Investigating the Negative Link between Perfectionism and Emotional Divergent Thinking

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4940404/v1

Previous research has found that striving towards perfection was negatively associated with the generation of original ideas, as measured with Divergent Thinking (DT) tasks. In contrast, striving towards excellence has been positively associated with DT abilities. This effect has been replicated; however explanatory variables have not yet been tested. The aim of the current study was twofold. First, we investigated the mediating role of concerns over mistakes, doubts about actions, openness to experience, empathy, and emotions felt during the task. Second, we investigated an emotional DT task, consisting of two items (e.g., name things which can be frustrating). From a sample of n = 282 university students, we replicated the negative association between perfectionism and DT abilities. Perfection strivers were less original on the emotional task compared to the classic DT task. However, the effects were smaller than in the preliminary study. Mediation analyses suggested that doubts and concerns were not statistically related to DT abilities. Openness to experience and empathy were both positively and uniquely associated to DT. Lastly, positive and worrisome emotions (but not negative) were positively related to the originality of ideas. We discuss the relationship between emotions and DT abilities.

Divergent thinking

Perfectionism

Excellencism

Emotion

Openness to experience

Flawless, perfect, impeccable, and rigid are words used to characterize “perfectionists” (Gaudreau, 2019). Perfectionism has been associated with higher levels of achievements in school (Madigan, 2019) and in sports (Hill et al., 2018), but not necessarily in the workplace (Harari et al., 2018). Positive effects of perfectionism are often attributed to the energizing nature of setting and trying to meet high standards of performance. We sometimes hear parents, practitioners, leaders, and scholars suggesting that one should “strive for perfection every time”, and that “perfection should influence our day-to-day and perhaps even moment-to-moment activities” (Baer & Shaw, 2017, p. 1215; Harari et al., 2018). However, perfectionism has been repeatedly shown to be a risk factor for psychological health and interpersonal relationships (Flett et al., 2017; Flett & Hewitt, 2002). A recent study found a negative link between perfectionism and the generation of creative ideas (Goulet-Pelletier et al., 2022). More research is needed to elucidate why, how, and when perfectionism has positive or negative impacts on various outcomes (Harari et al., 2018, p. 1138). The current study investigates explanatory mechanisms of the negative link between perfectionism and creative idea generation.

Setting excessively high standards of perfection is not the only way to be successful. The Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism (MEP) defines the concept of excellencism as a tendency to “aim and strive toward high yet attainable standards in an effortful, engaged, and determined yet flexible manner” (Gaudreau, 2019, p. 200). Striving towards excellence has been associated with better academic achievement than striving towards perfectionism, as well as protective effects against harmful academic outcomes (Gaudreau et al., 2022; Osenk et al., 2020). People who strive towards excellence attain excellent performance and are satisfied by it (i.e., “when it's good enough, it's good enough”). In contrast, people who strive towards perfection attain excellent performance and feels like it’s not good enough; they are not satisfied by it, and do not consider their objective achieved (Gaudreau, 2019). Their effort continues until perfection is met and this quest is often never ending. Logically, perfectionism, over and above excellencism, can be either (a) beneficial, (b) unneeded, or (c) harmful depending on the outcomes and the circumstances (Gaudreau, 2019).

Perfectionism and Creative Ideas

Surprisingly few studies have investigated the link between perfectionism and the generation of creative ideas. On the one hand, perfectionism is increasingly legitimized in modern workplaces and many individuals are encouraged to strive for perfection (Ocampo et al., 2020; Stoeber et al., 2013). On the other hand, creative abilities are targeted by most enterprises, as well as international and national task forces concerned with the set of skills needed for today’s and tomorrow’s world (Winner et al., 2013). An important component of the creative process is generating ideas (Torrance, 1962; Wallach & Kogan, 1965; Wallas, 1926). Researchers have hypothesized that the rigid thinking associated with perfectionistic strivings may hamper the capacity to generate creative ideas (Ferrari & Mautz, 1997; Nordin-Bates, 2020). In contrast, striving toward excellence suggests a more flexible attitude towards life. In a recent study (Goulet-Pelletier et al., 2022), the authors distinguished between excellencism and perfectionism and observed that perfectionism was detrimental with respect to divergent thinking, associative abilities, and openness to experience, but neutral with respect to general self-efficacy, creative self-efficacy, and creative personal identity compared to excellencism. The authors did not test explanatory variables. Therefore, one goal of the current study was to investigate the potential role of explanatory variables.

The capacity to generate creative ideas — i.e., ideas which are both original and appropriate (Runco & Jaeger, 2012) —are encompassed by Divergent Thinking (DT) abilities. DT is an umbrella term which regroups many processes involved in the generation of variations and alternatives (Guilford, 1984). DT abilities can be assessed with open-ended questions such as “what would happen as consequences if glasses and corrective lenses had never been invented”. The mere number of responses estimates fluency of thoughts, whereas the creative quality of the answers provides an originality score.

In BLINDED (published study), the authors introduced an exploratory emotionally oriented version of DT (e.g., “name all the things which can be frustrating”). By re-analyzing their open-access dataset, we observed that the gap between excellence strivers and perfection strivers was larger under the emotional DT items compared to the classic DT items (e.g., “name all the things you can do with a brick”). The results of this second-hand analysis are reported in Table 1. The difference was significant for the originality score only, whereas fluency score was equivalent across both tasks. This suggests that perfection strivers generated as many ideas to both types of tasks, however their answers were considerably less creative under the emotional task compared to the classic one.

