Perfectionism: Its Measurement and Career Relevance

The meaning and measurement of the construct of perfectionism has potentially important implications for career choice and career development. The present article reviews the theoretical and empirical background of perfectionism. It then discusses the scales previously developed to measure perfectionism and describes the development of a new scale, the Almost Perfect Scale (APS; Slaney & Johnson, 1992). Two additional studies are presented on the APS. The first consists of three parts that examine the concurrent validity of the APS and the factor structure of the subscales of the APS relative to the subscales of two other scales developed to measure perfectionism. The second study examines the factor structure of the APS through the use of a confirmatory factor analysis. The results are discussed and suggestions are made for future research that would study the relationship between perfectionism and a variety of career variables.