BYU Toxic Perfectionism Study

[Anonymous]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/byu-study-examines-toxic-perfectionism-in-latter-day-saints/ar-AA1AHHAW?ocid=widgetonlockscreenwin10&cvid=efdeb6b0a7494f32bab49d82cd184262&ei=17

The linked article from MSN and originally from East Idaho News is interesting. I wonder if it might be apologetic.

Quote:

Scholars have previously noted that perfectionism is likely elevated among members of the Utah-based church.

Contrary to previous research, the team’s data showed that just 12% of Latter-day Saint youth experienced high levels of perfectionism, while 20% of atheist and agnostic youth experienced the same.

Contrary to previous research, LDS teens experience a lower level of perfectionism than atheists or agnostics. :think:

Quote:

However, data also showed that former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints experienced high levels of perfectionism more than any other group, with 27% of youth having perfectionist traits.

According to fellow BYU researcher Michael Goodman, those who disaffiliate with their faith often experienced high levels of perfectionism before and after leaving, leading researchers to believe that disaffiliation didn’t seem to increase or decrease perfectionism levels.

People that leave the church are the most likely to be perfectionist out of any group and leaving the church does not help them become less of a toxic perfectionist.

Quote:

“When we experience toxic perfectionism, it could be because we’re misunderstanding what the church actually teaches and what the doctrine actually is,” [Lead researcher for the BYU study, Dr. Justin Dyer] said.

Allow me to connect the dots a little. Church members experience about equal perfectionism to “other Christian,” “other religion non-Christian,” and “believe in God – no religion” groups. Atheists and agnostics have higher levels of perfectionism and LDS members that leave the faith have the highest levels. Dr. Dyer explains that those LDS members that experience toxic perfectionism and are at risk for leaving the church may be misunderstanding the church teachings and doctrines. Kicker that even when these people leave the church they don’t experience any relief.

Quote:

Morgan Dennis, a member of the church, has spent years with religious scrupulosity — an extreme form of perfectionism in relation to religious practice.

“At least for me and other people who experience toxic perfectionism and scrupulosity, there’s a lot of ‘I don’t deserve good things because I’m bad,’” Dennis said, adding that being a Latter-day Saint is more about pursuing wholeness through Christ. …

“Showing people that they’re loved, not despite or because of anything, but with everything they’re experiencing, and that God loves them — just reminding them of that — is the most important thing,” Dennis told ABC4.com.

Morgan Dennis (a member with perfectionism and scrupulosity) adds that the LDS faith is about pursuing wholeness through Christ and the most important thing is to show people that God and others love them unconditionally.

I am left scratching my head.

Does the LDS church doctrine teach that God loves us unconditionally? Do members of the church that struggle with toxic perfectionism do Mormonism wrong? Do they misunderstand “what the church actually teaches and what the doctrine actually is?”

[Anonymous]

It feels like gaslighting and it reminds me of my experience with the book “Believing Christ” by Stephen Robinson.

There are lots of BoM passages that would support a more universalist view of God that loves us in our imperfections and covers our weaknesses with his atoning love and Professor Robinson points those out in his book. Unfortunately, when I looked those verses up in my LDS institute manuals the interpretation provided was not that of a more universalist, all loving God.

Professor Stephen Robinson expressed his dismay that most of his BYU students were so clueless about the atonement. He places the blame squarely on the students stating that their poor understanding must be “a function of age and maturity” or being “soft in the middle.” (never mind the fact that many of these same students probably attended weekly Sunday School for most of their lives and seminary 5 days per week during high school years – that’s six days per week of religious instruction only to misunderstand what the church “actually” teaches 🙄 )

[Anonymous]

Nowhere close to my lived experience. Nowhere close.

I can only speak to my personal experience, I have no way of knowing the aggregate experience of people leaving the church. All I can say is that for me personally, having a faith crisis was the only way I could break out of the cycle of scrupulosity. In fact that was the biggest benefit of the faith crisis. Abandoning the god of toxic perfectionism.

Quote:

When we experience toxic perfectionism, it could be because we’re misunderstanding what the church actually teaches and what the doctrine actually is,” [Lead researcher for the BYU study, Dr. Justin Dyer] said.

Is this a real study, because that line you quoted makes it sound like a complete farce. One of their conclusions is along the same lines of saying people leave the church because they don’t have a strong enough testimony.

My experience with the church (to this day) is that there’s a near obsession with making testimonies stronger and being more and more obedient. Your testimony is never strong enough as is, there’s always a push to make it stronger. The blessings you seek in life are forever out of reach because you’re not quite obedient enough to “qualify” for them. I’m out of the trap now but I hear people say these things every Sunday I attend.

