Understanding Toxic Perfectionism

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are more prone to perfectionism.

That was the assumption, at least, that Justin Dyer, professor of religious education at church-owned Brigham Young University, was used to hearing.

Then the statistician, along with a few colleagues, started digging into the data. What they found was more complicated than the common wisdom that church membership, with its lofty eternal aim of helping followers to become like God, leads its members to hold themselves to unhealthy and unrealistic expectations.

On this week’s show, Dyer joins Latter-day Saint psychologist Debra Theobald McClendon to talk about how the faith’s teachings and culture impact the rank and file, their goals, their perceptions and their self-worth.