Social Cues Shape Maladaptive and Adaptive Perfectionism in Professional Ballet

In high-stakes professions like ballet, the pursuit of excellence demands more than technical mastery. It may come at a steep emotional and physical cost. A new study led by Rachael Goodwin, assistant professor of management, reveals how even subtle workplace cues can push performers toward unhealthy perfectionism or help them cultivate a more sustainable drive for excellence.

“In addition to being an individual trait, perfectionism is also a state that can be affected by the work environment,” Goodwin says.

The paper—co-authored with Lyndon Garrett, assistant professor of management at Melbourne Business School, and Ali Block, clinical research coordinator at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai—is forthcoming in the Academy of Management Journal.

Drawing on psychological research that distinguishes between two forms of perfectionism—maladaptive, characterized by harsh self-criticism and fear of failure; and adaptive, which involves high standards without emotional harm— the study explores what drives one versus the other.

The team interviewed 61 professional or semiprofessional ballet dancers across 24 companies, revealing the powerful role of social cues. Dehumanizing signals—like punishing mistakes, ignoring individuality or discouraging rest—tend to push dancers toward maladaptive patterns. Rehumanizing cues, by contrast, help them embrace imperfection, reclaim agency and self-worth, and attend to their mental and physical needs.

“In a high-pressure work environment like professional ballet, supportive comments from coworkers can cue dancers to take care of their human needs,” Goodwin says. “But a small comment about weight or appearance could just as quickly cue them to spiral into maladaptive and self-destructive patterns of behavior.”

The study also emphasizes that these perfectionist tendencies are not fixed but iterative. Dancers often shifted between adaptive and maladaptive states over time, depending on the support, or lack thereof, they received.

Though rooted in ballet, the findings hold broader lessons for high-pressure fields like medicine, finance, sports and academia. Leaders in such environments can help foster adaptive perfectionism by acknowledging human limits and supporting individual agency.

“This paper doesn’t advocate to lower the bar for expectations,” Goodwin says. “Excellence still matters, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of basic human needs. Our findings show that when organizations create safe places to make mistakes, foster agency and value individuality to support employee well-being, people can mitigate and even avoid workplace breakdowns to strive for excellence in a healthier way.”

Goodwin, R. (2025), Under Pressure to Be Perfect: How Dehumanizing and Rehumanizing Social Cues Lead to Maladaptive and Adaptive Perfectionism in Professional Ballet (with Garrett, L. and  Block, A.), Academy of Management Journal (forthcoming).