when challenging life circumstances are encountered. This would be in keeping with our fundamental belief that
perfectionism is a diathesis that is activated in stressful contexts (see Hewitt & Flett, 2002 ).
MEASURES REVIEWED HERE
The measures reviewed in this chapter differ substantially in the themes that are captured and in associated
item content. Each of these inventories is described in terms of their conceptualization, development, psychomet-
ric properties, and location. The following measures are reviewed:
1.Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale ( Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990 )
2.Hewitt and Flett Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale ( Hewitt & Flett, 1991; 2004 )
3.Almost Perfect Scale /C0Revised ( Slaney, Rice, Mobley, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001 )
4.Perfectionism Cognitions Inventory ( Hewitt, Flett, & Sherry, 2003 )
5.Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Scale (Flett et al., 1998)
OVER VIEW OF THE MEASURES
No measure of perfectionism is psychometrically perfect (though this claim applies broadly to all social-
personality measures). Each measure has positive features and some issues that must be addressed. We begin
with the two perfectionism inventories that share the same name /C0the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale.
Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS)
(Frost et al., 1990 ).
Variable
Perfectionism was defined by Frost et al. (1990) as ‘high standards of performance which are accompanied by
tendencies for overly critical evaluations of one’s behavior’ (p. 450) including overconcern with mistakes to the
extent that performance is either perfect or worthless and minor flaws represent failure. The evaluative tenden-
cies of perfectionists also include a sense of doubt about the quality of one’s performance. Self-evaluations are
also linked inextricably with excessively high standards that cannot be attained, and not having met parental
expectations results in loss of parental love and acceptance. Finally, perfectionism includes an overemphasis on
precision, order, and organization.
Description
Initially, an item pool was compiled with 67 items. All items were responded to on a 5-point Likert-type scale
ranging from ‘1’ (strongly disagree) to ‘5’ (strongly agree). Items were reduced to 47 based on reliability analyses.
Item intercorrelations of the remaining 47 items were subjected to a principal axis factor analysis which yielded
six factors. The first factor was labeled: Concern over mistakes (COM) followed by an Organization factor.
Across a number of factor analyses, four other hypothesized factors also emerged (i.e., Parental criticism,
Parental expectations, Personal standards, and Doubts about actions). Frost et al. (1990) noted that COM was the
central perfectionism factor in each analysis. The final version of the Frost MPS (FMPS) has 35-items and com-
prises six dimensions as well as providing a total score (see Frost et al., 1990 ). No items are worded in the nega-
tive direction. The Organization factor was dropped because it did not often correlate significantly with the other
five subscales. However, Lundh, Saboonchi, and Wangby (2008) identified a subgroup of participants with a dis-
tinct profile characterized by high scores across all six original FMPS subscales, including the Organization factor.
Subsequently, the 7-item personal standards subscale was reduced by two items so that it assesses ‘pure personal
standards’ (see DiBartolo, Frost, Chang, LaSota, & Grills, 2004 ).
Sample
The first samples ( Frost et al., 1990 ) comprised 232 and 178 female undergraduates, respectively, enlisted pri-
marily to evaluate the FMPS factor structure. Mean scores were reported by Juster et al. (1996) for 61 patients
with social phobia and 39 community volunteers. Higher scores for the clinical group were found on three596 21. MEASURES OF PERFECTIONISM
V. VICES AND VIRTUES