Roy wrote:

He places the blame squarely on the students…

That’s another aspect of church culture. If things aren’t working out for you then you’re always to blame. I get the need for personal responsibility but when you’re taught teaching A your whole life and you reach a point where teaching A no longer works for you, the very people that taught you teaching A your whole life come down on you, “It’s your fault for believing teaching A, you don’t truly understand, it’s teaching B silly.” Until such a point where teaching B no longer works for you. Rinse, repeat.

I don’t know their methods, I don’t know if I’m in a completely different generation that’s removed from a lot of it, but I suspect someone heard some criticism that the church pushes people towards scrupulosity and a group was tasked to do a study that showed that, no, it’s the people that say church culture leads to scrupulosity that suffer the most from scrupulosity and the church is the best place in the universe to be to not develop scrupulosity.

There are four lights, and this study is the anthesis of my lived experience at church.

I look forward to their study that says the moon is the sun.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

I am left scratching my head.

Does the LDS church doctrine teach that God loves us unconditionally? Do members of the church that struggle with toxic perfectionism do Mormonism wrong? Do they misunderstand “what the church actually teaches and what the doctrine actually is?”

The LDS church doctrine gets fragmented through the voice of the leader doing the teaching. If I had to have a specific theme that is passed through the words of the prophets and leaders, I would say it’s a “Yes, but” situation. “Yes, our doctrine is that God loves us” AND that some of us are more “loved” or “blessed” then others by God. “God loves us” – but not too much, because we have to proof our worth to be loved so that our doctrine falls properly where it should on the “Works vs Faith (Love)” debate.

I don’t think that anything is being “done wrong” per se, it just devolves into a narrative where the “the struggler” winds up competing with “the non-struggler” in a mesh of disconnect, non-accessible communication, and action. It doesn’t help any with the cognitive dissonance that can develop between competing ideas/stories.

In the threat about the WoW, I became aware of the possibility that the “code of health” that I had thought had bee a form of revelation (or at least maybe common sense) was actually petty cannon fodder in the war between genders that came about as “after-the-fact” revelation. I cannot see it in light of “God may care about us enough to provide a health code (even with limited success)”. No, it’s origin is “men making a mess” and “men out to make women’s life more miserable in retaliation” which came to Joseph’s ears and seemed like the seed for a good idea.

Mormonism is in part based on Joseph’s idealistic stories about the divine origin of some of us as “gods in embryo”, Brigham’s imperialistic drive to protect the saints and their way of life that required developing the grit to do what needs to be done (even if it is misguided). Mormon isolationism is fuel to continue that perfectionistic streak that we grew from Joseph’s and Brigham’s stories.

As for excellentists (my word for perfectionistic wannabes who have the sense to strive for excellence instead of perfection) who leave/drift out of the church – you still circulate that perfectionistic heritage that you get from Mormonism while becoming ungrounded and experiencing all the ways to “self judge” from all the Non-Mormon voices. And it takes a while to fully learn to trust your voice (if you can manage that). I think that is what the statics are capturing.

[Anonymous]

I wonder how this study accounts for missions. It would be near impossible to argue that missions aren’t rife with toxic perfectionism.

A separate rulebook. Obedience in order to be successful is the constant drumbeat.

The mission culture both comes from and feeds back into a wider church culture.

[Anonymous]

Especially for missionaries who wind up exiting church participation.

PERFECTIONISM:

I was 12 when I felt the waves of overwhelming perfectionism start to weigh down on me. I had a conversation with myself (and then reinforced through conversations with key advisors) that I was going to be an “excellentist” rather than a “perfectionist”. 5 A’s and 1 B was “good enough” for me because it was woefully unreasonable for me to expect to get A’s in math – ever. I could and should have the discipline to do what I needed to do school-wise and then get on with my life.

PERFECTIONISM AND MISSIONARY WORK:

My experience is both being a rule-bound, earnest, socially awkward missionary, being a sister (who was quasi-off-the-hook for service), and leaving the church organization (except for ordinance cancellation and name removal – I don’t need it for myself and it would be a lot of executive functioning for myself and heartbreak for others).

Both my MTC companion and myself have stopped attending church out of the 10-20 sisters who were at the MTC with us (that I know of). This might be too small a sample size – but 5%-10% of female former sister missionaries (assumed to be “very righteous”) leaving could be a decent margin to worry about. The topic of “the family leaves the church when the women leaves the church” comes up because of it’s impact on membership.

