Perfectionism: The good, the bad, and the creative

The influence of adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism on creativity was examined. Initially, six measures of creativity were administered, including creative self-perceptions, behavior, and performance measures. Adaptive perfectionism was weakly positively related to creativity, whereas maladaptive perfectionism was unrelated to creativity across five of the six measures. A follow-up study assessed whether initial findings could be generalized to an everyday problem-solving task. Results indicated that adaptive perfectionism was related to higher quality but not originality of solutions. Further, a curvilinear relationship in the shape of an inverted “U” occurred between adaptive perfectionism and four of eight creativity measures. Overall, adaptive perfectionism was consistently, albeit weakly, related to creativity across various types of measures, whereas maladaptive perfectionism was not related to creativity.

► First study examining adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism in relation to creativity.
► Adaptive perfectionism was positively related to a variety of creative measures.
► Maladaptive perfectionism was unrelated or negatively related to creativity.
► A curvilinear relationship was found between adaptive perfectionism and creativity.
► Findings were consistent across creativity tasks, inventories, and self-perceptions.