کمال گرایی در نوازندگان جوان: رابطه با انگیزه، تلاش، موفقیت و پریشانی

Many musicians experience anxiety and distress when performing, which has been related to perfectionism. Recent findings, however, show that only some facets of perfectionism are associated with anxiety and distress, whereas other facets are associated with positive characteristics and outcomes such as motivation and achievement. To investigate how different facets of perfectionism are related to motivation, effort, achievement, and distress in musicians, 146 young musicians completed measures of perfectionism (striving for perfection, negative reactions to imperfection, and perceived pressure to be perfect), intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, effort, achievement, and distress. Results showed that striving for perfection was associated with intrinsic motivation (intrinsic/identified reasons), higher effort, and higher achievement. Whereas perceived pressure from music teachers was also associated with intrinsic motivation (identified reasons only), negative reactions to imperfection were associated with extrinsic motivation and higher distress. The findings demonstrate that perfectionism in musicians has both positive and negative sides. While negative reactions to imperfection are clearly unhealthy, striving for perfection may be regarded as a healthy pursuit of excellence.

Watching talented and skilled musicians perform, many concert goers would imagine that it must be a wonderful experience to be a musician performing in front of an attentive and appreciative audience. However, while they may be aware of the enormous amount of work, motivation, and dedication that is required to become a skilled and versatile musician, few will be aware of the distress that can be associated with being an aspiring musician. Not only do many musicians suffer from performance anxiety (Fehm & Schmidt, 2006), but the constant pressure of musical lessons, practice, recitals, and performance may also lead to somatic complaints and emotional fatigue in young musicians (Dews and Williams, 1989 and Shoup, 1995). However, the degree to which musicians experience performance anxiety and other forms of distress may vary depending on their personality characteristics (Rae & McCambridge, 2004). One personality characteristic that has been suggested to contribute to musicians’ performance anxiety and distress is perfectionism (Dews and Williams, 1989, Kenny et al., 2004 and Mor et al., 1995). Yet, studies with non-musicians have shown that perfectionism may also be associated with positive characteristics and outcomes such as motivation, effort, and achievement (e.g., Bieling et al., 2003, Mills and Blankstein, 2000 and Stoeber and Rambow, 2007). Still, research on perfectionism in musicians so far has focused mostly on the negative aspects of perfectionism. Consequently, the aim of the present research was to investigate what role positive and negative aspects of perfectionism play for motivation, effort, achievement, and distress in young musicians. Perfectionism is characterized by striving for flawlessness and setting of excessively high standards for performance accompanied by tendencies for overly critical evaluations of one’s behavior (Flett and Hewitt, 2002 and Frost et al., 1990). Moreover, perfectionists often put great importance on the evaluation of others (Frost et al., 1990 and Hewitt and Flett, 1991). Consequently, perfectionists may perceive great pressure to excel because they feel that they have to live up to their own high standards, and to those of others. Thus, it comes as no surprise that perfectionism has been associated with higher levels of anxiety and distress (see Flett & Hewitt, 2002 for a review). Perfectionism is multidimensional and multifaceted (Frost et al., 1990 and Hewitt and Flett, 1991). However, research has shown that two major dimensions of perfectionism can be differentiated: perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns (Frost et al., 1993 and Stoeber and Otto, 2006). The dimension of perfectionistic strivings comprises those facets of perfectionism that may be considered normal, healthy, or adaptive—such as striving for perfection, self-oriented perfectionism, and high personal standards—and has shown associations with positive characteristics and outcomes (particularly, when overlap with perfectionistic concerns is controlled for). In contrast, the dimension of perfectionistic concerns comprises those facets of perfectionism that are considered neurotic, unhealthy, or maladaptive—such as concern over mistakes and doubts about actions, socially prescribed perfectionism, feelings of discrepancy between expectations and results, and negative reactions to imperfections—and has shown close associations with negative characteristics and outcomes (see Stoeber & Otto, 2006 for a comprehensive review).1 Originally, the latter dimension also comprised perceived parental pressure (Frost et al., 1993 and Stumpf and Parker, 2000). Recent studies, however, tend to exclude parental pressure from the perfectionistic concerns dimension and regard it as a separate factor (e.g., Enns et al., 2002 and Rice et al., 2005). Differentiating perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns is important when investigating how perfectionism relates to motivation, effort, achievement, and distress. Regarding motivation, an important distinction is that between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, that is, whether individuals perceive their actions as autonomous and