Honors Program
University Honors
Date of Award
5-2022
Thesis Professor(s)
Rachel Miller-Slough
Thesis Professor Department
<--College of Arts and Sciences-->
Thesis Reader(s)
Andrea Clements
Abstract
Intellectual giftedness can affect students in a variety of ways. Research often examines some of these potential effects, such as how giftedness impacts performance in school or attitude regarding academics. However, little research has been done on whether gifted students are more driven by internal pressures to succeed that they place on themselves or by external pressures to succeed that are placed on them by others. The present study examined how perfectionism (an internal pressure) and parental expectations (an external pressure) might affect a student’s self-esteem and achievement. Participants were 250 undergraduate students (M age = 20.35 years old, M GPA = 3.53) who completed an online survey. Different aspects of perfectionism had unique associations with self-esteem, whereas parental expectations were not associated with self-esteem. Perfectionism, parental expectations, and self-esteem were not associated with academic achievement. Taken together, it appears that internal pressure, specifically concern over mistakes, corresponds to lower self-esteem, whereas having high personal standards may be adaptive. Implications and future research are discussed.
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Scarbrough, Hannah, "Associations Between Perfectionism, Parental Expectations, Self-Esteem, and Academic Achievement in Gifted Students" (2022). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 706. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/706
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.