Imagine you are a native student in China. You have long hours of school and shorter holidays, also you might be in a school in which there is education also on Saturdays. You should also attend cram schools which the education system doesn’t require but is a must if you don’t want to fall behind your fellow schoolmates. You spend your entire day going to school and doing your homework. Your elders expect much from you, in fact, what is expected from you to be perfect, otherwise, how would you be successful in this education system?
Whether it is their parents, educational system, or society, Chinese students’ environment is pushing them to have achievement obsession which leads them to a common psychological problem and that is perfectionism. They aim to be perfect in order to meet others’ expectations and to compete with others. There is nothing wrong with aiming to be good and wanting to be a successful student. But in case of any failures, perfectionist people tend to have stress and depression which is a high probability if you are a student in China. Although some people believe that perfectionism is a good treat to have, I suggest that perfectionism is dominantly affecting Chinese students in a bad way.
Although there was research on perfectionism in the past too, these studies were not comprehensive enough. Perfectionism has gained more attention lately and is an attractive research area since it affects many people. Authors state that perfectionism has traditionally been operationalized as a single-dimensional construct containing only positive or only negative effects. More recent theories, however, define perfectionism as a multidimensional personality construct that contains both negative and positive components. (Parkinson and Abela). “Perfectionism is a dispositional tendency to strive for flawlessness, set excessively high standards, and experience disappointment with anything falling short of perfection.” (Smith and Sherry). When perfectionist people are not able to meet their expectations of themselves, they immediately get mentally affected by the situation and tend to have depressive feelings.
Perfectionist peoples’ behaviors and mindsets differ from each other too. Researchers argued their approaches to this situation and agreed that there are roughly two types of perfectionism which are adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. While both types are marked by the pursuit of high personal standards, maladaptive perfectionism includes intense self-depreciation when personal standards are not reached (Ashby and Gnilka). Maladaptive perfectionists indeed are affected worse than adaptive perfectionists because they are more likely to have depressive feelings. Although adaptive perfectionists are known for their standards and their perfectionism is thought to be helpful to them, in China’s education system and social environment, that is not the case for Chinese students at all.
Chinese students have an education system that loads their many responsibilities and requires long hours of study including homework and weekend classes. Their education environment is too competitive because there are many competitors and a challenging education system. In such an environment, perfectionism has a very high possibility to cause stress and depression. Numerous authors have highlighted the role of perfectionism in stress and suggested that individuals with higher-level or perfectionism have a higher level of stress and are vulnerable to emotional distress (Ashby and Gnilka). Although Chinese parents are aware that by making their children go to after-school agencies, they are putting too much stress on their children they also know that their children’s classmates, or competitors they should say, are doing the same and if they don’t do that, their children will fall behind the rest of the class. In such a hard and competitive education system and such a social environment which expects much from them, it shouldn’t be surprising to see a big number of Chinese students struggling with it. Imagine a perfectionist Chinese student who is trying to be successful and meet the expectations of others, what would he/she do when he fails to do it? It is a fact that Chinese students have achievement obsession which is very normal in the environment they study, and along with that and their social background, their perfectionism will lead them to more stress, depression, and worry to death.
Maladaptive perfectionism causes students to have low self-esteem.” Maladaptive perfectionists are described as displaying evaluative concerns such as worrying about making mistakes, having self-doubt, internalizing others’ high expectations for oneself, and experiencing guilt and shame.” They also have high-performance expectations with extreme self-blame when failing to meet the standard.” (Burnam and Nadler)
Perfectionism is a serious psychological problem that could even lead to suicide. China’s intense, exam-driven education system affects perfectionist people even in a harder way since they tend to have stress and depression more common.” Suicide is the leading cause of death among 15–34-year-olds in China, accounting for 19% of the deaths in this age group” (Zhang and Jung). Researches clearly indicate that perfectionism is related to suicidal behavior.
“Perfectionism, in particular, has been identified as a risk and maintaining factor for a variety of psychopathologies, including depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and suicidal behavior” (Chen and Flett).
Although many pieces of research indicate that perfectionism, in general, affects students in a bad way, there are some studies that claim the opposite. To support their claim they mention that Over 50% of college students procrastinate and delay or fail to complete their academic tasks (Burnam and Nadler). They describe adaptive perfectionists as striving towards achievement and experiencing pride in accomplishments. or having very high-performance expectations with low levels of negative self-evaluation (Burnam and Nadler). These studies state that adaptive perfectionists help students have the self-determined motivation and claim that they are less likely to procrastinate and tend to have higher GPAs. However, is it true or should we take a look at the other side of the coin?