Patrick Gaudreau

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at University of Ottawa

Perfectionism creates motivational conflicts, but the extant literature repeatedly found positive associations between perfectionistic standards and autonomous motivation. Researchers did not distinguish between perfectionistic standards and the pursuit of excellence, which may explain their somewhat unexpected results. Based on the Model of Excell...

Musicians have normalized performance anxiety (PA) to be part of their musical career. Perfectionism has been proposed as a possible personality risk factor for PA. Although perfectionistic concerns have been consistently positively correlated to PA, results have been inconsistent for perfectionistic standards. This inconsistency is potentially att...

The Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism (MEP) proposes that the effects of pursuing perfection (i.e., perfectionism) need to be assessed beyond the effects of pursuing excellence (i.e., excellencism). Our objective in this research was to rely on the MEP to further our understanding of athlete perfectionism on two key points. First, we focussed...

The Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism has been proposed to differentiate the pursuit of high but realistic standards (excellencism) from the pursuit of perfectionistic standards. In a recent study, perfectionistic standards were positively linked to bottom-line mentality, moral disengagement, and tolerance toward electronic sign stealing (che...

Perfectionism has been theorized as a risk factor for psychological need frustration. However, past studies on basic psychological needs often reported ambiguous and unexpected findings for perfectionistic standards. The Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism (MEP) recently distinguished between perfectionistic standards and the pursuit of high ye...

The Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism (MEP) differentiates striving toward high and realistic standards from striving for perfectionistic standards. Two studies situated excellencism and perfectionism within the nomological network of the Perfectionism Social Disconnection Model (PSDM). Study 1 (n=284) showed that excellencism and perfectioni...

Past studies have found an unexpectedly small and inconsistent association between perfectionistic standards and test anxiety. Our goal was to unpack this association through the lens of a novel theory: The Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism. Results of Study 1 (N= 273) showed higher test anxiety, fear of failure, and mistake rumination for pe...

How do perfection strivers react when they witness a perfect sport performance? In two studies, we show that perfectionism is associated with a lower likelihood of providing perfect performance ratings when there is ambiguity about whether a performance is indeed perfect. In Study 1, 312 baseball fans watched the final plays from an infamous baseba...

The purpose of this research was to test if the ways sport fans felt while supporting their favourite teams – both in terms of typical feelings and changes in feelings over time – were associated with different combinations of harmonious passion (HP) and obsessive passion (OP) for being a sports fan. We conducted two studies in which fans reported...

The purpose of this research was to test if the ways sport fans felt while supporting their favourite teams – both in terms of typical feelings and changes in feelings over time – were associated with different combinations of harmonious passion (HP) and obsessive passion (OP) for being a sports fan. We conducted two studies in which fans reported...

The Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism distinguishes perfectionism from the pursuit of excellence, aiming to assess the adaptiveness of perfectionism. Motivation has yet to receive attention from the MEP. In this study with 336 undergraduate students,the relationship of excellencism and perfectionism with autonomous motivation, controlled moti...

Objectives Past studies reported that self-compassion did not significantly moderate the association between perfectionistic standards and psychological distress. Recent research highlighted the need to separate high standards (i.e., excellencism) from perfectionistic standards. Based on the Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism, this study reexa...

Motivation and goal striving are vital for athletes' success and well-being in sports. Perfectionism, which should interfere with them, is linked with autonomous motivation, the most beneficial motivation according to Self-determination theory (SDT). However, study measurements did not distinguish between perfectionism and the pursuit of excellence...

After decades of research and debates about whether perfectionism is healthy or unhealthy, the Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism (MEP) recently differentiated between people striving for high standards (excellence strivers) and those pursuing perfectionistic standards (perfection strivers). In this study, we devised and tested an interpretati...

People often feel passionate toward activities in sport. But passion can change, and we know very little about how or when passion for sport changes over time. Here, we present a hypothesis about how, when, and why passion changes over time—the seasonal attenuation of passion hypothesis—which predicts that levels of passion toward activities will t...

Background Grieve et al . (2022) tested the effects of an intervention designed to reduce perfectionism. Contrary to their hypotheses, the intervention reduced both perfectionism and excellencism. Furthermore, excellencism positively correlated with negative outcomes (e.g. anxiety). Aims A theory-driven framework (with five hypothetical scenarios)...

Having limited access to effective emotion regulation (ER) strategies, a construct commonly measured using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004), has been found to be strongly linked with non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). However, the mechanisms that explain this association need more in-depth exploration. In this...

