Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
While some types of perfectionists are hardest on themselves, others tend to be antisocial and narcissistic in nature, expecting other people to be flawless and being highly critical of those who are not, a researcher from the UK’s University of Kent claims in a new study.
Writing in the Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, Kent psychology professor Joachim Stoeber explained that there are three categories of perfectionists: the self-oriented perfectionists (SOP), who have high personal standards; the socially prescribed perfectionists ones (SPP) who feel that being perfect is important to others; and the other-oriented perfectionists (OOP).
This third category, Stoeber reported in prior research, possesses what is called the “Dark Triad” of personality characteristics (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) as well as issues with intimacy, nurturing, and social development. He analyzed the differences between the three types of perfectionist further in his latest paper, according to a statement.
Perfectionists differ when it comes to humor, empathy
In their new study, Stoeber looked at differences in the social behavior in the three types of perfectionists, including their humor styles. He interviewed 229 university students, and found that only self-orientated perfectionists had a pro-social element, meaning those individuals were interested in others and cared about social norms.
Although they did tend to focus on themselves, these perfectionists were shown to have an interest in other people, preferring humor that enhanced relationships and avoiding aggressive forms of humor. Socially prescribed perfectionists, on the other hand, tended to crack jokes that were self-deprecating, had low self-esteem, and often said they felt inferior to others.
The third group, the other-oriented perfectionists, tended to have an aggressive sense of humor, making jokes at the expense of others. The author said that this is just one of many traits they possess that can be categorized as uncaring, and that they show no regard for the feelings of others or for social norms. They also tend to have a sense of superiority and are quite antisocial.
While his previous work demonstrated that other-oriented perfectionists had “unique positive relationships with the Dark Triad personality traits” and “unique negative relationships with nurturance, intimacy, and social development goals,” Stoeber wrote that the findings of the new study “provide further evidence that OOP is a ‘dark’ form of perfectionism positively associated with narcissistic, antisocial, and uncaring personality characteristics.”
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