TY - JOUR
T1 - To err is (perfectly) human
T2 - Behavioural and neural correlates of error processing and perfectionism
AU - Barke, Antonia
AU - Bode, Stefan
AU - Dechent, Peter
AU - Schmidt-Samoa, Carsten
AU - Heer, Christina Van
AU - Stahl, Jutta
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author (2017).
PY - 2017/10/1
Y1 - 2017/10/1
N2 - The attitude towards one's own imperfection strongly varies between individuals. Here, we investigated variations in errorrelated activity depending on two sub-traits of perfectionism, Personal Standard Perfectionism (PSP) and Evaluative Concern Perfectionism (ECP) in a large scale functional magnetic resonance imaging study (N=75) using a digit-flanker task. Participants with higher PSP scores showed both more post-error slowing and more neural activity in the medial-frontal gyrus including anterior cingulate cortex after errors. Interestingly, high-EC perfectionists with low PSP showed no post-error slowing and the highest activity in the middle frontal gyrus, whereas high-EC perfectionists with high PSP showed the lowest activity in this brain area and more post-error slowing. Our findings are in line with the hypothesis that perfectionists with high concerns but low standards avoid performance monitoring to avoid the worry-inducing nature of detecting personal failure and the anticipation of poor evaluation by others. However, the stronger goal-oriented performance motivation of perfectionists with high concerns and high standards may have led to less avoidance of error processing and a more intense involvement with the imperfect behaviour, which is essential for improving future performance.
AB - The attitude towards one's own imperfection strongly varies between individuals. Here, we investigated variations in errorrelated activity depending on two sub-traits of perfectionism, Personal Standard Perfectionism (PSP) and Evaluative Concern Perfectionism (ECP) in a large scale functional magnetic resonance imaging study (N=75) using a digit-flanker task. Participants with higher PSP scores showed both more post-error slowing and more neural activity in the medial-frontal gyrus including anterior cingulate cortex after errors. Interestingly, high-EC perfectionists with low PSP showed no post-error slowing and the highest activity in the middle frontal gyrus, whereas high-EC perfectionists with high PSP showed the lowest activity in this brain area and more post-error slowing. Our findings are in line with the hypothesis that perfectionists with high concerns but low standards avoid performance monitoring to avoid the worry-inducing nature of detecting personal failure and the anticipation of poor evaluation by others. However, the stronger goal-oriented performance motivation of perfectionists with high concerns and high standards may have led to less avoidance of error processing and a more intense involvement with the imperfect behaviour, which is essential for improving future performance.
KW - Behavioural adaptation
KW - Evaluative concern perfectionism
KW - Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
KW - Performance monitoring
KW - Personal standard perfectionism
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U2 - 10.1093/scan/nsx082
DO - 10.1093/scan/nsx082
M3 - Article
C2 - 28655179
AN - SCOPUS:85038234454
SN - 1749-5016
VL - 12
SP - 1647
EP - 1657
JO - Social cognitive and affective neuroscience
JF - Social cognitive and affective neuroscience
IS - 10
ER -