Despite the key role that motivation plays in the creative process-with respect to engaging with content, exploring, and learning-, surprisingly few studies have investigated the relationship between academic motivation and indicators of creativity. The objective of the current study was to clarify this relationship. More specifically, we examined...

This poster was presented at the 2023 SQRP congress on May 26, 2023. Our research objectives were two folds. First, we sought to test the validity of the Scale of Perfectionism and Excellencism (Gaudreau et Schellenberg, 2022) within a sample of graduate students. To that extent, we were able to confirm a two distinct factor structure further suppo...

L’anxiété liée aux examens (AE) est un problème fréquent dans la population universitaire puisqu’elle affecte négativement la performance, ayant ainsi des répercussions collatérales au niveau académique, professionnel et social. Conséquemment, certain-e-s étudiant-e-s cherchent à se rassurer en s’engageant dans des comportements sécurisants vis-à-v...

The team identification–social psychological health model outlines that fans of local sport teams are more likely to experience feelings of social connectedness compared with fans of distant teams. We tested this proposition across two sufficiently powered studies. In both studies, sport fans (Study 1: N = 291, Study 2: N = 430) completed online su...

We tested if distinct combinations of harmonious passion and obsessive passion for sport were associated with outcomes within sport, academics, and in one’s life. We analysed data from the Student-athlete Well-being and Achievement Project (SWAP), a study in which intercollegiate student-athletes (N = 298) completed assessments of harmonious and ob...

People often feel passionate toward activities in sport. But passion can change, and we know very little about how or when passion for sport changes over time. Here we present a hypothesis about how, when, and why passion changes over time – the seasonal attenuation of passion (SAP) hypothesis – which predicts that levels of passion toward activiti...

We tested if distinct combinations of harmonious passion and obsessive passion for sport were associated with outcomes within sport, academics, and in one’s life. We analyzed data from the Student-athlete Well-being and Achievement Project (SWAP), a study in which intercollegiate student-athletes (N = 298) completed assessments of harmonious and ob...

An unresolved and controversial issue in the perfectionism literature is whether perfectionism is beneficial, harmful, or unneeded. The Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism (MEP) was recently developed to address this question by distinguishing the pursuit of perfection from the pursuit of excellence (Gaudreau, 2019). In this article, we report...

Background. Grieve et al. (2022) tested the effects of an intervention designed to reduce perfectionism. Contrary to their hypotheses, the intervention reduced both perfectionism and excellencism. Furthermore, excellencism positively correlated with negative outcomes (e.g., anxiety). Aims. A theory-driven framework (with five hypothetical scenarios...

After decades of research and debates about whether perfectionism is healthy or unhealthy, the Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism (MEP) recently differentiated between people striving for high standards (excellence strivers) and those pursuing perfectionistic standards (perfection strivers). In this study, we devised and tested an interpretati...

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is prevalent among university students, yet risk models for NSSI are rarely contextualized to the experiences of university students. The current study explored a risk model for NSSI among university students, with a focus on parent-child relational risk factors and intrapersonal vulnerabilities likely to be heighten...

The team identification-social psychological health model outlines that fans of local sport teams are more likely to experience feelings of social connectedness compared to fans of distant teams. We tested this proposition across two sufficiently-powered studies. In both studies, sport fans (Study 1 N = 291, Study 2 N = 430) completed online survey...

The grades of students have been shown to severely decrease during the transition from high school to university. Although past findings have shown that procrastination negatively relates to academic achievement, no study has examined the influence of procrastination on the grade trajectory of students during this critical academic transition. Ther...

This poster showcase the moderating effect of the perception of scientific productivity on the relation between perfectionistic standards and impostor feelings, among a population of graduate students (N=375). Our results suggest that the self-esteem of perfectionist is highly contingent to their own performance evaluation.

Obsessive passion predicts many maladaptive workplace outcomes (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2019). However, we hypothesized that people hold the lay belief that obsessive passion is needed to succeed in workplaces that focus on singular objectives (e.g., productivity) at the expense of competing goals (e.g., well-being) – that is, workplaces characterize...

In this study (N = 550), we relied on a dual-domain framework in which the academic and career strivings of university students were separately measured at two points in time to consider the domain specificity and changing nature of the coping process. We first examined the contemporaneous interplay between perceived control, coping, goal progress,...

