Striving for Perfection or Excellence? Implications for Academic Self-Talk and Goal Progress

Perfectionism is categorized by self-criticism and unrealistic standards, which harm academic achievement, while excellencism is characterized by ambitious and healthy goals, striving, and is related to higher academic achievement. This difference may occur due to how these dispositions influence self-talk styles. Positive self-talk is associated with a higher GPA compared to negative self-talk, which may explain links between excellencism/perfectionism and academic goal progress, but this hypothesis has not been explicitly tested. This study investigated how perfectionism and excellencism influenced students’ self-talk and its impact on goal progress. Carleton students (N = 196) completed measures of excellencism/perfectionism and reported on their daily goal-directed self-talk and academic goal progress for one week. We predict that higher excellencism will be associated with greater positive self-talk (H1a), which will predict greater goal progress (H2a). Similarly, we also predict that perfectionism will be associated with greater negative self-talk (H1b), which will in turn predict less goal progress (H2b). Results will help clarify mechanisms by which dispositions regarding excellencism and perfectionism impact academic goals.