Insert Table 1 about here

In the current study, we aimed at replicating this difference between perfectionism and excellencism on emotional DT compared to classic DT, and to identify explanatory variables.

Why Perfectionism might be Detrimental to Divergent Thinking?

Why perfectionism may hinder the process of generating creative ideas? And why emotional ideas in particular? In real creative problem-solving situations, working on creative solutions is inherently a risky process (Lin et al., 2023). When the outcome is uncertain, proposing original solutions may come with “chronic sources of insecurity and anxiety such as fear of failure, fear of being different, fear of criticism or ridicule, fear of rejection, fear of supervisors, timidity, or shaky self-esteem” (G. A. Davis, 2011, p. 117). Research has shown repeatedly that perfection strivers were more likely to be preoccupied with success, competition, avoiding failure, and evaluating themselves against exceptionally high standards of accomplishment and productivity (Stoeber, 2017). The many doubts and evaluative concerns which often accompany perfectionistic standards (Conroy et al., 2007; Frost et al., 1990) may prevent from exploring uncertain avenues. However, according to the dual-pathway theory of creativity, perfectionism could promote creative ideation through the exploitation of a few categories of solutions in more depth (Nijstad et al., 2010). Indeed, doubts and evaluative concerns can promote creative solutions through the persistent pathway to creativity, by opposition to a flexible pathway. Avoidance states tend to narrow people’s attentional scope and to lower their ability to shift mental set. However, through a greater impulse to structure and understand the situation (Baas et al., 2012; Friedman & Förster, 2010), avoidance states are associated with the use of more constrained, systematic, and analytical modes of thinking (De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008; Friedman & Förster, 2010), as well as greater persistence towards important goals (Baas et al., 2013; De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008; Roskes et al., 2012). The effortful and persistent exploitation of a particular category of solution is conducive to creative solutions given enough time and cognitive resources. However, considering that previous studies found negative associations between perfectionism and both the fluency and originality indicators of DT, it may be that perfectionism disrupt the flow of associative and original thinking needed to perform well on DT tasks (Flett et al., 2002; Macedo et al., 2014; Nordin-Bates & Kuylser, 2020; Tangney, 2002).

Doubts, evaluative concerns, fear of mistakes, and self-critical emotions may hamper the generation of creative ideas. In this study, we also explored an emotional DT task. Creativity with emotions is not a new concept. Emotional DT can be viewed as the generation of alternative emotions to a situation, and the generation of alternative situations to an emotion. As Averill highlighted in 1999, “to the extent that emotions are socially constituted, they are subject to transformation—fundamentally, not just superficially (e.g., in overt expression)” (p. 332). At lower levels of creativity, “emotional creativity involves the particularly effective application of an already existing emotion, one found within the culture; at a more complex level, it involves the modification (“sculpting”) of a standard emotion to better meet the needs of the individual or group; and at the highest level, it involves the development of a new form of emotion, based on a change in the beliefs and rules by which emotions are constituted” (p. 334).

The concept of emotional DT also overlaps with the emerging literature on emotion regulation flexibility, i.e., “the ability to choose how we address life’s inevitable ups and downs, its disappointments, triumphs, and challenges” (Maté, 2022, p. 29). Being able to display emotional flexibility, particularly when confronted to stressors, may be facilitated by creative abilities in the emotional space. More specifically, emotional DT may contribute to the generation of alternative interpretations to an event, the inhibition of dominant emotional responses (Pruessner et al., 2020), the replacement of irrelevant information with newer content, or the adjustment of one’s behaviour and emotional responses to changing emotional contexts and stimuli (Schmeichel & Tang, 2015). Perfectionism has been associated with greater ruminations (Flett et al., 1998), rigid emotional responses to goal progress, as well as patterns of social disconnection, and dichotomous, black and white, thinking (Egan et al., 2007; Ferrari & Mautz, 1997; Gaudreau et al., 2022; Nordin-Bates & Kuylser, 2020; Stoeber et al., 2017). Those tendencies may stem from reduced emotional DT abilities, or the other way round, make emotional thinking inflexible.

In the current study, we assessed emotional DT from two exploratory items which asked participants to 1) name all things which are frustrating, and 2) name all things which may influence negatively or positively their self-esteem. We were interested in determining whether perfectionism was associated with poorer DT abilities in emotional tasks compared to non-emotional task.

Five Potential Explanatory Mechanisms

To explain the expected negative association between perfectionism and emotional DT, we investigated four explanatory mechanisms.

Doubts about actions and Concerns over mistakes. Doubts about actions refers to skepticism that one can do things “right”. Concerns over mistakes refers to a tendency to react negatively to mistakes, “interpret mistakes as equivalent to failure, and to believe that one will lose the respect of others following failure” (Frost et al., 1990, p. 453). Both are recurrent experiences of perfection strivers. These avoidance goals might negatively impact exploration tendencies and therefore DT. However, they may increase persistence through an in-depth focus on a few categories of solutions, hence contributing to creative solutions. The current study is the first to our knowledge to assess the relationships between doubts about actions, concerns over mistakes, and DT abilities.