The winners of the 2017 World Series were found guilty of illegally using electronic devices to steal the signs of their opponents. Many but not all sport fans negatively reacted to this cheating incident. We relied on the model of excellencism and perfectionism to determine if perfection strivers are less unfavorable toward electronic sign stealin...

The winners of the 2017 baseball World Series were found guilty of illegally using electronic devices to steal the signs of their opponents. Many but not all sport fans negatively reacted to this cheating incident. We relied on the Model of Excellencism and Perfectionism (MEP; Gaudreau, 2019) to determine if perfection strivers are less unfavorable...

A pervasive problem in the coping literature has been the tendency for traditional confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) to reject hierarchical models of coping. In this study, we examined the first-order and hierarchical factor structure of the Coping Inventory for Academic Strivings with two independent samples of students. Results of traditional CF...

An unresolved and controversial issue in the perfectionism literature is whether perfectionism is beneficial, harmful, or unneeded. The model of excellencism and perfectionism (MEP) was recently developed to address this question by distinguishing the pursuit of perfection from the pursuit of excellence (Gaudreau, 2019). In this article, we report...

Much is known about the antecedents and outcomes of procrastination when comparing students to one another (i.e., between-person level). However, little is known about the antecedents and outcomes of procrastination when comparing the courses taken by the students during a semester (i.e., within-person level). In this study, we proposed that examin...

Research relying on the dualistic model of passion has consistently found that harmonious passion for sport is positively associated with adaptive outcomes and that obsessive passion for sport is positively associated with maladaptive outcomes. In this research, we tested if various sport outcomes were related to within-person combinations of both...

Perfectionism involves aiming and striving toward excessive goals accompanied with overly critical self-evaluations. In my current theory elaboration, I propose that the cognitive, socio-cognitive, and socio-behavioral manifestations that accompany perfectionism should be operationalized as correlates rather than indicators of the core definitional...

The standards that a person pursue in life can be set in a rigid or flexible way. The recent literature has emphasized a distinction between high and realistic standards of excellence, from high and unrealistic standards of perfection. In two studies, we investigated the role of striving toward excellence (i.e., excellencism) and striving toward pe...

The standards that a person pursue in life can be set in a rigid or flexible way. The recent literature has emphasized a distinction between high and realistic standards of excellence, from high and unrealistic standards of perfection. In two studies, we investigated the role of striving towards excellence (i.e., excellencism) and striving towards...

Research relying on the dualistic model of passion has consistently found that harmonious passion for sport is positively associated with adaptive outcomes and that obsessive passion for sport is positively associated with maladaptive outcomes (e.g., Vallerand & Verner-Filion, 2020). In this research, we tested if various sport outcomes were relate...

Athletes can respond to positive experiences in sport by engaging in savoring – that is, by attempting to prolong or amplify their positive feelings (Bryant & Veroff, 2007). In this research, we tested if savoring was predicted by levels of harmonious or obsessive passion for sport, and if savoring was associated with symptoms of burnout. In Study...

More research is needed to understand the different vulnerability profiles of university students who engage in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). This study sought to classify university students (n = 479; 83.8% female) aged 17–25 years (M = 18.77; SD = 1.42) who had engaged in NSSI within the past year into latent profiles based on their self-perce...

Objective: Passion research has focused extensively on the unique effects of both harmonious passion and obsessive passion (Vallerand, 2015). We adopted a quadripartite approach (Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010) to test whether physical and psychological well-being are distinctly related to subtypes of passion with varying within-person passion combinati...

Athletes can respond to positive experiences in sport by engaging in savoring—that is, by attempting to prolong or amplify their positive feelings. In this research, the authors tested if savoring was predicted by levels of harmonious or obsessive passion for sport and if savoring was associated with symptoms of burnout. In Study 1 ( n = 499), the...

This study examined if there are cross-cultural and cross-generational similitudes and differences between Canada and the United States through their famous songs across 5 decades. We used the software Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC2015; Pennebaker, Boyd, Jordan, & Blackburn, 2015a) to analyze the evolution of lyrics for songs that were no...

Given the negative relations between parental psychological control and various aspects of emerging adults' social and emotional adaptation, there is a need to determine whether similar relations exist for emerging adults' academic adjustment. The current study tested an integrative model using an interactionist approach of dyadic gender compositio...

This chapter reviews the empirical articles published between 2012 and 2016 in journals to help get a sense of the prevalence of multilevel designs in sport and exercise psychology research. It explains the most commonly used techniques to analyze data from longitudinal and group‐based multilevel designs. The chapter introduces two frequently used...

