Abstract
Personal standards perfectionism is a defining feature of perfectionism. There is concern, though, that the feature is not adequately assessed by most perfectionism questionnaires. This study evaluated this concern through cognitive interviewing: a think-aloud protocol that explores the extent to which individuals understand, and can appropriately respond to, questionnaire items as intended by the developer. Nine female intercollegiate varsity athletes (M age: 22.44 years) took part in semi-structured cognitive interviews. Participants were presented with items from the Personal Standards (PS) subscale of the Sport Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale and the Self-Oriented Perfectionism (SOP) subscale of the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale and were asked to vocalize their thoughts as they developed answers to those items. Interview data was coded into categories labeled comprehension, retrieval, judgment, and response. Comprehension focused on participants’ understandings of performance descriptors used in the items (e.g., “high standards” vs. “perfect”). Participants described how the descriptors had distinct meanings that varied in leniency, clarity, and relevancy. Retrieval reflected that when pondering the items participants considered objective performance indicators, exerted effort, and current and past experiences. Judgment indicated that participants’ ability to use this information to formulate answers depended on the performance descriptor at hand, the stage of development they considered, and their experience through the interview. Response reflected that participants had few issues mapping their answers onto response categories and that choices again depended on the performance descriptor at hand. Discussion explores the strengths and weaknesses of PS and SOP, potential pathways for item revision, and directions for future research.
