The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It

by Will Storr

There are various forms of perfectionism: ‘self-oriented perfectionists’ have excessively high standards and often push themselves harder and harder in order to win; ‘narcissistic perfectionists’ already believe they’re number one and experience anxiety when the world treats them as less; ‘neurotic perfectionists’ suffer low self-esteem and often believe with the next victory they’ll finally feel good enough. But there’s one species of perfectionism that’s especially sensitive to the neoliberal game: ‘social perfectionists’ feel the pressure to win comes from the people with whom they play. They’ll tend to agree with statements such as, ‘People expect nothing less than perfection from me’ and ‘Success means that I must work harder to please others.’ Social perfectionists are highly attuned to reputation and identity. They’ll easily think they’ve let their peers down by being a bad employee,