Openness to experience. A second explanatory mechanism is openness to experience. Open individuals are curious, have broad interests, enjoy intellectual challenges, and are sensible to their emotions and to art (Deyoung, 2015; McCrae, 1994). The rigidity associated with perfectionistic strivings may be a consequence of low openness to experience. Or, the other way around, striving towards perfection may narrow one’s exploration of possibilities. Perfectionism has been found to be negatively associated with openness to experience (Goulet-Pelletier et al., 2022). The relationship between openness to experience and creative outcomes, such as DT, is well established (DeYoung, 2015; Feist, 1998; McCrae, 1987; Oleynick et al., 2017). Therefore, low openness to experience may explain the negative association between perfectionism and both, classic and emotional DT.

Empathy. A third potential explanatory variable is empathy. The association between empathy and DT has received few empirical attention. Yet, the cognitive mechanisms responsible for empathy have been theorized to overlap with those underlying divergent thinking. In fact, empathy can be seen as a form of divergent thinking (Gallo, 1987). Empathy entails the exploration and simulation of someone else feelings. Researchers have suggested that “empathy is partly an imaginative and constructive process, relying on many of the same imagination abilities involved in creative thought” (Anderson, 2020, p. 4). With respect to emotional DT, empathy could be one mechanism through which original emotions are generated.

Some forms of perfectionism (i.e., perfectionism oriented towards comparisons of oneself with others or socially-prescribed perfectionism) show a consistent pattern of relationships with social disconnection and interpersonal hostility (Aparicio-Flores et al., 2021; Barnett & Johnson, 2016; Stoeber et al., 2017). However, self-oriented perfectionism is generally associated with more self-reported empathy ― not less (e.g., Aparicio-Flores et al., 2021). Nonetheless, this literature has not distinguished between perfection and excellence strivings. Therefore, positive results may be in part attributed to the positive association between excellencism and empathy, whereas perfectionism may be negatively associated with empathy (such pattern of findings have been previously found to be the case with academic GPA and creative indicators; e.g.,Gaudreau et al., 2022; Goulet-Pelletier et al., 2022). The literature on excellencism is scant and therefore more research is needed to disentangle the relationship between excellencism, perfectionism, and empathy.

Emotions during the DT tasks. The emotions felt during completion of DT tasks can impact one’s internal search process. When a prompt requires searching through emotional content, the effect may be exacerbated. Notably, the trait-consistent hypothesis suggests that negative emotions could be beneficial to individuals with certain personality dispositions, such as neuroticism or perfectionism. Trait-consistent benefit occurs when an emotion in the task is congruent with emotions triggered by personality traits. Because neuroticism and perfectionism typically induce negative emotions, emotions such as worries during a DT task would be “trait-consistent experiences” and thus activating for individuals high on neuroticism or perfectionism. Experiencing these emotions would facilitate performance on creativity tasks due to an emotional reassurance and activation (Leung et al., 2014). Leung and colleagues (2014) found support for this hypothesis with individuals high on neuroticism. However, the effects were apparent only for cognitively demanding DT tasks, where large effort was required to optimize performance. The current research investigated emotions during normal (not artificially difficult) DT tasks. Nonetheless, we tested the hypothesis that negative and worrisome emotions would positively predict DT abilities for perfection strivers only. Positive emotions tend to enhance cognitive flexibility, whereas negative emotions tend to enhance perseverance and persistence (De Dreu et al., 2008). In the current study, we investigated positive (e.g., joy), negative (e.g., angry), and worrisome (e.g., embarrassed) emotions.

This Study

This study investigated the differences between excellence strivers and perfection strivers on emotional and classic DT tasks. Identifying explanatory mechanisms will contribute to a better understanding of what in perfectionism and in excellencism impact their creative potential. We hypothesized that:

H1: Perfection strivers would have more doubts and concerns over mistakes than excellence strivers; in turn, doubts and concerns would be negatively related to DT abilities. The effect is expected to be equivalent for both DT tasks, emotional and classic.

H2: Perfection strivers would be less open to experience than excellence strivers; in turn openness to experience would be positively related to DT abilities. Openness to experience should be more highly associated with emotional DT task considering that emotional awareness is an important component of that construct.

H3: Perfection strivers would be less empathic than excellence strivers; in turn, empathy would be positively related to DT abilities. The effect of empathy should be greater towards the emotional DT task, assuming that empathy is a mechanism of emotional exploration.

H4: Perfection strivers would experience fewer positive emotions, more negative emotions, and more worrisome emotions during the DT tasks than excellence strivers; in turn, positive emotions would be positively related to DT abilities, whereas negative and worrisome emotions would be positively related to DT abilities only for individuals high on perfectionism (trait-consistent hypothesis). The effect of emotions should be greater towards the emotional DT task.

Participants

A sample of 282 undergraduate students (74.8% female) from a French/English bilingual university in the province of Ontario was retained for analysis. From the initial 342 participants, 35 were removed due to missing data on more than 60% of the items and 18 participants were removed due to duplicate participation. Finally, three participants were removed due to completing the study in less than 20 minutes. Univariate outliers’ inspection revealed four extreme cases (whose z scores were beyond ± 3.5) which were removed from further analyses. Multivariate inspections (Mahalanobis distance, using a critical distance from a χ² (11), p < .001) revealed no additional extreme cases. The final sample was n = 282.

