Projecting perfection by hiding effort: supplementing the perfectionistic self-presentation scale with a brief self-presentation measure

Abstract

Extensive research has illustrated the relevance of individual differences in perfectionistic self-presentation, but there has been little work on how perfectionistic self-presentation is expressed. The current research addressed this issue by examining the tendency to project a perfectionistic image by hiding effort. This research develops and evaluates a brief unifactorial measure as an extension of perfectionistic self-presentation. It is shown that the Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Hiding Effort Scale is reliable and valid in terms of its links with multidimensional perfectionism dimensions. Further, individual differences in seeming perfect while hiding effort accounted for unique variance in depression and social anxiety. Factors and processes that contribute to attempting to seem perfect while hiding effort are discussed.

Keywords:

• Perfectionism
• perfectionistic self-presentation
• hiding effort
• distress

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We did not conduct a CFA with the 30 items of the PSPS and PSP-HES due to the expectation that the new items would load complexly because of item wording that overlaps with the PSPS facets.

Additional information

Funding

The first author was supported by the Canada Research Chairs Program