Published August 17, 2026. Last updated August 17, 2026.
How common is perfectionism? Psychology measures it as a continuous trait on questionnaires, scored the way height or blood pressure is scored, so the research produces averages and distributions. The evidence base is a cohort record of college students running from 1989 to 2024, plus studies sorting specific samples into perfectionist categories under a stated cutoff. The round numbers circulating as perfectionism prevalence lead back to statistics aggregator pages. This page carries every number with its collection year and population.
Key statistics
- Across 307 samples of American, Canadian and British college students surveyed between 1989 and 2024, socially prescribed perfectionism, the belief that other people demand perfection of you, rose overall; the paper’s specific effect size for that rise is not retrievable from its full text (Curran, Hill, & Pose, 2026).
- Across 164 samples and 41,641 American, Canadian and British college students surveyed between 1989 and 2016, predicted socially prescribed perfectionism climbed from 3.35 for 1989 to 3.71 for 2017 on the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale’s 1-to-7 item average, a gain of 0.40 standard deviations (Curran & Hill, 2019).
- That same 1989 to 2016 analysis puts the average 1989 college student at the 50th percentile of the socially prescribed perfectionism distribution and the average 2017 student at the 66th, reported as a 32% increase (Curran & Hill, 2019).
- Among 3,112 students answering a randomly invited survey at a midwestern United States university, 20.1 percent classified as adaptive perfectionists, 35.7 percent as maladaptive and 44.3 percent as nonperfectionists; the paper gives no fielding year, its newest cited sources date to 2020 and it appeared online in 2022, placing collection no later than 2021 (Kawamoto et al., 2023).
- Among 10,217 Norwegian adolescents aged 16 to 19 surveyed in spring 2012, 10.2 percent of girls and 8.5 percent of boys scored above the study’s high-perfectionism threshold, a line its authors set at the 90th percentile of their own sample after a scoring adjustment made the original cutoff values unusable there (Sand et al., 2021).
- No nationally representative adult survey located for this page reports a perfectionism prevalence rate, in any country or year.
Cite this page
APA: Eduard, S. (2026, August 17). How common is perfectionism? What the research actually measures. StumbleTowardTheLight. https://stumbletowardthelight.com/how-common-is-perfectionism/
MLA: Eduard, Sebastian. “How Common Is Perfectionism? What the Research Actually Measures.” StumbleTowardTheLight, 17 Aug. 2026, stumbletowardthelight.com/how-common-is-perfectionism/.
The source table
| # | Statistic | Data collected | Source type | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Socially prescribed perfectionism rose overall among college students; effect sizes not retrievable from the full text; 307 samples, 82,939 US, Canadian and British college students | 1989 to 2024 | primary study | Curran, Hill, & Pose, 2026, Psychological Bulletin |
| 2 | Concerns over mistakes tracked as an additional dimension across 111 samples; effect sizes not retrievable from the full text | 1989 to 2024 | primary study | Curran, Hill, & Pose, 2026, Psychological Bulletin |
| 3 | Predicted socially prescribed score 3.35 for 1989 and 3.71 for 2017 on a 1-to-7 item average, a 0.40 SD gain moving the average student from the 50th to the 66th percentile, reported as a 32% increase; 164 samples, 41,641 college students | 1989 to 2016 | primary study | Curran & Hill, 2019, Psychological Bulletin |
| 4 | Of 3,112 university students, 624 adaptive perfectionists (20.1%), 1,110 maladaptive (35.7%), 1,378 nonperfectionists (44.3%), on the Rice and Ashby (2007) Almost Perfect Scale-Revised cutoffs | Unstated in the paper; newest cited sources 2020, published online 2022, so no later than 2021 | primary study | Kawamoto et al., 2023, The Counseling Psychologist |
| 5 | 55.7% of that sample carried a perfectionist classification | Same as row 4 | derived (624 plus 1,110 = 1,734 of 3,112 = 55.7%) | Kawamoto et al., 2023, The Counseling Psychologist |
| 6 | 10.2% of girls and 8.5% of boys above a 90th-percentile perfectionism threshold; 10,217 adolescents aged 16 to 19, Hordaland, Norway | Spring 2012 | primary study | Sand et al., 2021, Frontiers in Public Health |
| 7 | Announcement of the 1989 to 2016 analysis states a 33 percent rise in socially prescribed perfectionism; the paper’s Results section states 32% | Announcement January 2, 2018; underlying data 1989 to 2016 | derived (circulation-chain investigation) | American Psychological Association news release, reproduced in full |
| 8 | Live aggregator report carrying prevalence-shaped perfectionism percentages with no per-statistic source link | No collection year given for any figure; stamped “Last verified Jun 20, 2026” | derived (circulation-chain investigation) | gitnux.org perfectionism statistics |
| 9 | No representative adult prevalence figure for perfectionism located | 2026 (this page’s verification pass) | derived (absence disclosed after checking rows 1, 3, 4 and 6) | see rows 1, 3, 4 and 6 |
How common is perfectionism?