The age ranged from 17 to 49 years. Mean age was 19.4 (SD of 3.0). Participants identified as white (49.0%), Asian (20.3%), African/African American (11.5%), Arab (9.8%), Hispanic (1.7%), First Nations, Métis, or Inuit (0.3%) and others (7.3%). Participants reported that their first language was English (52.3%), French (27.7%) and others (20.0%). Their program of study included health sciences (26.0%), psychology (20.7%), management (15.1%), social sciences (9.5%), natural sciences (7.4%), arts (5.3%), computer science (1.4%) and others (14.7%). Participants reported coming from different social classes: lower (2.8%), lower average (9.6%), average (52.1%), upper average (33.0%) and upper class (2.5%). Finally, 61.1% of participants reported having no attention deficit disorder, 13.4% reported having small attention deficits that do not interfere with their studies and 25.4% reported having attention deficits that interfere with their studies. The study was approved by the University of Ottawa's Research Ethics Board; all participants completed a consent form.

Procedure and Measures

The study was pre-registered (see OSF link). The pre-registration was uploaded during data-collection (13/11/21) but before data collection ended (8/12/21). The pre-registration included analyses of the questions which we did not include in the current study due to difficulties in analysing this component considering the large number of variables involved. More specifically, one associative thinking task and exploratory questions related to the strategy used by participants during the DT tasks were completed for exploratory reasons but not included in this study. Participants performed the whole study online. They answered socio-demographic questions first, then completed questionnaires interlaced with four cognitive tasks measuring divergent thinking.

Completion time for the study was on average 40 min. The measures are described below. The independent variables are the scores of Excellencism and Perfectionism. The mediating variables are: Concern over mistakes, Doubts about actions, Emotion felt during the DT tasks, Openness to experience, and Empathy. Finally, the dependent variables are: i) originality of answers in classic DT; and ii) originality of answers in emotional DT. The originality scores correspond to the creativity of answers according to independent judges. Fluency scores (i.e., the number of generated answers to the DT tasks) were investigated but not maintain in the main models for parsimony and because those scores are less revelatory of creative abilities (see e.g., Runco & Acar, 2012).

Measurements

Perfectionism and Excellencism. The long version of the Scale of Perfectionism and Excellencism (SCOPE; Gaudreau & Schellenberg, 2018; 22 items) was used to measure the constructs of perfectionism and excellencism. Perfectionism is defined as “the tendency to aim and strive toward idealized, flawless, and excessively high standards in a relentless manner’ (Gaudreau, 2019, p. 200). Excellencism is defined as a “tendency to aim and strive toward very high yet attainable standards in an effortful, engaged, and determined yet flexible manner” (Gaudreau, 2019, p. 200). Items were preceded by the stem: “My goal in life is…”. A representative item of perfectionism is “…to be exceptionally productive all the time”. A representative item of excellencism is "…to be very productive". Participants rated their answers on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (totally). The scale has been validated across five studies (total N = 2,157; Gaudreau et al., 2022). Average scores of perfectionism and excellencism were computed from their respective eleven items.

Doubts About Actions and Concern Over Mistakes. The constructs of Doubts About Actions and Concerns Over Mistakes were assessed with the subscales of the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS; Frost et al., 1990). The former construct was assessed with four items and the latter with nine. An example item for Doubts about actions is: “Even when I do something very carefully, I often feel that it is not quite right.” An example item for Concern over mistakes is “I should be upset if I make a mistake”. Participants rated their answers on a scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree).

Openness to experience. Openness to experience was assessed with the Big Five Aspects Scale (20 items; DeYoung et al., 2007). Openness to experience captures intellectual curiosity, interest in arts, emotional awareness, wild imagination, as well as non-conformity. An example item is "I see beauty in things that others might not notice." Participants responded on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (highly disagree) to 5 (highly agree).

Empathy. Empathy was assessed with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index questionnaire (IRI, 28 items; Davis, 1980). The 28-item IRI is a self-report measure consisting of four 7-item subscales: Perspective Taking (tendency to adopt the psychological point of view of others); Fantasy (tendency to transpose oneself imaginatively into the feelings and actions of fictitious characters in books, movies, and plays); Empathic Concern (feelings of sympathy and concern for others); and Personal Distress (feelings "self-oriented" feelings of personal anxiety and unease in tense interpersonal settings). The IRI is based on a multidimensional model of empathy which considers each subscale as a unique dimension of empathy. However, in an evaluation of the structure of the empathy construct based on the IRI, Cliffordson (2001) concluded that a general factor virtually identical to the empathic concern subscale explained a great deal of the variance in the perspective taking and fantasy subscales. Moreover, the personal distress subscale behaved differently than the others, showing weak correlations with the three others. Cliffordson (2001) concluded that “these three subscales, summed up into a total score, might serve as a measure of a general empathic disposition” which encompass both a cognitive and an emotional component. Based on these findings, we computed a general score by averaging the perspective taking, fantasy, and empathic concerns subscales. An example item of the fantasy subscale is: “I really get involved with the feelings of the characters in a novel.” An example item of the perspective taking subscale is: “Before criticizing somebody, I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place.” An example item of the empathic concern subscale is: “When I see someone being abused, I feel a little protective towards them.” Participants rated their answers on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (Doesn't describe me) to 4 (Describes me totally).

