1. Paul L. Hewitt and Gordon L. Flett, “Perfectionism in the Self and Social Contexts: Conceptualization, Assessment, and Association with Psychopathology,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60, no. 3 (1991): 456–70, https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.3.456.

2. Paul L. Hewitt, Gordon L. Flett, and Samuel F. Mikail, Perfectionism: A Relational Approach to Conceptualization, Assessment, and Treatment (Guilford Press, 2017), 96–119.

3. Thomas Curran and Andrew P. Hill, “Perfectionism Is Increasing over Time: A Meta-Analysis of Birth Cohort Differences from 1989 to 2016,” Psychological Bulletin 145, no. 4 (2019): 410, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000138.

4. Curran and Hill, “Perfectionism Is Increasing,” 420–21; see also Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Penguin Press, 2024).

5. Curran and Hill, “Perfectionism Is Increasing,” 412–13.

6. Curran and Hill, “Perfectionism Is Increasing,” 414; see also Hewitt, Flett, and Mikail, Perfectionism: A Relational Approach, 114–15.

7. See Gordon L. Flett, Paul L. Hewitt, Joan M. Oliver, and Silvana Macdonald, “Perfectionism in Children and Their Parents: A Developmental Analysis,” in Perfectionism: Theory, Research, and Treatment, ed. Gordon L. Flett and Paul L. Hewitt (American Psychological Association, 2002), 89–132, https://doi.org/10.1037/10458-004.

8. Arnold H. Buss and Robert Plomin, A Temperament Theory of Personality Development (Wiley-Interscience, 1975), 210, 215–17.

9. Albert Bandura and Carol J. Kupers, “Transmission of Patterns of Self-Reinforcement Through Modeling,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 69, no. 1 (1964): 1–9, https://doi.org/10.1037/h0041187.

10. Buss and Plomin, Temperament Theory, 91–93; see also Thomas Curran, Andrew P. Hill, Daniel J. Madigan, and Annett V. Stornæs, “A Test of Social Learning and Parent Socialization Perspectives on the Development of Perfectionism,” Personality and Individual Differences 160 (July 2020): article 109925, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.109925.

11. Martin M. Smith, Paul L. Hewitt, Simon B. Sherry, Gordon L. Flett, and Cassondra Ray, “Parenting Behaviors and Trait Perfectionism: A Meta-Analytic Test of the Social Expectations and Social Learning Models,” Journal of Research in Personality 96 (February 2022): 2, article 104180, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2021.104180.

12. Robert B. Slaney, Kenneth G. Rice, Michael Mobley, Joseph Trippi, and Jeffrey S. Ashby, “The Revised Almost Perfect Scale,” Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development 34, no. 3 (2001): 133.

13. For all the types of perfectionism, see table 1.1 in Gordon L. Flett and Paul L. Hewitt, Perfectionism in Childhood and Adolescence: A Developmental Approach (American Psychological Association, 2022), 20–21; see also exhibit 1.1 in Gordon L. Flett and Paul L. Hewitt, “Perfectionism and Maladjustment: An Overview of Theoretical, Definitional, and Treatment Issues,” in Flett and Hewitt, Perfectionism: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 11.

14. Angela Z. Vieth and Timothy J. Trull, “Family Patterns of Perfectionism: An Examination of College Students and Their Parents,” Journal of Personality Assessment 72, no. 1 (1999): 49–67, https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa7201_3.

15. L. Caitlin Cook and Christopher A. Kearney, “Parent and Youth Perfectionism and Internalizing Psychopathology,” Personality and Individual Differences 46, no. 3 (2009): 325–30, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.10.029.

16. See Paul R. Appleton, Howard K. Hall, and Andrew P. Hill, “Family Patterns of Perfectionism: An Examination of Elite Junior Athletes and Their Parents,” Psychology of Sport and Exercise 11, no. 5 (2010): 363–71, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2010.04.005; and Kristie L. Speirs Neumeister, Kristen Kay Williams, and Tracy L. Cross, “Gifted High-School Students’ Perspectives on the Development of Perfectionism,” Rooper Review 31, no. 4 (2009), 198–206, https://doi.org/10.1080/02783190903177564.

17. Joachim Stoeber, Kathleen Otto, and Claudia Dalbert, “Perfectionism and the Big Five: Conscientiousness Predicts Longitudinal Increases in Self-Oriented Perfectionism,” Personality and Individual Differences 47, no. 4 (2009): 363–68, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.04.004.