The aim of this research was to test if the ways passionate sport fans respond immediately after an important team victory depend on the extent to which passion is harmonious or obsessive. Fans of Liverpool F.C. ( n = 299) and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers ( n = 334) completed online surveys shortly after their teams had won an important championship g...

Our aim in this research was to test if the ways passionate sports fans respond immediately after an important team victory depend on the extent to which passion is harmonious or obsessive. Fans of Liverpool F.C. (n = 299) and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (n = 334) completed online surveys shortly after their teams had won an important championship ga...

Are assessments of an athlete’s mental toughness influenced by how that athlete performs in a single moment in a game? We conducted 3 experimental studies to address this question and conclude that the answer is yes. In each study, sports fans (total N = 1,097) read vignettes that depicted a mentally tough basketball player, either by describing th...

Background Feelings of satisfaction fluctuate across time and situations, and focusing on within‐person experiences opens up the door to a better understanding of the daily lives of university students. Aims Our overarching goal was to situate academic satisfaction not only as a relatively enduring characteristic but also as a transient state that...

How do people react when they experience a positive event while pursuing a passionate activity? In this research, we conducted three studies to test if the extent to which people respond to positive events by engaging in savoring (i.e., attempting to maintain or enhance positive emotions) and dampening (i.e., attempting to down-regulated or stifle...

Are assessments of an athlete’s mental toughness influenced by how that athlete performs in a single moment in a game? We conducted three experimental studies to address this question and conclude that the answer is yes. In each study, sports fans (total N = 1,097) read vignettes that depicted a mentally tough basketball player, either by describin...

People generally recognize the benefits of responding to failures with self-compassion (i.e., with self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and mindfulness) rather than self-criticism. In this research, we replicated this effect with passionate students who had all reported that academics was a pursuit that they enjoyed and was important to them,...

Research on perfectionism is flourishing, but the unspecified distinction between perfectionism and the pursuit of excellence is a lingering issue that urgently needs conceptual, theoretical, and empirical attention. In this article, excellence and perfection are defined as distinct goals that form the basis of two different but related constructs....

Obsessive passion predicts many different types of maladaptive intra- and inter-personal outcomes (Vallerand, 2015). Our aim in this research was to explore one potential force that might promote or sustain obsessive passion in the workplace: lay beliefs about the relationship between obsessive passion and work success. We hypothesized that people...

Music is known to evoke a sense of social identity in youth; however, few studies have examined the cultural role of music in the formation of ethnic identity in young people. The objective of this research was to examine—across 2 studies—the potential impact of musical ethnocultural identity on increasing happiness and reducing internalizing sympt...

We examined the prospective relationship between harmonious passion and post-treatment health outcomes among female breast cancer survivors. Participants reported passion toward a favorite activity, physical pain symptoms, and mental health after their final breast cancer treatment (Time 1, N = 188). Twelve months later (Time 2, N = 148), participa...

Self-determination theory (SDT) assumes that students who act with more volition and autonomy are more likely to be successful in their academic career. In this study, we sought to investigate two lingering issues about the association between autonomous motivation (AM) and academic achievement. On the one hand, past academic achievements are most...

How do people react when they experience a positive event while pursuing a passionate activity? In this research, we conducted three studies to test if the extent to which people respond to positive events by engaging in savoring (i.e., attempting to maintain or enhance positive emotions) and dampening (i.e., attempting to down-regulated or stifle...

Introduction: People generally recognize the benefits of responding to failures with self-compassion rather than self-criticism (Robinson et al., 2016). In this research, we replicated this effect in a sample of undergraduates who were passionate for academics and, relying on a quadripartite approach to passion (Schellenberg et al., in press), test...

University students set career goals during their academic journey in order to facilitate their transition to the labor market. Career goals can nonetheless be accompanied by doubt, even among the most determined students. Little is known, however, about the nomological network of career doubt. Using a dual-domain approach, the purpose of the prese...

We proposed and tested a novel multilevel perspective on procrastination by examining the prospective relation between procrastination and grades across students (i.e., between-person level) and across the courses taken by each student (i.e., within-person level). A sample of 208 university students completed repeated measures of procrastination fo...

While self-compassion presents as a viable resource for managing difficult events in sport, little is known about how it functions in the stress process. In 2 studies with women university athletes (N = 122 and 131), the authors examined self-compassion as a prospective predictor of appraisal, coping, goal progress, and affect in a competition. Dir...