Perfectionism is scored on continuous questionnaires, which give an average and a spread for the group answering them. The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale of Hewitt and Flett (1991) asks people to rate agreement with statements across three directions of perfectionistic belief, and the resulting score lands somewhere on a range. A prevalence rate requires a threshold, and perfectionism has none that any diagnostic manual sets. The Norwegian adolescent study says so openly: its authors dichotomised at the 90th percentile of their own sample, stating that the original cutoff values were unusable there (Sand et al., 2021).
What percentage of people are perfectionists?
The best available figure describes university students. Kawamoto and colleagues invited 19,916 randomly selected students at a midwestern United States university to an anonymous survey; roughly 18 percent answered, giving 3,112 respondents, mean age 21.84. Sorted by the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised cutoffs from Rice and Ashby (2007), 624 landed in the adaptive perfectionist group, 1,110 in the maladaptive group and 1,378 in the nonperfectionist group (Kawamoto et al., 2023). That is 55.7 percent of the sample carrying a perfectionist classification, with three caveats in the same breath: an 18 percent response rate, one campus, and a split that depends on where the scale’s High Standards and Discrepancy cutoffs sit. Adaptive perfectionists there reported significantly greater self-compassion than maladaptive perfectionists, a reason to read what mindful self-compassion involves.
Perfectionism statistics: which dimension is rising, and by how much
Two cross-temporal meta-analyses carry the field’s cohort evidence, both on college students in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom: 164 samples and 41,641 students surveyed between 1989 and 2016 (Curran & Hill, 2019), then 307 samples and 82,939 students surveyed between 1989 and 2024, mean age 20.64, 71 percent female (Curran, Hill, & Pose, 2026).
Socially prescribed perfectionism rose across the full 1989-to-2024 window, the same climb the 2019 analysis first documented for the shorter 1989-to-2016 window. The 2026 paper’s full text sits behind a paywall, and the open-access repository copy timed out on repeated attempts, so the specific effect sizes for the rise are not retrievable from the primary tables at the time of writing. What the paper’s abstract and the press coverage announcing it do confirm: socially prescribed perfectionism kept climbing, the correlation between perfectionism and psychopathology stayed stable across the 35 years measured, and the analysis names rising GDP and income inequality as factors associated with the trend. The study also tracked concerns over mistakes, doubts about actions, personal standards and self-oriented perfectionism as additional dimensions; their comparative effect sizes sit in the same non-retrievable tables, so this page states that they were tracked without ranking them. The territory of being judged and getting things wrong is the inner critic.
Where the round-number perfectionism statistics come from
A family of round numbers circulates as perfectionism prevalence: 55%, 33% and 65%. The address they are most often credited to is zipdo.co’s perfectionism statistics report. Opened directly on September 4, 2026, that address still returns a not-found response while search listings still carry its title, and the Internet Archive holds no snapshot, leaving the sentences behind those percentages unreadable.
A second aggregator, gitnux.org, publishes a live perfectionism report stamped “Last verified Jun 20, 2026”, carrying prevalence-shaped lines such as “92% of adults in a corporate study reported that perfectionism impacted their daily decision-making speed”. No statistic on it links to a named study, and no figure carries a collection year.
