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Perfectionism and Health Behaviors: A Self- Regulation Resource Perspective

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Perfectionism, Health, and Well-Being

Abstract

The role of perfectionism in the practice of health-promoting behaviors is an understudied area of perfectionism and health research that has yielded limited and equivocal findings. Drawing from self-regulation theory and current research on perfectionism and self-regulation, this chapter presents a self-regulation resource model (SRRM) as a new conceptual framework for understanding how and why perfectionism dimensions may be differentially linked to the practice of health-promoting behaviors. After highlighting the importance of health behaviors for health outcomes, and the value of taking a self-regulation perspective for understanding why people succeed or fail at engaging in health behaviors, I outline how the SRRM is potentially useful for organizing and bringing a conceptual clarity to the issue of perfectionism and health behaviors. Preliminary evidence is presented to support the proposed roles of emotions as potential self-regulation resources or liabilities that distinguish perfectionism dimensions, and illustrate how their dynamic and reciprocal relations with temporal orientations may further promote or prevent engaging in positive health behaviors. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the SRRM may be applied to better understand the role of perfectionism in health behaviors across different settings and populations to guide future research in this area.

Preparation of this paper was supported by a Canada Research Chair in Health and Well-Being awarded to Fuschia M. Sirois.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, 309 Western Bank, S10 2TP, Sheffield, UK

    Fuschia M. Sirois PhD, BSc.

  2. Centre for Research on Aging, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada

    Fuschia M. Sirois PhD, BSc.

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Correspondence to Fuschia M. Sirois PhD, BSc. .

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Fuschia M. Sirois

  2. University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Research Institute on Addictions, Buffalo, New York, USA

    Danielle S. Molnar

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Sirois, F. (2016). Perfectionism and Health Behaviors: A Self- Regulation Resource Perspective. In: Sirois, F., Molnar, D. (eds) Perfectionism, Health, and Well-Being. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18582-8_3

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