PERFECTIONISM AND POST-MISSION:

I think the hardest part for me personally was post-mission. The mission structure really helped me to know what to do and when to do it. I had a hard time building an “adult” life post-mission pre-marriage (I had a good 6 years to practice) and I was too prideful to admit I didn’t know what I was doing.

I married a “good boy intellectual rebel” – he dodged authority whenever possible but had the sense to be overall a “good person” who didn’t sleep around or abuse substances like the standard male rebel template. He doesn’t fit well in the church community because he doesn’t “do anything really bad” to earn censure (the verdict is out whether his staying at home with our kids was “bad”) and “he doesn’t participate enough” to gain respect and social status at church. But when he does show up, he is smart with thoughtful answers and a good energy. He’s a nerd and a gamer who grew up in the 90’s – so “D20 edgy” in a creative and harmless way?

[Anonymous]

Part of the perfectionism problem as relating to “males” I think is in part because culturally we expect them to be “men” and be serious, thoughtful-decision makers, leaders, and know how to “pick sides” enough to protect, and use Divine Power (aka the Priesthood) to do it as their primary means of being.

This isn’t fair to men as the explicit behavioral benchmark because as near as I can tell (shamelessly eavesdropping on Gospel Doctrine conversations, 3rd hour baby-induced hallway conversations, and direct questioning) – most men between the ages of 18-55 are really “guys” most of the time (see traits below), – or want to be “guys” and those older then 55 either relive the glory days of guydom and/or are still at it. And a lot of the males that I encountered at church seem to take off the “manly” mask (or want to) in their spare time.

TANGEANT: DAVE BARRY’S “MEN” VS “GUY” DICTOMY

Dave Barry wrote Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys which I insist that my girl children read before they get to go out into the world on a date. period. I may not be able to afford martial arts courses to keep them as safe as I would like, but I want them to be aware of what they are getting into:)

Dave Barry is/was an opinion column writer who has a way with words. He is not a deep philosopher, but then I think that some of life isn’t defined by deep philosophy, and I think he was onto a few things while playing word spitball.

https://www.studocu.com/en-us/document/daytona-state-college/introduction-to-composition/101-compare-contrast-article-guys-men/16474349

Key Points

– Guys Like Neat Stuff

– Guys Like A Really Pointless Challenge

– Guys Do Not Have A Rigid And Well-Defined Moral Code

Anyways, I think that our culture makes the perfectionism problem worse by literally expecting men to be someone they are not because we expect them to be “fulltime men” when really they are “mostly guys” and spend a lot of time doing guy-stuff.

I think it is fair to include in initial benchmarks of social judgement (that we all do), that “guys” have a collection of traits that are likely motivations for some of the choices they make (the starting points as it were). If anything, LDS guys (as near as I can tell) share the trait of liking really neat stuff, pointless challenges, and are more likely to have defined some parts of a moral code for their behavior.

I hate the “boys will be boys” saying because while I understand the cultural connotations (and respect that it is on some levels being pragmatically authentic), I feel that it puts the “boy” identifier above the “human” identifier. “Guys” don’t get a pass being held accountable for harmful behavior just because they are guys. On the other hand. expecting guys to be someone they aren’t does mess with their identity and that does matter.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Quote:

When we experience toxic perfectionism, it could be because we’re misunderstanding what the church actually teaches and what the doctrine actually is,” [Lead researcher for the BYU study, Dr. Justin Dyer] said.

Is this a real study, because that line you quoted makes it sound like a complete farce. One of their conclusions is along the same lines of saying people leave the church because they don’t have a strong enough testimony.

My experience with the church (to this day) is that there’s a near obsession with making testimonies stronger and being more and more obedient. Your testimony is never strong enough as is, there’s always a push to make it stronger. The blessings you seek in life are forever out of reach because you’re not quite obedient enough to “qualify” for them. I’m out of the trap now but I hear people say these things every Sunday I attend.

[snip]

I don’t know their methods, I don’t know if I’m in a completely different generation that’s removed from a lot of it, but I suspect someone heard some criticism that the church pushes people towards scrupulosity and a group was tasked to do a study that showed that, no, it’s the people that say church culture leads to scrupulosity that suffer the most from scrupulosity and the church is the best place in the universe to be to not develop scrupulosity.

There are four lights, and this study is the anthesis of my lived experience at church.

I look forward to their study that says the moon is the sun.

Right. That quote from Dr. Dyer seems particularly inappropriate. Most researchers will caution that correlation does not equal causation and that more research needs to be done. To speculate that maybe these people that struggle just don’t understand the church teachings and doctrine seems nakedly apologetic.

