To Help or Hurt: The Two Sides of Perfectionism

Obsessing over every word you write can make your writing better…but it can also make things worse. It all comes down to motivation.

Writing can be frustrating.

Good writing is a vague and often ambiguous concept, so perfectionism often feels like the only solution to ensure that our work is as good as it can be. In reality, though, becoming engrossed in each and every word can demotivate us from continuing to write at all. The research discussed below reveals two different sides to perfectionism in writing: positive perfectionist strivings and negative perfectionist concerns.

THE RESEARCH

In order to more fully understand the conflicting research about perfectionism and writing, researcher Li Dong hypothesized about the dual nature of these tendencies in his 2026 study “Is It Beneficial to Strive for Perfection in Writing?: Exploring the Relationship Between Perfectionism, Motivational Regulation, and Second Language (L2) Writing Performance.” To research this, he invited nearly 700 students from three different Chinese universities to participate in a questionnaire and write argumentative writing samples. 

The questionnaire evaluated the students on two axes: perfectionism and motivational regulation. 

Dong and his fellow researchers separated the idea of perfectionism into two broader categories: strivings (positive, e.g., I strive to write well), and concerns (negative, e.g., Making a mistake in writing frustrates me). Each participant answered questions rating their strivings and concerns, and the researchers analyzed their responses to determine perfectionist tendencies. 

Part of the questionnaire also addressed three motivational regulation strategies, or ways that students maintain interest in writing despite challenges. These questions were separated into three categories: interest enhancement (e.g., I try to make writing more enjoyable), self-talk (e.g., I tell myself that practice makes perfect), and emotional control (e.g., I keep trying even when I want to give up).

From Dong’s analysis of the participants’ responses, he concluded that “perfectionistic strivings were positively associated with syntactic complexity, accuracy, and lexical complexity, whereas perfectionistic concerns showed negative association with them” (Dong 2026, 8). In other words, Dong found that positive “perfectionistic strivings” predicted higher-quality writing, and negative “perfectionistic concerns” predicted lower-quality writing.

Dong also found that the three motivational regulation strategies influenced these predictions. Strivings associated positively with all three, and concerns associated negatively with all three. Further, higher interest enhancement and self-talk positively predicted increased syntactic complexity, accuracy, and lexical complexity. Emotional control associated positively with both measures of complexity, but not accuracy, possibly because “emotional control primarily targets affect regulation rather than task-focused effort” (Dong, 2026, 67).

THE IMPLICATIONS

As writers, we can be aware that obsessing over the ever-elusive “perfect” writing can have both positive and negative effects. Perfectionism as a whole isn’t completely bad. It can (and does) help improve writing—when it helps us develop a striving mindset.

The key is being aware of how we frame our perfectionism—whether as positive “strivings” or negative “concerns.” We need to be aware of how those tendencies affect our motivation and writing quality; positive perfectionism brings about healthier and more productive habits, such as persistence, while negative perfectionism does the opposite, often leaving us anxious and unmotivated. If we feel less productive habits creeping into our writing process, we can try engaging in more productive interest enhancement, self-talk, and emotional regulation. Paying attention to how and why we write can help us become better writers.

To read more about how perfectionism affects writing, read the full article:

Dong, Li. 2026. “Is it Beneficial to Strive for Perfection in Writing?: Exploring the Relationship Between Perfectionism, Motivational Regulation, and Second Language (L2) Writing Performance,” Assessing Writing 67: 101012. doi:10.1016/j.asw.2025.101012.

—Ellie Lewis, Editing Research

FEATURE IMAGE BY SHANE ROUNCE

Find more research

Read Elizabeth Reynolds’s Editing Research article for a look at how positive writing can lengthen your life: “The Language of Long Life: Why Positivity in Writing Matters.”

Read David D. Burns’s (1980) article to better understand perfectionism: “The Perfectionist’s Script for Self-Defeat.” Psychology Today. November. https://jessegalef.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/the-perfectionist-script-for-self-defeat.pdf