https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/03/15/byu-study-examines-link-between

You’d think Mormons were the most prone to ‘perfectionism’ since their main purpose in life is to become Gods, but according to this BYU survey of BYU students, Mormons are the least likely to be prone to perfectionism and guess who’s the most prone to perfectionism……

Wait for it….


….ExMormons!

Which is bewildering.

I think you're mistaken, SC

Care to elaborate?

Well, that was a fun spin of yarns on the topic. That's passing as "research" coming out of BYU now?

I know exctly what I was taught at church about striving to be like Christ, even as Christ is perfect.

Now they've got different types of perfectionism described (toxic, low level, and whatever). Somehow their graph (good luck making sense of it) of couse shows Mormons have the least amount of bad perfectionism!

The article said, "The Family Foundations dataset doesn’t include research on healthy perfectionism. A 2014 study, however, uncovered high rates among Latter-day Saints."
LOL. They have high rates of good perfectionism but didn't include data for it.

It reminds me of the old claims they made that Mormons are happier than everyone else (Happy Valley). But they didn't mention actual stats about antidepressants, etc. Back then half my Mormon relatives were on Prozac.

I have acheived perfectionism at not being perfect.

A yarn I will sell at the pearly gates as I point at the mansion I want up there on that golden hill.

Now that I think about it, maybe I will enroll at BYU education week. And with a serious look on my face inform the instructor of my personal revelation. The look would be something to remember.

I was struck by the following two paragraphs.

"Notably, BYU religious education professor Michael Goodman writes in a separate essay that while perfectionism shares traits with obsessive-compulsive disorder, they are not the same.

“While OCD is generally not related to unhealthy efforts to achieve,” Goodman explains, “toxic perfection results from striving for a flawless performance and feeling worthless when mistakes are made.”"

I'm not sure that a religious professor should be interpreting statistics for the newspaper.

Any study done by BYU about BYU students mental health, sponsored by the Mormon church, is about as biased as you can get

For a church that turned into a sex cult as soon as Joseph had any real power, BYU has a lot of rules around the activity that's next to murder.

Students have to condone JS and BY while acting Mormon enough to get an ecclesiastical endorsement. Either those aren't normal kids or the study had insufficient controls.

Probably.

From the next to last paragraph:

"Notably, the number of individuals in each of these subgroups was nowhere near equal. Latter-day Saints, at 41%, comprised the lion’s share of the respondents, followed by other Christians at 28% and those with no religion, atheists and former Latter-day Saints at 8% each. Just 4% fell into the category of “other religion” and 3% into the group of those who had disaffiliated from a religious group other than the Latter-day Saint faith."

The question of insufficient data is a good though complex one. The complexity is that, for the data to reflect the real world as closely as possible, the percentages of the populations included have to match the percentages of the groups you're studying in the entire population. Since the study was done at BYU, the following questions would need to be asked:

1) Are the percentages of Mormons, Christians, ex-Mormons, and non-religious reflective of the percentages of those same groups at BYU.
2) Do those percentages reflect the percentages of each group in the entire state of Utah.

The answer to the second question is probably not--there was another study reported here recently that said that Mormons make up just 50% of the state of Utah, yet that population is clearly over 50% in the survey population. Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to the first question as I don't have any idea of the actual numbers for each population cited on the BYU campus.

With all that said (and coming from a person who had to take Business Statistics twice--I flunked it the first time), I can't really see that this study tells us anything except maybe among BYU students.

One other thing not reported in the Salt Lake Tribune article (and I just thought of this) and crucial to *any* utilizations of the reported statistics is the standard deviation and variance of the samples of the populations being studied. Both of these, taken from a formula that assumes a bell-shaped curve, will tell you how likely members of the population are to fall outside of the reported percentages. For the statistically uninitiated, I know this sounds crazy, but this information will, if available, help to tell you how reliable a study using samples of a population actually is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2025 08:16PM by blindguy.

True. The sampling pool is another problem I had with it.
For example, most regular atheists are not connected to people at BYU.

Also, multiple actual psychologists have already defined perfectionist categories a few ways. The types I am most familiar with are Self-orientated, Other-orientated, and Socially-prescribed. I don't know why BYU's study decided to dive in to make themselves better than everyone else. IMO, it smells like a confession of some kind to downplay a legitimate observation many have about their culture.

And no, religious professors at BYU are hardly credible sources of statistical analysis.

Almost anything coming from BYU that is supposed to be academic makes a fuss about how faith was involved. I know this from the BYU alum magazines.

It's a BYU study for BYU's audience.

I'll take "Infamous Nerds" for $800, Ken.

Answer: The one person who actually reads BYU alum magazines.

Question: Who is ________?

I keep thinking they will mention all the buildings at BYU named after me.
;-D

'Most Perfectionist'?

I'd need some data to agree with that; although it could be accurate.

Using 'perfection' as the only acceptable standard is a shortcut to failure & depression.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2025 10:03PM by GNPE.

How do I know if I am perfect ?

According to a survey of BYU students, ex-mormons are the most prone to perfectionism.

Just how many XLDS are attending BYU?