[Anonymous]

AmyJ wrote:

The LDS church doctrine gets fragmented through the voice of the leader doing the teaching. If I had to have a specific theme that is passed through the words of the prophets and leaders, I would say it’s a “Yes, but” situation. “Yes, our doctrine is that God loves us” AND that some of us are more “loved” or “blessed” then others by God. “God loves us” – but not too much, because we have to proof our worth to be loved so that our doctrine falls properly where it should on the “Works vs Faith (Love)” debate.

I think it is worth sharing here my personal experience. The catalyst for my faith crisis was the stillbirth of our third child, a daughter named Emory. I felt that maybe my faith and obedience were not strong enough to lay claim upon the protective blessings of God for my family. As part of my wrestling in the dark night of my soul, I received a spiritual experience that my stillborn daughter was completely loved and accepted (no big surprise there) AND that I was equally loved and accepted. :wtf: This latter part was shocking and world changing for me.

Fast forward about 15 years and I was meeting with my bishop during tithing declaration (I am not a full tithe payer but support my family in the payment of their tithes). He said that our little babies that die before the age of accountability are perfect and that it is the challenge of our lives to live worthily to live with them again. I gently told him that I know that Emory is my forever daughter and that I will get to be with her and discover the amazing individual that she is in the afterlife and that this is not in question or dependent on my tithing payment. I think that he wasn’t sure how to react to my gentle but firm pushback. How do you tell a grieving father that, in fact, if he doesn’t pay money to the church he will never see his deceased daughter again?

Fast forward a year or two more and we are in another tithing declaration with the same bishop. He says that something that I had said before didn’t sit right with him and that he has been mulling it over ever since. As he has studied and paid attention to the words of our living leaders in conference, he feels even more certain of the doctrine and it is his solemn duty to warn me that only those that endure to the end (and this includes a full and honest tithing payment) can be reunited with their families in the eternities.

Now it was my turn to be backed into a corner, I smiled and thanked my bishop for caring enough about me to warn me. I promised to work on my failings and take steps to increase my faith. Thus I defused the situation with gratitude and a non-committal response.

I think that it comes down to a question of authority. The LDS leaders teach that God loves us enough to bless us by sending his representatives and IF we follow their instructions then he will love/bless us even more. In that last meeting with my bishop, if I were to have insisted that I would be with my family forever regardless it would have been a direct challenge to his authority and the authority of other church leaders. I might be disciplined for apostacy – just for saying that I will live with my daughter again someday – just for saying that God loves me fully and unconditionally.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

To speculate that maybe these people that struggle just don’t understand the church teachings and doctrine seems nakedly apologetic.

I agree.

For a specific subset of individuals who struggle and no longer participate in the church community – it’s because they have studied the doctrine and church teachings to understand what was going on that drove them out and our collective/communal narrative doesn’t have a neutral tone framework for that.

There are scholars out there studying the LDS faith-specific contexts and “deconstruction” and related stuff is a universal thing that we share with other denominations (and are a source of our converts).

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

Right. That quote from Dr. Dyer seems particularly inappropriate. Most researchers will caution that correlation does not equal causation and that more research needs to be done. To speculate that maybe these people that struggle just don’t understand the church teachings and doctrine seems nakedly apologetic.

This study is of/for everyone, right? Imagine a Catholic reading that.

The people with the most scrupulosity are ex-Mormons and it’s probably because they didn’t understand the LDS doctrines enough.

C’mon.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Roy wrote:

Right. That quote from Dr. Dyer seems particularly inappropriate. Most researchers will caution that correlation does not equal causation and that more research needs to be done. To speculate that maybe these people that struggle just don’t understand the church teachings and doctrine seems nakedly apologetic.

This study is of/for everyone, right? Imagine a Catholic reading that.

The people with the most scrupulosity are ex-Mormons and it’s probably because they didn’t understand the LDS doctrines enough.

C’mon.

I think the church (as in high leadership) frequently engage in false causation as related to correlation. An example that immediately comes to mind is elimination of Young Men presidencies and turning all of their duties over to bishops because somehow there seemed to be a correlation between young men being close to their bishops related to them staying active. First of all I doubt that there really was a correlation to begin with, and any study probably didn’t go out far enough (while younger people do have faith crises, based on experience here and in real life those crises often happen much later 30s-50s often after checking all the covenant path boxes). So, relating to the above particular quote, it not only means they don’t understand the doctrine (really?) and they apparently weren’t close enough to their bishops as youth (?). Why then are we still bleeding young people? Why then are we still bleeding older people?

