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Perfectionism, Health, and Well-Being pp 265–283Cite as

Perfectionism in Employees: Work Engagement, Workaholism, and Burnout

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Abstract

Perfectionism is a prevalent personality disposition that may affect all domains of life. Work is an important domain of life for many people. Yet, research on perfectionism at work and how perfectionism affects employees’ health and well-being is still limited. Research, however, has investigated perfectionism’s relationships with three key aspects of peoples’ working lives that are closely associated with employees’ health and well-being: work engagement, workaholism, and job burnout. Differentiating between perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns (Stoeber & Otto, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 295–319, 2006), the present chapter presents an overview of the relevant research findings. Taken together, the findings suggest that (a) perfectionistic strivings show positive relationships with work engagement, whereas perfectionistic concerns show no relationships or negative relationships, (b) perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns both show positive relationships with workaholism, and (c) perfectionistic strivings show negative relationships with burnout, whereas perfectionistic concerns show positive relationships. To explain the opposite relationships that perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns show with burnout, two hypothetical models are presented. In Model 1, autonomous versus controlled motivation explains the opposite relationships between perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns with burnout. In Model 2, adaptive versus maladaptive coping explains the relationships. The chapter concludes with directions for future research on perfectionism, work engagement, workaholism, and job burnout, pointing out the importance of longitudinal studies and intervention studies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Following Cohen (1992), correlations with absolute values of 0.10, 0.30, and 0.50 are considered small-, medium-, and large-sized.

  2. 2.

    For an in-depth discussion of these suppression effects and how to interpret them, the interested reader is referred to Stoeber, Kobori, and Brown (in press).

  3. 3.

    The cutoff date of Clark et al.’s literature search was July 2013, so their meta-analysis did not include Stoeber, Davis, and Townley (2013), Tziner and Tanami (2013), and Mazzetti, Schaufeli, and Guglielmi (2014). Moreover, it missed Taris, van Beek, and Schaufeli (2010).

  4. 4.

    Regression weights are similar to partial correlations, with positive regression weights indicating a positive relationship and negative regression weights a negative relationship (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003).

  5. 5.

    A mediation analysis is a statistical procedure probing whether the relationship between two variables X and Y can be explained by a third variable called mediator (X → mediator → Y; see Baron & Kenny, 1986).

  6. 6.

    For an explanation of moderators and how they differ from mediators, see again Baron and Kenny (1986).

  7. 7.

    With Compas (1987), we understand coping styles to represent individuals’ preferred ways of coping in response to stress either across different situations or over time within a given situation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Kent, CT2 7NP, Canterbury, Kent, UK

    Joachim Stoeber

  2. Department of Psychology, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Lavinia E. Damian

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  1. Joachim Stoeber
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Correspondence to Joachim Stoeber .

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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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Stoeber, J., Damian, L. (2016). Perfectionism in Employees: Work Engagement, Workaholism, and Burnout. In: Sirois, F., Molnar, D. (eds) Perfectionism, Health, and Well-Being. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18582-8_12

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