18. Allan N. Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994), 12, 22; see also Allan N. Schore, “Effects of a Secure Attachment Relationship on Right Brain Development, Affect Regulation, and Infant Mental Health,” Infant Mental Health Journal 22, nos. 1–2 (2001): 7–66, https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-0355(200101/04)22:1%3C7::AID-IMHJ2%3E3.0.CO;2-N.

19. Hewitt, Flett, and Mikail, Perfectionism: A Relational Approach, 101.

20. Hewitt, Flett, and Mikail, Perfectionism: A Relational Approach, 97–103.

21. Hewitt, Flett, and Mikail, Perfectionism: A Relational Approach, 114–19.

22. Robert B. Slaney, Kenneth G. Rice, and Jeffrey S. Ashby, “A Programmatic Approach to Measuring Perfectionism: The Almost Perfect Scales,” in Flett and Hewitt, Perfectionism: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 83; see also Flett and Hewitt, Perfectionism in Childhood and Adolescence, 146–55.

23. Flett and others, “Perfectionism in Children and Their Parents,” 99–101.

24. W. Hugh Missildine, Your Inner Child of the Past (Pocket Books, 1963), 84–85.

25. See Brian K. Barber, “Parental Psychological Control: Revisiting a Neglected Construct,” Child Development 67, no. 6 (1996): 3296–319, https://doi.org/10.2307/1131780; and Bart Soenens and Maarten Vansteenkiste, “A Theoretical Upgrade of the Concept of Parental Psychological Control: Proposing New Insights on the Basis of Self- Determination Theory,” Developmental Review 30, no. 1 (2010): 74–99, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2009.11.001.

26. Bart Soenens, Andrew J. Elliot, Luc Goossens, Maarten Vansteenkiste, Patrick Luyten, and Bart Duriez, “The Intergenerational Transmission of Perfectionism: Parents’ Psychological Control as an Intervening Variable,” Journal of Family Psychology 19, no. 3 (2005): 358–66, https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.19.3.358.

27. Leon R. Kass, “The End of Courtship,” Public Interest 126 (Winter 1997): 47.

28. Hewitt, Flett, and Mikail, Perfectionism: A Relational Approach, 19.

29. Hewitt, Flett, and Mikail, Perfectionism: A Relational Approach, 107–8, Flett and Hewitt, Perfectionism in Childhood and Adolescence, 170–72; see also Allan Mallinger, “The Myth of Perfection: Perfectionism in the Obsessive Personality,” American Journal of Psychotherapy 63, no. 2 (2009): 103–31, https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2009.63.2.103.

30. Bart Soenens, Maarten Vansteenkiste, Bart Duriez, and Luc Goossens, “In Search of the Sources of Psychologically Controlling Parenting: The Role of Parental Separation Anxiety and Parental Maladaptive Perfectionism,” Journal of Research on Adolescence 16, no. 4 (2006): 539, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2006.00507.x.

31. Soenens and others, “Intergenerational Transmission of Perfectionism,” 362–63.

32. Soenens and others, “In Search of the Sources,” 540–41.

33. Soenens and others, “In Search of the Sources,” 542.

34. Diana Baumrind, “Authoritative Parenting Revisited: History and Current Status,” in Authoritative Parenting: Synthesizing Nurturance and Discipline for Optimal Child Development, ed. Robert E. Larzelere, Amanda Sheffield Morris, and Amanda W. Harrist (American Psychological Association, 2013), 11–34, https://doi.org/10.1037/13948-002.

35. See Flett and others, “Perfectionism in Children and Their Parents,” 117–18.

36. Soenens and others, “Intergenerational Transmission of Perfectionism,” 360.

37. David H. Olson, “Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems,” Journal of Family Therapy 22, no. 2 (2000): 144–67, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6427.00144.

38. Alan E. Craddock, Wendy Church, and Alexandra Sands, “Family of Origin Characteristics as Predictors of Perfectionism,” Australian Journal of Psychology 61, no. 3 (2009): 136–44, https://doi.org/10.1080/00049530802239326.

39. See the appendix for sample details. High, medium, and low levels of perfectionism were defined as in the article by Dyer in this volume.

40. Thomas S. Monson, “Finding Joy in the Journey,” Ensign 38, no. 11 (November 2008): 86.

41. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Jesus Christ Is the Strength of Parents,” Liahona 47, no. 5 (May 2023): 58, emphasis original.

Olivia Forsberg

BYU Studies Publications