Students' perfectionism scores rose steadily from 1989 to 2016

The authors pooled 164 samples with 41,641 college students. The students were in the United States, Canada and Britain.

Each student filled in the same perfectionism questionnaire, at some point between 1989 and 2016.

It measured three kinds. One is demanding perfection of yourself. One is feeling that others demand it of you. One is demanding it of others.

All three rose in a steady line across the years. The trends held after allowing for gender and for country.

The biggest rise was in feeling that others demand more of you. Next came demanding more of others, then of yourself.

This is a large pooled study with over forty thousand students. It is a good test of change across the years.

It compares groups of students from different years. It did not follow the same people as they aged.

All the students were in college, in three countries. The results may not hold for other groups.

The Perfectionism Trap is the pattern of not finishing what is not perfect. The standard it holds you to can feel like it comes from outside.

This paper found that sense of outside demand rose most. That makes it worth asking whose standard is running.

Catch is the first move. Catch means you feel the body signal and name the pattern before it becomes the behavior.

The body signal is what you feel in your body as the pattern starts. It might be a tight jaw as you reread your work.

When you feel it, ask one question. Whose standard is this, and did they set it, or did you?

This paper did not test The Archivist Method. It measured scores on a questionnaire, not what anyone did.

The authors asked whether the rise lined up with changes in culture. A rise over time does not show what caused it.