Emotions felt during the divergent thinking tasks. A list of twenty-three triads of emotions were presented to the participants, preceded by the stem “During the creative tasks, I felt…”. Twenty of the items were from the Differential Emotions Questionnaire (Fredrickson et al., 2003; Galanakis et al., 2016) while three additional items were created for the sake of this study: “I felt Analytical, judgmental, critical”, “I felt embarrassed, inadequate, ashamed” (from the Differential Emotions Scale of Izard, 1972) and “I felt Anxious, panicky, nervous” (Izard, 1972). These items were inspired by the literature on perfectionism. Participants rated their answers on a scale from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Extremely). An example item is: I felt “Surprised, amazed, astonished” (see Appendix A for the list of items used).

Classic Divergent Thinking. Participants were instructed to generate as many original answers as possible to the following two traditional divergent thinking items 1) Tell us all the different ways you could use a brick, and 2) Tell us all the different ways you could use a newspaper (Wallach & Kogan, 1965). Participants were given three minutes per items. The originality of answers was evaluated by two judges based on the snapshot scoring methods of Silvia et al., 2008. The scores were averaged across the two judges for the two items. The Intra-Class Correlation (ICC) for the originality score in the current study was ICC = .85. The originality scores were anchored on a scale from 1 (not creative at all) to 4 (very creative). The number of generated answers to the DT tasks were averaged across the two items to obtain a score of fluency.

Emotional Divergent Thinking. Participants were instructed to generate as many original answers as possible to the following two items 1) Name all the things you can think of that can be frustrating, and 2) Name all the things you can think of that can positively or negatively affect your self-esteem (first used in BLINDED, published study by the authors). Participants were given three minutes per items. Originality and fluency scores were computed the same way as for the classic DT. The Intra-Class Correlation (ICC) for the originality score in the current study was ICC = .85. The number of generated answers to the DT tasks were averaged across the two items to obtain a score of fluency.

Descriptive statistics

The dataset is available online (see anonymous OSF link). Following data screening, we computed averages. Descriptive statistics are given in Table 2. We note that skewness was below one for all variables. Moreover, the mean of the emotional originality DT score was lower in this study (M = 1.89) compared to the original study of BLINDED (M = 2.34), which may indicate more severe coding of the answers in the current study. The judges being not the same for the two studies, this may explain the difference between the scores. Supplementary Table S1 shows the correlations between the various measurements (see anonymous OSF link). Data were analyzed using Mplus 8 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2011).

Insert Table 2 about here.

Perfectionism, Excellencism and Emotional Divergent Thinking

The results of a multivariate multiple regression are reported in Table 3. As seen, Perfectionism was associated negatively with the emotional originality score (β = -.19 95%CI [-.31, -.05]) more so than the classic originality score (β = -.11 [-.25, .03]). Excellencism was positively associated with the emotional originality score (β = .18 [.04, .31]) more so than the classic originality score (β = .14 [.004, .26]). The effect sizes here were smaller compared to the preliminary study (compare Table 3 with Table 1). The fluency scores on the other hand were nearly identical to what was found from the preliminary study.

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The directions of the effects were consistent with the hypotheses, despite that one association did not reach statistical significance: perfectionism was not significantly correlated with the originality score of classic DT (r = ‑.11, p = .14).

Explanatory Mechanisms

Doubts and Concerns. We tested whether doubts about actions and concerns over mistakes explained the difference between perfection and excellence strivers on generating originality answers to DT items. The results of a mediation analysis are presented in Figure 1. The results of the indirect effect (mediation effect) are reported in Supplementary Table S2.

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As can be seen in Figure 1, none of the mediators were significantly related to the originality DT scores. Figure 1 shows that perfectionism was significantly and positively related to doubts about actions (β = .41, p < .001), as well as concerns over mistakes (β = .20, p = .003). Excellencism was not significantly related to neither doubts about actions, nor concerns over mistakes. Hence, Hypothesis 1 was not supported by the data.

Openness to Experience and Empathy. Openness to experience and empathy were included in the same model, considering their conceptual proximity in emotional and social awareness. The results of mediation analyses are presented in Figure 2. The results of the indirect effects (mediation effects) are reported in Table S3.

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As can be seen in Figure 2, empathy significantly mediated the relationship between perfectionism and the originality scores of both DT tasks. This mediation was partial for emotional DT. Likewise, openness to experience and empathy significantly mediated the relationship between excellencism and the originality scores of both DT tasks. The mediations were complete (the total effects were no longer significant after controlling for the mediators).

Figure 2 reveals that perfectionism was not significantly related to openness to experience (β = -.09, p = .17) but was significantly related to empathy (β = -.18, p = .006). It should be noted that whenever excellencism significantly predicts an outcome and perfectionism has a non-significant relationship to it, this suggests that perfectionism fails to add any additional value to the prediction of excellencism (perfectionism predicts that outcome to the same extent, i.e., no more and no less than excellencism) (see Gaudreau et al., 2023).

