Abstract
Past studies have suggested that perfectionism is a maladaptive behavior. Also, studies have linked shame to several maladaptive traits and to perfectionism as it has been recently measured, which supports current theories of shame but not the current theories that suggest guilt is an adaptive emotion. Using Terry-Short’s PNP scale designed to measure negative and positive perfectionism, this research demonstrated that perfectionism could be adaptive as well as maladaptive. Negative perfectionism was positively correlated to state shame and guilt, shame-proneness, with guilt-proneness demonstrating a less significant relationship but with a similar trend. Anxiety and hostility were positively correlated to negative perfectionism, state shame and guilt, and shame-proneness. Positive perfectionism demonstrated a positive correlation with pride and negative correlations to state shame and guilt.