What You Lose When You're a Perfectionist

When people think about perfectionism, they usually do so in relation to psychology; they look at it as a personality trait and see it as a reflection of someone’s character. In contrast, “The Agony of Perfectionism,” an article recently posted on TheAtlantic.com, explores perfectionism through the lens of economics. But despite the different approach, the economic takeaways arrive at the same conclusions as the psychological ones.

Economists once believed in the existence of the rational consumer. In theory, when a person had to make a purchasing decision, he or she would collect all available information about that potential purchase, weigh all the options, and in the end make a reasoned, well-informed choice about what to buy.

Anyone who has tried to buy a camera on Amazon or book a hotel on TripAdvisor, however, knows this is not possible. You face a vast number of choices and a wide range of passionate opinions. At a certain point you have to cut off your research and make a decision.

So some economists have divided consumers into two groups. One comprises people who strive to make their decisions in a rational way, seeking out as much information as they can get before they make their pick. These folks, called “maximizers,” want to examine all possible choices and to feel that they have made the best choice. Maximizers, in other words, are economic perfectionists. In contrast, the other group of consumers, called “satisficers,” aren’t perfectionists; they tend to settle for something they consider “good enough.”

So who’s happier with their purchase? The people who exhaustively research their purchases to find the best possible choice? Or the ones who put much less thought before they pull the trigger and buy? The satisficers, oddly enough. Despite all their research, maximizers are more likely to be filled with regret. Because the amount of information they can collect is limitless, they are always left wondering whether they made a mistake by not looking for more information, or by paying attention to the wrong information. There is always room for them to wonder whether they could have made a better choice.

Maximizers are also more susceptible to looking at others’ Facebook and Instagram posts and feeling badly about themselves and their choices. In the past, you were limited by your imagination in thinking that others were doing all sorts of cool stuff that you weren’t doing. Now, however, you can see actual photos of what they’re up to. You can Google them, easily learn about their achievements, and fuel your dissatisfaction and feeling of not measuring up.

In summarizing the research, the author makes the sad point that the maximizers/perfectionists work harder and perform better, but are also more likely to feel depressed and regretful. Whether you look at them from the psychological or economic point of view, the article encapsulates the challenge of striving to achieve and make good choices without pushing yourself to the point of dissatisfaction with all your choices.

Surviving Anxiety: One Man's Story

This month’s Atlantic Magazine features its editor Scott Stossel’s brave discussion of his longstanding and crippling anxiety. What makes it brave? His willingness to graphically describe some of his most shame-filled moments, such as clogging the toilet (loose bowels being one unfortunate symptom of his anxiety) while at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport researching a book on Sargent Shriver.  I was feeling his pain as he described the experience and his awkward efforts to deal with it.

Where did all this anxiety come from? The author describes himself as something of a perfect storm for anxiety and depression.  There’s a family history of anxiety on both sides of his family going as far back as great-grandparents --including a set of grandparents who fled the Nazis and hid their Jewishness after they were safely in the United States. More immediately, the author’s mother had a host of her own set of fears and phobias, stemming in part from two miscarriages and other difficulties getting pregnant before he was born. In addition, he had a hard-drinking father with little empathy for his son’s emotions. It’s not difficult to see how both the genetic links and the environmental effects might produce an anxious person.  

He describes a host of treatments beginning at age 10 for medication and 11 for therapy. According to the author, nothing has worked. The article certainly gives you a sense of the great variety of treatments for anxiety and also the complexity of helping someone with such a number of symptoms and issues. His article also has you hoping that there is a less dangerous solution out there for a fear of public speaking than Stossel’s own remedy of Xanax, Inderol and scotch and vodka. One thing that struck me in his treatment descriptions was that his therapists and psychiatrists seemed to be very either/or in their approaches—either therapy or medication—so it didn’t seem that there was too much coordination between them.  It seemed he almost needed to hide one from the other.

On a bright note, this man, despite his severe anxiety, has managed to marry and become the editor of the Atlantic. It’s impressive, given the struggles he describes. He describes himself as a duck: “To some people , I may seem calm. But if you could peer beneath the surface, you would see that I’m like a duck—paddling, paddling, paddling.” How brave to let others see how hard you have to paddle.