CURRAN, HILL & POSE (2026)
KEY TAKEAWAY: The strongest contemporary shift is not simply working toward higher standards. It is a workforce that has a greater fear of mistakes, uncertainty about whether work is “good enough”, and a stronger perception that others expect flawless performance.
It feels like getting change happening is getting harder. It is a question many leaders are asking: How do we create lasting change in organisations and why do individuals resist improvement. Aristotle in the 4th BC was blaming young people, shouting into the wind that “Young people are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances. … They think they know everything and are always quite sure about it.” The fourth-century BC version of “young people today…” Rather than blaming the next generation of workers, we should ask what is changing in human nature and in the context of work. What does the evidence suggest about modern work conditions? Have the psychological demands of work changed — and if so, why? This is why I am sharing this research.
The Research
Curran, Hill & Pose (2026) undertook a cross-temporal meta-analysis, which synthesised 307 samples, a total of 82,939 university students aged 18–26, across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, using data collected between 1988–2024. The research distinguish between perfectionistic strivings (high personal standards and self-oriented perfectionism) and perfectionistic concerns (socially prescribed perfectionism, concern over mistakes and doubts about actions).
What they found… Over the past 37 years there has been an increase in different types of perfectionistic striving and perfectionistic concerns.
Cohen’s d shows the size of the change. A score around 0.2 is small, 0.5 is moderate and 0.8 is large. In this study, the increase in concern over mistakes was large, suggesting a meaningful population-level shift rather than a minor statistical change.
The statistical significance and what this change means.
The statistical analysis suggests that
• Self-oriented perfectionism, personal standards, concern over mistakes and doubts about actions all increased significantly over time (all model p values < .01).
• The quadratic model for socially prescribed perfectionism improved fit significantly (Δχ² = 17.46, p < .001).
• At the higher-order level, perfectionistic concerns showed a significant quadratic trajectory (R² = .30; Q = 113.12, p < .001).
This suggests that most forms of perfectionism measured increased clearly over time. And so young people demanded more of themselves, were more worried about making mistakes, and more uncertain about whether they had done things correctly than young people from previous periods.
Socially prescribed perfectionism (the belief that other people expect you to be perfect) showed an even more concerning pattern. It did not just increase; the rise accelerated, especially in recent years. As a result, young people may increasingly believe they are expected to be perfect and that perfection is a condition of acceptance or being valued.
The same accelerating pattern was found for perfectionistic concerns overall, which combines of fear of mistakes, self-doubt and perceived pressure from others. The statistical model explained about 30% of the variation in this increase over time, which is a substantial finding for this kind of research. So this stuff is real.
WHY THIS MATTERS IN SCHOOLS
Schools are highly evaluative workplaces: teachers operate amid student achievement data, accreditation, observations, parent expectations, curriculum compliance, examination results, performance development and media representations. If you are already predisposed to interpret performance as social evaluation, really what is routine accountability may be experienced as threat rather than information. When you believe that your performance determines your social acceptance, your status as a professional or your sense of respect, it is hard to follow “Tay Tay’s advice and Shake it off”
Interpret cautiously: these are leadership hypotheses, not diagnoses. Curran et al. studied college students rather than employees, and the paper explicitly cautions against generalising directly to non-college populations.
WHAT THE STUDY DOES – AND DOES NOT – SHOW
• The study shows evidence that: perfectionism rose across the study period; that concern over mistakes and doubts about actions show sizeable increases; socially prescribed perfectionism and higher-order perfectionistic concerns show accelerating trajectories.
• Supported associations: lower GDP per capita predicted higher strivings, higher inequality predicted greater concerns, and perfectionism-anxiety/depression links remained stable. These are correlational findings, not causal evidence that all younger workers are all perfectionistic or that particular workplace behaviours are always caused by perfectionism.
