Socially prescribed perfectionism involves feeling that significant others demand perfection, leading individuals to internalize those demands into habits and self-expectations. People-pleasing manifests as subordinating personal wishes and needs to the pursuit of approval. Perfectionists vacillate between self-imposed standards and socially prescribed demands, with status-seeking driving desires to belong to elite groups. Black-and-white thinking leads to categorizing people as winners or losers, prioritizing achievements that signal worth. Competitive family environments foster a false self oriented toward family reputation and legacy. The false self equates personal value with contributions to group status, motivating relentless efforts to be the best.
Socially prescribed perfectionism and people-pleasing are closely related, both based on the intense fear of rejection and exclusion. Socially prescribed perfectionism is the sense that significant others demand perfection from you in significant areas. This individual then internalizes these demands in the sense that they become a significant part of one's habits and associated expectations of oneself. People-pleasing, on the other hand, is the tendency to put one's initial wishes and needs to the side as they're chronically superseded by the clamoring urge for approval.
Since perfectionists struggle with self-acceptance, they tend to vacillate between self-imposed perfectionism, the strong belief that their standards for themselves are justified, and its counterpart, the socially prescribed version. And much of this relates to status seeking, not merely wanting to fit in but wanting to fit in with some elite group. Due to black and white thinking, perfectionists often divide people up into winners and losers, wishing to become the former, of course.
Competitive families often contribute to the development of what psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott called the "false self," often created in large part to serve the general image of a particular tribe. The fundamental message is: You are your contributions to our reputation and legacy. To the perfectionist, becoming the best in any relevant domain is closely associated with the belief that being the best is the catalyst for the ultimate form
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