Perfectionism In Tiger Woods

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Tiger Woods is often times called a perfectionist in his respective sport of golf. An individual striving for flawlessness or setting excessively high or unreasonable performance standards can characterize perfectionism. Frequently, you can see him during competition being critical of a shot he might take or setting lofty goals and often times his emotions can be his downfall. His stubbornness to play through injury and pain to attain his goals of winning at all costs has ultimately put him out of the spotlight the past few years throughout the international golf scene. In retrospect, his attitudes and actions display that of a highly perfectionist athlete and could’ve likely caused is career implosion. To further understand whether or not …show more content…

Many of said articles focus on maladaptive or negative perfectionism and their resulting psychological, emotional, and performance outcomes. In one study, sport and exercise psychology researchers aimed to evaluate self-esteem and perfectionism in elite level athletes, correlating these traits with observed completive anxiety levels as well as self-confidence. The most important results from the study concluded that maladaptive perfectionists’ “self-presentation seems to be the biggest downfall of these exercisers because it makes the susceptible to mental and physical health damage to achieve a ‘perfect body’” (Flett & Hewitt, 2005). As the results indicate, this ideal perfect image that maladaptive perfectionists may strive for may ultimately be their undoing, both physically and mentally. One particular interesting topic that the researchers brought up was the connection that maladaptive perfectionists have on eating or body dysmorphic disorders, which indicates that while striving for their perfect bodies, they can develop serious physical and mental disorders that could drastically affect their daily