We conclude that perfection and excellence strivers were not significantly different on openness to experience, therefore Hypothesis 2 was not supported by the data. However, openness to experience explained the better DT abilities of excellence strivers compared to non-strivers. Hypothesis 3 regarding empathy was partially supported. More specifically, perfection strivers were less empathic than excellence strivers as expected; in turn, empathy was positively related to DT abilities. However, the effect of empathy was equivalent whether the task was emotional or not.

Emotions Felt During the Task. We investigate the role of 22 emotions felt during the DT tasks (after removing the 23^rd item “sexual, desiring, flirtatious”)¹. We specified a latent Structural Equation Model to regroup the emotions. We tested a two factors CFA model with the first latent factor consisting of ‘positive’ emotions (comprising the emotions 1 to 11 from Appendix A) and a second latent factor consisting of ‘negative’ emotions (comprising the emotions 12 to 22 from Appendix A). We compared that model to a three factors CFA model which added the latent factor ‘Worrisome’, consisting of emotions related to shame, embarrassment, and self-judgments (i.e., emotions 19 to 23 from Appendix A). The triad “Repentant, guilty, blameworthy” was first specified to fit on the Worrisome latent construct. However, modification indices indicated that restricting this item to the Negative latent factor was better suited considering the data. Table 4 reports the fit indices of these three measurement models (a two factors model vs. a three-factor model with “Repentant, guilty, blameworthy” loading on the Worrisome construct vs. a three-factor model with the latter item loading on the Negative construct). The three-factor model with “Repentant, guilty, blameworthy” loading on the Negative construct had a better fit; hence we retained that model. The fit is not fully satisfying according to conventional criteria. However, the fit remains decent considering the number of indicators (22) and the strict model imposed by a CFA (i.e., cross loadings and residual correlations fixed to zero). All primary loadings were higher than λ > .43.

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The results are presented in Figure 2. Perfectionism was significantly and positively associated with all three latent emotion factors, namely, positive emotion (β =.16, p = .02), negative emotion (β = .29, p < .001), and worrisome emotion (β = .22, p = .001). Excellencism was not significantly associated with positive emotion (β = .04, p = .53), but it was significantly and negatively associated with negative emotion (β = -.25, p < .001) and negatively associated with worrisome emotion (β = -.21, p = .002).

Positive emotion was significantly associated with classic DT originality (β = .24, p < .001) but not significantly associated with emotional DT originality (β = .08, p = .25). Negative emotion was significantly and negatively associated with both tasks, namely classic DT originality (β = -.43, p < .001) and emotional DT originality (β = -.47, p < .001). Lastly, worrisome emotion was positively associated with both tasks, namely classic DT originality (β = .29, p < .001) and emotional DT originality (β = .35, p < .001).

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The mediation effects are reported in Supplementary Table S4. Overall, perfectionism, predicted more positive emotions, more negative emotions, and more worrisome emotions. Therefore, the effects counterbalanced themselves. Overall, perfection strivers had more positive and worrisome emotions — which predicted better DT abilities, but also more negative emotions, which predicted worse DT abilities (see Table S4 for the mediation results).

Excellencism predicted fewer negative emotions, which explained their higher originality on both DT tasks. However, half of this effect was counterbalanced by a negative association with worrisome emotions, which in turn were positively associated with both DT tasks.

Trait-Consistent Hypothesis

We tested a moderation model to investigate the trait-consistent hypothesis (H4) whereby worrisome emotions would contribute positively to DT abilities especially for individuals high on perfectionism. We controlled for excellencism, negative emotions, and positive emotions. The results revealed a significant interaction between perfectionism and worrisome emotions on emotional DT originality (b = 0.076, β = .876, p < .001). The results are displayed in Figure 4, panel A. It was found that participants who reported higher than average (+1 SD and beyond) levels of perfectionism experienced a greater positive effect of worrisome emotions towards emotional DT originality (b = 0.223, p < .001), compared to average or lower levels (-1 SD and below) of perfectionism (b = 0.103, p = .019, and b = -0.018, p = .744, respectively). These results give support to the trait-consistent hypothesis. Individuals high on perfectionism performed better when worried, whereas individuals low on perfectionism had no benefits nor detriments from experiencing worried emotions during the task. The interaction term was also significant for the classic originality score (b = 0.046, β = .50, p = .03). However, the moderation was less pronounced, as can be seen in Figure 3, panel B. The Hypothesis that worrisome emotions would predict better DT abilities for perfection strivers only (H2) was partially supported.

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We investigated five possible explanatory mechanisms of the difference in the originality of ideas between perfection and excellence strivers on classic and emotional DT tasks. We investigated the mediating role of concerns over mistakes, doubts about actions, the emotions experienced during the DT tasks, openness to experience, and empathy. Of these explanatory variables, only concerns and doubts did not significantly explain any of the variance in DT abilities.

Concerns Over Mistakes and Doubts About Actions

The results showed that perfectionism was associated with more concerns and doubts than excellencism. This is consistent with the literature on perfectionism (e.g., Campbell & Paula, 2002; Hill et al., 2004). Perfectionism has been repeatedly associated with constructs such as fears of failure, higher levels of stress, and performance anxiety (Sagar & Stoeber, 2009). Perfection strivers aim to perform at the best level possible, they usually care deeply about their performance, and often desire to reach perfection from the start of an activity (Campbell & Paula, 2002; Hewitt & Flett, 1993). Doubts and concerns come from considering failure as problematic. In this study, excellence strivers had lower levels of doubts and concerns compared to perfection strivers. Despite their high standards, excellence strivers seem more inclined to consider failure as a normal part of the learning process (Gaudreau et al., 2022).