A 33 percent figure exists in the perfectionism literature, measuring change over time in college students. The American Psychological Association’s news release of January 2, 2018 announcing the birth-cohort meta-analysis states that “socially prescribed increased by 33 percent” between 1989 and 2016 (reproduced in full here). The paper’s Results section states 32%, and defines what the percentage counts: the average college student in 1989 sat at the 50th percentile of the socially prescribed perfectionism distribution, the average student in 2017 sat at the 66th, and 66 minus 50, divided by 50, gives 32 percent (Curran & Hill, 2019). The underlying score moved 3.35 to 3.71 on a 1-to-7 item average. The 2026 update defines the same measure in a table note, as the increase in percentile rank against a 50th-percentile baseline.
Two other members of the round-number family sit in that same passage as percentile statements about college students: 55% of students in 2017 scored above the 1989 mean for self-oriented perfectionism, and nearly two thirds scored above the 1989 mean for socially prescribed perfectionism. Readers who recognise the pull of that rising standard in their own head will find the mechanism in why some people are so hard on themselves.
Methodology
Statistics here were selected by starting from the two cross-temporal meta-analyses carrying the field’s cohort evidence, then adding classification studies reporting category proportions under a stated cutoff. Every figure was read in the source document itself: both Psychological Bulletin papers in full, the Kawamoto method and results sections, the Sand measurement section. The round-number percentages were traced to the pages publishing them, both opened and checked on the date below. Where a paper omits its fielding year, the source table says so and gives the closest dated evidence. Where no representative figure exists, the page says that plainly. Sources last verified September 4, 2026.
Cite this page
APA: Eduard, S. (2026, August 17). How common is perfectionism? What the research actually measures. StumbleTowardTheLight. https://stumbletowardthelight.com/how-common-is-perfectionism/
MLA: Eduard, Sebastian. “How Common Is Perfectionism? What the Research Actually Measures.” StumbleTowardTheLight, 17 Aug. 2026, stumbletowardthelight.com/how-common-is-perfectionism/.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a percentage of the population that has perfectionism? No representative survey reports one. The percentages that exist describe specific samples under a stated cutoff, such as the 55.7 percent of 3,112 university students who fell into a perfectionist category on the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (Kawamoto et al., 2023).
Is perfectionism getting more common? Among American, Canadian and British college students surveyed between 1989 and 2024, socially prescribed perfectionism rose overall, along with the other dimensions the study tracked; the specific effect sizes are not retrievable from the paper’s full text (Curran, Hill, & Pose, 2026).
Did perfectionism really rise 33% since 1989? The announcement of the 1989 to 2016 meta-analysis states 33 percent; the paper states 32%, defined as a shift in percentile rank from the 50th to the 66th among college students (Curran & Hill, 2019).
How common is perfectionism in teenagers? Among 10,217 Norwegian adolescents aged 16 to 19 surveyed in spring 2012, 10.2 percent of girls and 8.5 percent of boys scored above a threshold the researchers placed at the 90th percentile of their own sample (Sand et al., 2021).
What do the three perfectionism dimensions measure? Demands a person makes of themselves, the belief that others demand perfection of you, and demands placed on people around them (Hewitt & Flett, 1991), the middle one being the territory of overcoming self-criticism.
References
Curran, T., & Hill, A. P. (2019). Perfectionism is increasing over time: A meta-analysis of birth cohort differences from 1989 to 2016. Psychological Bulletin, 145(4), 410-429.
Curran, T., Hill, A. P., & Pose, P. M. (2026). Perfectionism is accelerating over time: A cross-temporal meta-analytic review of 35 years of college student data. Psychological Bulletin, 152(3), 255-287.
Hewitt, P. L., & Flett, G. L. (1991). Perfectionism in the self and social contexts: Conceptualization, assessment, and association with psychopathology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(3), 456-470.
Kawamoto, A., Sheth, R., Yang, M., Demps, L., & Sevig, T. (2023). The role of self-compassion among adaptive and maladaptive perfectionists in university students. The Counseling Psychologist, 51(1), 113-144.
Rice, K. G., & Ashby, J. S. (2007). An efficient method for classifying perfectionists. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 54(1), 72-85.
Sand, L., Boe, T., Shafran, R., Stormark, K. M., & Hysing, M. (2021). Perfectionism in adolescence: Associations with gender, age, and socioeconomic status in a Norwegian sample. Frontiers in Public Health, 9, 688811.