Relationships Quality and Personality Types

The article I read, detailed the research into relationships and the personality types of the people in those relationships. The study paid particular attention to perfectionist personalities that were either “adaptive” or “maladaptive”, the former meaning non-productive and or inadequate for adaptation. “Maladaptive perfectionists characteristically tend to evaluate their performance as consistently failing to meet these standards [for personal performance](Ashby, Kutchins, and Rice 2008)”. The researchers continued off of past studies into the relationship between personality type and relationship quality. The main question trying to be answered by the researchers was if perfectionist standards, adaptive or maladaptive, had any effect on relationships.

Previous studies into perfectionist personalities detailed negative impact in the lives of maladaptive perfectionists. Distinguishing maladaptive from adaptive perfectionism, maladaptive perfectionists differ “by their excessive concerns about making mistakes and living up to the expectations of others, self-doubt(Rice and Ashby 2007)” and have issues with “self-esteem, locus of control, depression, anxiety, life satisfaction, and general psychological distress(Mobley, Slaney and Rice 2005)(Grzegorek, Slaney, Franze, and Rice 2004)”. Maladaptivity relates to the inability to be okay with failure of living up to their standards. In a separate survey on college level perfectionists, more than half of those asked about the effects of their perfectionism, said that relationships were most affected. A related researcher noted that the reason perfectionists have troubled relationships is due to their tendency to react harshly to criticism, “tendency to withdraw, so their potential i...

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...ucted the study because it is good that there are ways to not only test for perfectionism, but also relationship quality. I hope the results will be used to help couples in the future looking to better their relationships. I believe the researchers did a great job with the method of collecting data, as there are not many other ways they could have gathered it. The study related to the internal/external validity that we covered in class. The researchers wanted to “bridge the gap” between the college level couples that had been studied in the past and older couples that were more serious about their relationships as they could have different results. Overall the study was interesting to read and I enjoyed it.

Works Cited

Jeffrey S. Ashby, Carolyn B. Kutchins, Kenneth G. Rice (2008). Journal of Counseling Psychology. Anne Arundel Community College Database.