self-determined or as externally controlled (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Regarding how perfectionism relates to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, four studies have been published (McArdle and Duda, 2004, Mills and Blankstein, 2000, Miquelon et al., 2005 and Van Yperen, 2006). Of those, three studies investigated how self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism (Hewitt & Flett, 1991) were related to motivation in college students (Mills and Blankstein, 2000, Miquelon et al., 2005 and Van Yperen, 2006). Overall, results showed that self-oriented perfectionism (a core facet of the perfectionistic strivings dimension) is related to both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, but shows stronger and more consistent relationships with intrinsic motivation. In contrast, socially prescribed perfectionism (a core facet of the perfectionistic concerns dimension) shows stronger and more consistent positive correlations with extrinsic motivation. The fourth study (McArdle & Duda, 2004) investigated how different facets of perfectionism were related to reasons why adolescents pursue an effortful activity (viz. sport), differentiating autonomous reasons (intrinsic/identified) and controlled reasons (introjected/external). Results showed that personal standards (a core facet of perfectionistic strivings) were related to both autonomous and controlled reasons for pursuing sport. In contrast, concern over mistakes (a core facet of perfectionistic concerns) was related to controlled reasons only. While these findings suggest that perfectionistic strivings are more closely related to intrinsic motivation and perfectionistic concerns more closely to extrinsic motivation, they come from a small number of studies and thus need further corroboration. In comparison, the number of studies regarding how perfectionism relates to effort, achievement, and distress is much larger. Moreover, the studies’ findings are more consistent and show clear differences between perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns (see Stoeber & Otto, 2006). Whereas perfectionistic strivings and its facets have shown positive correlations with effort as indicated by time spent studying (Bieling et al., 2003 and Mills and Blankstein, 2000) and with academic achievement as indicated by grades (Bieling et al., 2003 and Stoeber and Rambow, 2007), perfectionistic concerns and its facets have shown consistent positive correlations with indicators of distress such as depression and anxiety, including performance anxiety (Mills and Blankstein, 2000 and Stoeber et al., 2007). Moreover, perfectionistic doubts about actions and feelings of discrepancy between expectations and results (both core facets of perfectionistic concerns) have been found to be related to somatic complaints and emotional fatigue (Hill et al., 2004 and Magnusson et al., 1996), indicating that it is primarily the facets of the perfectionistic concerns dimension, and not those of the perfectionistic strivings dimension, that are related to distress. Regarding perfectionism in musicians, two studies have been published so far (Kenny et al., 2004 and Mor et al., 1995). In sum, their findings indicate that overall perfectionism is related to higher distress and performance anxiety in musicians and that particularly socially prescribed perfectionism shows high correlations with debilitating anxiety. However, the studies have significant limitations. First, they mainly focused on negative characteristics, particularly anxiety and distress. Moreover, Mor et al. (1995) combined musicians with other performing artists (actors, dancers), whereas Kenny et al. (2004) did not distinguish between different facets of perfectionism and investigated only a small sample of 32 musicians. Consequently, the two studies’ findings provide only preliminary insights into perfectionism and distress in musicians, and leave open all questions regarding positive aspects of perfectionism. Against this background, the aim of the present study was to further investigate how different facets of perfectionism are related to musicians’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, effort, achievement, and distress. Regarding the two dimensions of perfectionism, two facets were examined: striving for perfection (as a facet of perfectionistic strivings) and negative reactions to imperfection (as a facet of perfectionistic concerns). Previous research with high school students and student athletes has shown that striving for perfection is associated with positive characteristics and outcomes, whereas negative reactions to imperfection are associated with negative characteristics and outcomes (Stoeber and Otto, 2006, Stoeber et al., 2007, Stoeber and Rambow, 2007 and Stoeber et al., in press). Consequently, we expected striving for perfection in musicians to be associated with intrinsic motivation, effort, and achievement and negative reactions to imperfection to be associated with extrinsic motivation and distress. In addition, we examined perceived pressure to be perfect. Previous research has found that parents and music teachers have the greatest influence on young musicians’ development and do not only provide support, but may also cause considerable stress (Davidson et al., 1996, Dews and Williams, 1989 and Persson, 1995). Therefore, the present study sought to explore how perceived parental pressure and perceived teacher pressure was related to motivation, effort, achievement, and distress in young musicians.