A three-sample study of perfectionism and field test performance in athletes

Abstract

Field tests are commonly used by sport scientists for performance monitoring and evaluation. While perfectionism predicts performance in a range of contexts, it is currently unclear whether perfectionism predicts performance in such tests. To address this lack of understanding, the present study examined the relationships between perfectionism and fitness-based field test performance across three athlete samples. After completing a measure of perfectionism (striving for perfection and negative reactions to imperfection), sample one (n = 129 student athletes) participated in a series of countermovement jumps and 20-metre sprint trials, sample two (n = 136 student athletes) participated in an agility task, and sample three (n = 116 junior athletes) participated in the Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test (level one). Striving for perfection predicted better sprint and Yo-Yo test performance. Negative reactions to imperfection predicted worse sprint performance. Mini meta-analyses of the combined data (N = 381) showed that striving for perfection was positively related to performance (r⁺  = .24), but negative reactions to imperfection was unrelated to performance (r⁺  = –.05). The present findings indicate that striving for perfection may predict better fitness-based field test performance, while negative reactions to imperfection appears to be ambiguous.

Keywords:

• Personality
• athletes
• power
• speed
• agility
• endurance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In keeping with the original scale development paper, participants in Sample 2 responded on a 1 (never) to 6 (always) Likert scale (Stoeber et al., 2006).

2 Note, mini meta-analysis is based on bivariate relationships.