Can Perfectionism Affect Career Development? Exploring Career Thoughts and Self-Efficacy

An individual's progression through the career development process is affected by many factors, including the presence of perfectionistic traits, negative thinking, and self-efficacy. Research has supported difficulties stemming from the presence of these factors in many domains, including health, satisfaction, and behavioral outcomes. Research has also begun to demonstrate the connection between these constructs as they relate to career development (e.g., Ganske & Ashby, 2007; Kleiman et al., 2004; Leong & Chervinko, 1996). The role of negative beliefs in emotional and behavioral difficulties is well established. Individuals whose thinking is characterized by negative beliefs are more likely to experience problems such as depression, anxiety, alcoholism, bulimia, Type A personality, and low self-esteem (Belloch, Morillo, & Garcia-Soriano, 2007; Denoff, 1987; S. Harris, Davies, & Dryden, 2006; Westra & Kuiper, 1996). Not surprisingly, negative thinking also appears to be associated with one's ability to make career decisions (Sampson, Peterson, Lenz, Reardon, & Saunders, 1996). Specifically, negative career thinking, a means of viewing oneself in a manner that "inhibits career problem solving and decision making" (Sampson et al., 1996, p. 2), was shown to decrease levels of self-esteem and perceived career decision-making self-efficacy (e.g., Bullock-Yowell, Andrews, & Buzzetta, 2011; Kleiman et al., 2004) as well as increase depression (Westra & Kuiper, 1996) and career indecision (Saunders, Peterson, Sampson, & Reardon, 2000). Perfectionism, once considered a core irrational belief involving the expectation that one's efforts should be precise and result in excellence (Ellis, 1962; Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990), can be viewed as both a positive quality and an unhealthy belief (Hamachek, 1978). For example, when examining different components of perfectionism, Enns and Cox (2002) found that relationships exist with both conscientiousness and neuroticism, providing support for multiple types of perfectionism. Furthermore, research has found correlations between perfectionism and several factors that may influence the career development process, including anxiety (e.g., Flett, Hewitt, & Dyck, 1989), depression (e.g., Blatt, 1995), self-esteem (e.g., Ashby & Rice, 2002), procrastination (e.g., Flett, Hewitt, Blankstein, & Koledin, 1992), career indecision (Leong & Chervinko, 1996), and career decision-making self-efficacy (Ganske & Ashby, 2007). In addition to relationships with career development, research has also found relationships between overall perfectionism and the more general construct of negative thinking (Flett, Blankstein, Hewitt, & Koledin, 1991); therefore, a similar relationship is expected between perfectionism, which has a heavier emphasis on the maladaptive aspects when viewed as an overall construct, and the more specific construct of negative career thoughts. Research has supported a multidimensional construct of perfectionism, and many measures of perfectionism assess for the construct's maladaptive components as supported by the overall scores tending to emphasize maladaptive aspects. Yet, the domain can be divided to examine more adaptive aspects of perfectionism as well. The adaptive component of perfectionism consists of setting high personal standards (Slaney, Ashby, & Trippi, 1995), and individuals identified as adaptive perfectionists have been described as those who gained pleasure from their efforts and felt free to be less than perfect (Hamachek, 1978). Adaptive perfectionists are able to draw satisfaction from the process and not see their efforts as failures, whereas maladaptive perfectionists are defined as being overly critical and concerned about the views of others (Slaney et al., 1995), with their efforts never meeting their goals (Hamachek, 1978). Several studies have found differences among the distinct groups of adaptive perfectionists, maladaptive perfectionists, and nonperfectionists. …