| Description |
Emphasis placed on performance excellence may encourage perfectionism in college music students. Perfectionism is a multidimensional personality disposition with positive and negative components. Perfectionistic strivings are associated with intrinsic motivation, increased time practicing, and improved performance. Perfectionistic concerns are associated with extrinsic motivation, performance anxiety, depression, and anger following poor performances. Despite the knowledge of negative outcomes associated with perfectionistic concerns, little research has been conducted with the aim of decreasing negative aspects of perfectionism. In addition, little research has focused on musician populations. Self-compassion is recognizing one's suffering, having a desire to relieve one's suffering, and responding to the self with kindness. Self-compassion is negatively correlated with aspects of perfectionistic concerns, which provides a rationale to use self-compassion skills to reduce perfectionistic concerns in college music students. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of a 6-week self-compassion intervention on aspects of perfectionism (perfectionistic strivings and concerns) in college music students, as compared to a traditional sport psychology skills intervention. College music students (n = 12) from a university in the mountain west U.S. participated in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to a self-compassion intervention group (n = 7) or an attention control group (n = 5). Measures of personal standards, iv perfectionistic aspirations, doubts about actions, concerns over mistakes, negative reactions to imperfect performance, and self-compassion were administered before the intervention and 1 week following completion of the intervention. According to a Mann- Whitney U test on change scores, no significant differences emerged between the two groups for aspects of perfectionistic strivings, perfectionistic concerns, and selfcompassion. The main explanation of the findings is the lack of sufficient sample size. Further explanations include the timing of questionnaire delivery and potential benefits from the traditional sport psychology intervention. Participants were unable to meet at the same time as a group, which limited the extent of personalization and depth of content in each intervention group. This prevented group discussions and hindered the development of common humanity. Despite a lack of significant findings, the limitations of the study and background literature warrant future intervention studies using self-compassion within music populations. |
