 3; 2 > 4; 3 > 4 1 > 2; 1 > 3; 1 > 4; 2 < 3; 3 > 4

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Table 4 Means of social goals by cluster and multiple comparisons. Social goals

1 High PS/High COM

2 High PS/Low COM

3 Low PS/High COM

4 Low PS/Low COM

Development Demonstration-approach Demonstration-avoid Nurturance Intimacy Leadership Popularity Dominance

5.42 3.60 4.91 5.41 5.18 4.39 4.19 2.95

5.45 2.86 3.86 5.47 5.18 3.82 3.73 1.78

5.20 3.66 4.34 5.16 4.96 4.01 4.21 2.81

5.09 2.54 3.59 5.26 4.98 3.46 3.61 1.87

(5.19–5.65) (3.31–3.88) (4.64–5.18) (5.22–5.61) (4.95–5.41) (4.15–4.64) (3.94–4.44) (2.68–3.22)

(5.25–5.64) (2.61–3.10) (3.63–4.09) (5.31–5.63) (4.98–5.37) (3.61–4.04) (3.51–3.94) (1.55–2.01)

(5.01–5.39) (3.42–3.89) (4.12–4.57) (5.00–5.31) (4.78–5.15) (3.81–4.22) (4.01–4.42) (2.59–3.03)

(4.89–5.29) (2.29–2.79) (3.35–3.82) (5.09–5.42) (4.79–5.18) (3.24–3.67) (3.39–3.83) (1.64–2.11)

Multiple comparisons by Bonferroni’s method 1 > 2; 1 > 4; 2 < 3; 3 > 4 1 > 2; 1 > 3; 1 > 4; 2 < 3; 3 > 4 2>3 1 > 2; 1 > 4; 3 > 4 1 > 2; 1 > 4; 2 < 3; 3 > 4 1 > 2; 1 > 4; 2 < 3; 3 > 4

Note. PS = personal standards; COM = concern over mistakes. CIs (95%) are shown in the parentheses.

COM) and CL3 (Low PS/High COM), which differ in the levels of PS but are similar in the levels of COM, showed no significant differences in most social goals, indicating no benefits of PS. Interestingly, CL1 (High PS/High COM) showed higher social demonstration-avoid goals than CL3 (Low PS/High COM). In summary, the current results showed that PS is, by and large, related to desirable types of social goals. In contrast, COM was linked to undesirable goals (e.g., social demonstration-avoid and dominance goals) but not to healthy forms of social goals (e.g., social development, nurturance, and intimacy goals). However, given that PS was also related to social demonstration-avoid goals, the current study highlights that a nuanced interpretation of the effects of PS is required. Our results related to social content goals may help to explain the association of perfectionism with negative social behaviors such as dominance, conflict, neglect, and insensitivity on the one hand and overly nurturing interpersonal tendencies on the other hand (Flett et al., 2001; Hill, Zrull, & Turlington, 1997; Ommundsen et al., 2005; Slaney, Pincus, Uliaszek, & Wang, 2006). In addition, future research on social demonstration-avoid goals may be particularly informative for understanding the link between perfectionism and social anxiety. Existing research suggests that social anxiety maybe negatively related to PS but positively related to COM (Shumaker & Rodebaugh, 2009). With the relationships among perfectionism and social goals revealed in the current study, future studies should include measures of social goals and social outcomes to obtain a fuller picture. Additional measures of perfectionism should also be considered in future research (especially Hewitt & Flett, 1991). The current and future related research on social goals is likely to have practical implications. By definition, goals are not stable personality traits but cognitive representations (Elliot, 2005). Blackwell and colleagues (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007) have shown that goals are sensitive to intervention and likely to change. Furthermore, even though the current study did not test the links among perfectionism, social goals, and actual outcomes simultaneously, previous research suggests that desirable social goals are likely to lead to improvements in various indicators of psychological well-being and academic and social adjustment (Elliot et al., 2006; Horst et al., 2007; Jarvinen & Nicholls, 1996; Ryan & Shim, 2006, 2008). Thus, efforts to change underlying social motivations by fostering adaptive types of social goals while discouraging the maladaptive ones may be helpful for perfectionistic individuals with heightened concern over mistakes. References Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78(1), 246–263. doi:10.1111/ j.1467-8624.2007.00995.x.

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