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

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 demonstration-approach, 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. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.