Background: Academic procrastination is common among university students and its effect on their achievement is worrisome. Although procrastination is often depicted as self-regulation failure, research still needs to examine the self-regulatory mechanisms involved in the relationship between procrastination and achievement. Objectives: In this pro...

University students set career goals during their academic journey in order to facilitate their transition to the labor market. Career goals can nonetheless be accompanied by doubt, even among the most determined students. The purpose of this study (N = 234) was to investigate the role of career doubt on the progress made by university students in...

Psychological research in tertiary education typically follows the achievement as an outcome approach in which the focus is placed on inter-individual differences in the achievement level of students (e.g., semester GPA, cumulative GPA). In this article, the achievement as a process approach is proposed to reconceptualise academic achievement as a...

In the present study, we examined the role of morphological awareness in reading and spelling performance across three languages varying in orthographic consistency (English, French, and Greek), after controlling for the effects of phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming (RAN). One hundred fifty-nine English-speaking Canadian, 238 Frenc...

Music is often believed to be a universal cultural language that may bring different people together, in harmony. In this article, we review studies that examined interrelations between music and prejudice reduction during youth development. More specifically, our aim is to reflect on potential circumstances under which music listening and music ma...

In their 2 × 2 model of perfectionism, Gaudreau and Thompson (2010) proposed that 4 prototypical subtypes of perfectionism—nonperfectionism, pure self-oriented perfectionism, pure socially prescribed perfectionism, and mixed perfectionism—are distinctively associated with antecedents, processes, and outcomes. The purpose of this study was to test w...

Introduction Breast cancer (BC) is associated with serious physical and psychological health sequelae that affect quality and quantity of life. Physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour can prevent or diminish these sequelae; yet, little is known about how these lifestyle behaviours change after cancer treatment and if these changes affect pos...

Objective: Passion research has focused extensively on the unique effects of both harmonious passion and obsessive passion (Vallerand, 2015). We adopted a quadripartite approach (Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010) to test whether physical and psychological well-being are distinctly related to subtypes of passion with varying within-person passion combinat...

The 2 × 2 model of perfectionism proposes that self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) and socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP) can coexist at different levels within individuals and can be captured into four subtypes of perfectionism (i.e., non-perfectionism, pure SOP, pure SPP, and mixed perfectionism). This study tested the associations between sub...

In previous research, autonomous motivation (AM) has been found to be associated with school achievement, but the relation has been largely heterogeneous across studies. AM has typically been assessed with explicit measures such as self-report questionnaires. Recent self-determination theory (SDT) research has suggested that converging implicit and...

According to the two-factor theory of perfectionism (Stoeber & Otto, 2006), perfectionism comprises two superordinate dimensions—perfectionistic strivings (PS) and perfectionistic concerns (PC)—that show different, and often opposite, relations with psychological adjustment and maladjustment, particularly when their overlap is partialled out. Recen...

Although in recent years researchers have begun to utilize dyadic data analyses such as the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM), certain limitations to the applicability of these models still exist. Given the complexity of APIMs, most researchers will often use observed scores to estimate the model’s parameters, which can significantly limit...

This study examined whether the good or bad outcomes associated with mastery-approach (MAP) and performance-approach (PAP) goals depend on the extent to which they are motivated by autonomous or controlled motivation. A sample of 515 undergraduate students who participated in sport completed measures of achievement goals, motivation of achievement...

The 2 × 2 model of perfectionism conceptualizes perfectionism as the within-person combinations of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism to define four subtypes of perfectionism. This model posits that each subtype is distinctively associated with self-determined motivation and psychological adjustment. Results of latent moderated str...

Objectives: This study examined how autonomy support from parents and autonomy support from coaches are associated with sport-related outcomes of adolescent-athletes. Two alternative hypotheses were proposed: (a) a synergistic socialization interaction in which high levels of autonomy support provided by parents and coaches are both needed to obtai...

This study proposed an extension of the 2 × 2 model of perfectionism to assess the effect of four subtypes of perfectionism (i.e., pure self-oriented, mixed, pure socially prescribed, non-perfectionism) at the between-person and within-person levels of analysis. Sample comprised 338 students (80% female) aged between 16 and 48 years old (M = 19.03,...

Dyadic data analysis with distinguishable dyads assesses the variance, not only between dyads, but also within the dyad when members are distinguishable on a known variable. In past research, the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) has been the statistical model of choice in order to take into account this interdependence. Although this meth...