Perfectionism, Performance, and Goal-Related Variables in Running Competitions

A Three-Sample Examination in a Systematic Self-Replication Framework

Waleriańczyk, Wojciech

Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Sport–National Research Institute

Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis served as action editor.

All data has been anonymized and is available on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/txz9h. All analyses were performed in SPSS (Version 29.0.2.0), the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2017), and R (Version 4.3.0), while figures were created in Python. This research was not preregistered. All data exclusions are reported. Ethical approval was granted by the ethics committee of the Wojciech Waleriańczyk’s institution prior to conducting the study. All participants consented to take part in a confidential study regarding the associations between personality and performance. Participants from Samples 1 and 3 received no remuneration, while participants from Sample 2 received a small remuneration of 30 Polish Zloty (approx. 7€) upon completing the study. The author declares that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.

The present study was supported by the National Science Centre in Poland under Grant 2019/33/N/HS6/00828, awarded to Wojciech Waleriańczyk. This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the National Science Centre, Poland (NCN; Grant 2019/33/N/HS6/00828). For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission. The author expresses his gratitude to the organizers of Półmaraton Ślężański and Cracovia Marathon for their kindness and support in conducting the study; to Kinga Waleriańczyk, Jakub Jelonek, and Marek Kulba for their invaluable assistance in facilitating contact with the organizers; and to all the athletes who participated in the study.

Wojciech Waleriańczyk played a lead role in conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, visualization, writing–original draft, and writing–review and editing.

Wojciech Waleriańczyk, Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Sport–National Research Institute, Trylogii 2/16 Street, 01-982 Warsaw, Poland [email protected]

Received November 8, 2024

revised April 26, 2025

Accepted May 23, 2025

Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology Publish Ahead of Print, June 30, 2025. | DOI: 10.1037/spy0000389

Recently, more ecologically valid research on the relationship between perfectionism and performance has emerged. However, the theory-derived notions of perfectionism being associated with rigid and excessive expectations about performance require empirical evidence; the question whether perfectionism aids or impedes objective goal-realization remains open, as well. The present study tested the associations among perfectionism, anticipated performance, rigidness of goals, subsequent performance, and objective goal-realization, within the systematic self-replication framework—in runners competing on three distances: 10 km (N = 153), half-marathon (N = 156), and marathon (N = 305). Athletes completed measures of perfectionistic strivings, perfectionistic concerns, and goal-related variables in the week prior to the competition. Perfectionistic strivings were consistently associated with lower goal elasticity and higher anticipated and actual performance. Perfectionistic concerns did not show a pattern of consistent associations for any of the outcomes. However, they were related to lower anticipated and actual performance in marathon runners, representing one of the rare instances of perfectionistic concerns directly affecting performance. Overall, the present findings highlight the importance of considering individual differences in personality when working with athletes on goal-setting—athletes with higher levels of perfectionism may tend to set relatively excessive and rigid goals by default. Additionally, while perfectionistic strivings can be linked to enhanced sports performance in a competitive setting, perfectionism does not increase the likelihood of achieving one’s goals in competitions.