Concerns and doubts were not significantly related to the DT originality scores of both tasks. We had hypothesized that concerns and doubts would hinder individuals’ creative thinking by limiting explorative tendencies and generating irrelevant thoughts during a creative task. It is plausible that creatively ambitious individuals also have high doubts and concerns, such that doubts and concerns would not be good indicators of limiting exploratory behaviours per se. For example, a study using interviews with recognized artists revealed a common theme across artistic disciplines. Most artists described going through a series of “crises” coupled by “a constant self-doubt and a desire to start everything afresh” (Glaveanu et al., 2013, p. 5). The relationship between concerns and doubts and creative thinking might be positive in some cases and negative in others. Perfectionism could be a moderator of that link. Future studies should investigate the null link between concerns and doubts and DT observed in the current study.

Emotions During DT

Perfectionism was associated with more positive emotions, more negative emotions, and more worrisome emotions compared to excellence strivers. In turn, positive emotions predicted more originality in the classic DT task. Negative emotions predicted less originality in both tasks, whereas worrisome emotions predicted more originality in both tasks. Therefore, some of the effects counterbalanced themselves. Likewise, excellencism predicted no more positive emotions, but fewer negative emotions and fewer worrisome emotions.

Those counterbalancing effects may be related to the trait-consistent hypothesis arguing that negative emotions can benefit individuals with certain personality dispositions. For example, individuals high on neuroticism or perfectionism traits who experience emotions like worry or anxiety, would be “trait-consistent experiences” and would facilitate their performance on creativity tasks (Leung et al., 2014).

We tested the trait-consistent hypothesis and found a moderation effect whereby individuals high on perfectionism performed better when worried, whereas individuals lower on perfectionism performed neither better nor worse from experiencing more worried emotions during the task. Worrisome emotions predicted better DT abilities for perfection strivers, but excellence strivers were less likely to experience worrisome emotions during the task. One possibility is that emotions related to embarrassment, shame, and self-judgments are triggered by a greater investment in the task for individuals high on perfectionism. It has been shown that certain individuals use negative emotional experiences as an instrument to be motivated towards goal pursuit. For example, individuals high on neuroticism perform better on cognitively demanding tasks when they feel worried (e.g., Leung et al., 2014; Tamir, 2005). Cognitively demanding tasks requires larger effort to optimize performance, which accentuates the trait-consistent effect of emotions.

The Affect Infusion Model (Forgas, 1995) and the dual pathway model of creativity (De Dreu et al., 2008) both suggests that individuals in positive states might rely more on heuristics or intuitive judgments, while those in negative moods may engage in more systematic, analytical thinking. This could explain the positive effect of worrisome emotions. It is important to acknowledge that despite a positive relationship with DT abilities, worrisome emotions may suggest an unhealthy relationship with the task. It may encourage disproportionate concerns over mistakes, doubts, performance anxiety, negative self-talk, and harsh self-criticism, which together may affect well-being. Hence, despite a positive effect on DT abilities, worrisome emotions may become problematic when they are chronic or obsessive. More ambitious creative projects may emphasize this distinction between perfection strivers and excellence strivers. More research is needed to understand the effect of worrisome emotions on DT abilities. Lastly, it remains surprising to observe that excellencism was not associated with more positive emotions than non-strivers. Their good performance on the tasks and their desire for intellectual challenges was expected to translate into more positive emotions on DT tasks. However, the task might be just as pleasurable regardless of one’s performance, and therefore non-strivers may have just as much positive emotions during the task than excellence strivers.

Openness to Experience and Empathy

Perfection strivers were as open to experience as excellence strivers. This contrasts with the results of Goulet-Pelletier and collaborators (2022) which found a negative and significant relationship between perfectionism and openness to experience. However, they also found no difference between perfectionism and excellencism on creative identity and creative self-efficacy. Perfection strivers tend to endorse high self-efficacy despite harsher self-judgments. Typically, they compare themselves favourably to their peers but unfavourably to themselves (Stoeber et al., 2008). Hence, it is unclear whether perfection strivers tend to overestimate their openness to experience or if they really are as open to experience as excellence strivers. In another vein, high standards of performance may encourage perfection strivers to be open to experience if they view it as a necessary condition to perform at the highest possible (see e.g., Nordin-Bates, 2020). This could explain why perfection strivers are equal to excellence strivers on openness to experience. Their equal openness to experience remains to be demonstrated with objective measurements.

Perfection strivers showed less empathy than excellence strivers, which partly explained their poorer performances on the DT tasks. Empathy positively predicted both DT tasks over and above openness to experience. The role of empathy towards DT has not received a lot of empirical attention in the literature. Gallo (1987) discussed the fact that creative individuals “possesses unusual perceptual and personal openness, and a marked capacity for empathic identification with the other” (p. 316). The trait openness to experience contains an important emotional component, described by Deyoung (2015) as an “awareness of both one’s own and others’ emotions” (p. 36). Hence, the fact that both, openness to experience and empathy, were uniquely conducive of DT abilities in the current study suggest distinct mechanisms. The link between empathy and DT deserves more empirical attention.

