Socially Prescribed Perfectionism and Adolescent Flourishing: A Within-Person Longitudinal Mediation Model of Self-Esteem.

Adolescents frequently face strong socially imposed expectations, yet how such perfectionistic pressure shapes their psychological flourishing over time remains poorly understood. Addressing this gap, the present study examined the longitudinal associations among socially prescribed perfectionism, self-esteem, and flourishing, while distinguishing between-person differences from within-person developmental processes. Participants were 1,631 Chinese adolescents (45.6% girls; baseline mean age = 13.53, SD = 1.47), with data collected across three waves at six-month intervals. Using a Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model, within-person analyses showed that increases in socially prescribed perfectionism predicted subsequent declines in flourishing over time. The longitudinal association between socially prescribed perfectionism and flourishing was mediated by self-esteem, such that higher socially prescribed perfectionism was followed by lower self-esteem, which in turn was associated with reduced flourishing. Multi-group analyses showed that socially prescribed perfectionism predicted self-esteem among girls but not among boys. Correspondingly, self-esteem mediated the association between socially prescribed perfectionism and flourishing for girls but not boys, indicating that perfectionistic pressure may impair girls’ well-being primarily through its impact on self-evaluative processes. These longitudinal findings illuminate a gender-specific developmental mechanism linking perfectionistic expectations to adolescents’ flourishing and underscore the importance of self-esteem in understanding how external performance demands undermine well-being during early adolescence.