Perfectionism and Gifted

 

 Educators, researchers, and parents often observe perfectionist behaviors in gifted students.

Characteristics of Perfectionist Students

 • performance standards that are impossibly high and unnecessarily rigid;

• motivation more from fear of failure than from pursuit of success;

• measurement of one's own worth entirely in terms of productivity and accomplishment;

• all-or-nothing evaluations that label anything other than perfection as failure;

• difficulty in taking credit or pleasure, even when success is achieved, because such achievement is merely what is expected; • procrastination in getting started on work that will be judged; and

• long delays in completing assignments, or repeatedly starting over on assignments, because the work must be perfect from the beginning and continue to be perfect as one goes along.