To conclude, different mechanisms must be considered to fully explain the difference between perfection and excellence strivers on DT tasks. We identified the role of empathy, openness to experience, and the emotions during the task. It is not yet fully clear how those factors interact and whether different profiles of excellence strivers and perfection strivers exist which could moderate these effects.

Although this study replicated an effect observed in the dataset of BLINDED, the present effect sizes were smaller in size. Some interesting findings are worth mentioning, such as 1) the absence of correlations between concerns over mistakes, doubts about actions, and the originality scores of DT, 2) the positive link between empathy and the originality of answers during DT, over and above openness to experience, and 3) the positive relationship between worrisome emotions and DT abilities.

Among the limitations, this study used self-reported questionnaires, which introduce social desirability biases. Moreover, the measurement of emotional DT was limited in scope. It would be necessary to examine a greater variety of emotional DT items in the future to extend our results. Emotions seem to play an important role in DT abilities, whether it is through openness to experience, empathy, or actual emotional responses during the task. Future studies should continue to examine the role of empathy and emotions felt during DT tasks for excellence and perfection strivers as these types of strivings are frequently reinforced in competitive environments, such as schools, sports, workplaces, and even artistic settings.

Author Contribution

J-C. G-P., M-F. B., and D. C. conceptualized the study. M-F. B. collected the participants. J-C G-P. cleaned the dataset and executed the statistical analyses. J-C. G-P. and M-F. B. wrote the main manuscript text. J-C. G-P. prepared the Figures and Tables. D. C. supervised the project. D. C. validated the data analyses. D.C. reviewed and edited the main text.

Data Availability

The dataset and supplementary materials are available at this anonymous OSF link: https://osf.io/94pb3/?view_only=fca7406c633f4e80b9d67873989f2c5f

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Emotion 23 was removed due to its irrelevance and not theoretically fitting any of the factor.

Table 1. Reanalysis of results from BLINDED, showing standardized regression coefficients from a Multivariate Multiple Regression with Perfectionism and Excellencism Predicting Divergent Thinking Scores

	DT Classic		DT Emotional
Variables	Originality	Fluency	Originality	Fluency
Excellencism	.30**	.21**	.42**	.25**
Perfectionism	-.24**	-.20**	-.48**	-.23**
R²	7.2%	4%	18.6%**	5.5%

Note: n = 184. *: p < .05, **: p <.01. DT = Divergent Thinking

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for the Main Variable of this Study

Measure	Min	Max	Mean	SD	Skew	α
Excellencism*	2.91	7.00	5.67	0.89	-.306	.93
Perfectionism*	1.00	7.00	3.92	1.58	.012	.97
Concerns over Mistakes**	1.00	5.00	3.31	1.00	-.413	.80
Doubts about Actions**	1.00	5.00	3.00	0.94	-.126	.90
Openness to experience**	2.50	4.65	3.61	0.41	-.025	.73
Empathy**	2.00	3.64	2.85	0.34	-.010	.79
DT Originality Classic***	0.88	3.25	1.75	0.47	.486	.85
DT Fluency Classic	2.00	24.50	10.14	4.10	.793	.87
DT Originality Emotional***	1.00	3.13	1.89	0.45	.476	.85
DT Fluency Emotional	3.00	31.00	13.48	5.51	.611	.71

*: On a scale from 1 to 7; **: on a scale from 1 to 5; ***: on a scale from 1 to 4.

Table 3. Standardized regression coefficient from a Multivariate Multiple Regression with Perfectionism and Excellencism Predicting Divergent Thinking

	DT Classic		DT Emotional
Variables	Originality	Fluency	Originality	Fluency
Excellencism	.14*	.21**	.18**	.15*
Perfectionism	-.11	-.22**	-.19**	-.23**
R²	1.7%	4.9%	3.5%	4.3%

Note: n = 282. *: p < .05, **: p <.01

Table 4. Fit of the Latent Measurement Models.

	LL	χ²	df	BIC	SRMR	RMSEA	CFI	TLI
Two-factors	-7736.79	660.00**	208	15851.58	0.091	0.088 [0.080, 0.095]	.84	.82
Three-factors	-7712.47	616.44**	206	15814.24	0.092	0.084 [0.076, 0.092]	.85	.84
†Three-factors	-7669.49	536.32**	206	15728.26	0.086	0.075 [0.068, 0.083]	.89	.87

Note. n =282. **: p < .01 †item 15 loading on “negative emotion” construct instead of the “worrisome emotion” construct.

No competing interests reported.

Investigating the Negative Link between Perfectionism and Emotional Divergent Thinking

Status:

Version 1

Abstract

Figures

Introduction

Perfectionism and Creative Ideas

Why Perfectionism might be Detrimental to Divergent Thinking?

Five Potential Explanatory Mechanisms

This Study

Method

Participants

Procedure and Measures

Measurements

Results

Descriptive statistics

Perfectionism, Excellencism and Emotional Divergent Thinking

Explanatory Mechanisms

Trait-Consistent Hypothesis

General discussion

Concerns Over Mistakes and Doubts About Actions

Emotions During DT

Openness to Experience and Empathy

Limits and Conclusion

Declarations

Author Contribution

Data Availability

References

Footnotes

Tables