My son (served a mission, married in the temple, currently inactive) recently shared that his wife’s BIL came out to him as not believing the truth claims of the church anymore (due to the CES letter). They live in Happy Valley, covenant path check boxes, several children, hold church callings and TRs, etc. Has a good job, wife is SAHM (she does have a professional degree as well). “Perfect” Mormon family. Does he really not understand the doctrine? No, I think he does understand the doctrine and that precisely is the problem – the doctrine doesn’t add up (as Amy says).

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

I think the church (as in high leadership) frequently engage in false causation as related to correlation. An example that immediately comes to mind is elimination of Young Men presidencies and turning all of their duties over to bishops because somehow there seemed to be a correlation between young men being close to their bishops related to them staying active. First of all I doubt that there really was a correlation to begin with, and any study probably didn’t go out far enough (while younger people do have faith crises, based on experience here and in real life those crises often happen much later 30s-50s often after checking all the covenant path boxes). So, relating to the above particular quote, it not only means they don’t understand the doctrine (really?) and they apparently weren’t close enough to their bishops as youth (?). Why then are we still bleeding young people? Why then are we still bleeding older people?

I suspect that the study is picking up on “adult mentorship of youth” works. I’d be curious if an updated study shows that the bishop focusing on the youth is having the desired effect, or whether charging the bishop to devote so much attention to more youth is actually backfiring. And whether anyone has asked the question of “how many non-biological kids were close to the bishop and stayed in the church” vs “how many biological kids of bishops and other church leaders did we lose” because their dads didn’t have time for them and that neglect was a contributing factor. What about divorce? How many marriages failed to potentially “rescue” these non-biological kids?

The church is losing people because the church values as understood by individuals do not fit those individuals and these individuals aren’t interested in waiting around for the 50 year waiting period the church needs to adapt to some of these values. The church is losing people because the “sanctification of church activities to a spiritual purpose” is booting non-spiritually minded people from the fragmenting communities.

DarkJedi wrote:

My son (served a mission, married in the temple, currently inactive) recently shared that his wife’s BIL came out to him as not believing the truth claims of the church anymore (due to the CES letter). They live in Happy Valley, covenant path check boxes, several children, hold church callings and TRs, etc. Has a good job, wife is SAHM (she does have a professional degree as well). “Perfect” Mormon family. Does he really not understand the doctrine? No, I think he does understand the doctrine and that precisely is the problem – the doctrine doesn’t add up (as Amy says).

There are 2 approaches to the fundamental problem that “the doctrine doesn’t add up”:

[Anonymous]

Update::

I’ve spent a good amount of time trying to digest this study in an attempt to understand how they could get the reported results.

For starters, Dr. Dyer is a BYU Professor of Church History & Doctrine. That makes me think that he teaches BYU religion classes.

The study is published by “BYU Studies, whose focus is to publish scholarship aligned with the gospel of Jesus Christ”

Ok, that’s interesting and explains a lot. The study was not unbiased and never pretended to be. Dr. Dyer writes things like:

Quote:

“as Latter-day Saints, we are particularly interested in how the concept of perfectionism does and does not overlap with restored gospel truths about our potential for perfection.” and “Putting additional emphasis on the need to study perfectionism, this article demonstrates how toxic perfectionism may derail Latter-day Saint youth from the covenant path.” and “With the sustained secular winds that seem to blow against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and religion in general, we need high-quality research and thinking that critically examines popular narratives about organized religion, which often mislead rather than inform.”

Next, that article that I quoted seemed to take Morgan Dennis out of context.

Quote:

adding that being a Latter-day Saint is more about pursuing wholeness through Christ.

What she actually said in the video clip is the following:

Quote:

“That’s not what God wants for you is to be toxic in your perfectionism. It’s like pursuing wholeness through Christ, right? Not like just beating yourself up for not being perfect, right here, right now, right?”

She said essentially, “What God wants for you is to pursue wholeness/completeness through Christ” and what was reported was, “Being LDS is more about pursuing wholeness through Christ.”

[Anonymous]

https://byustudies.byu.edu/issue/63-4

Another big chunk of understanding this study is that they divide perfectionism into toxic perfectionism and healthy perfectionism:

Quote:

high standards are not the defining characteristic of toxic perfectionism; instead it’s feeling worthless when we make mistakes. Conversely, healthy perfectionism includes having high standards for oneself.

Quote:

However, past studies have found that Latter-day Saints often rate highly on healthy perfectionism.

Quote:

“Kawika Allen from BYU and Kenneth Wang from the Fuller Theological Seminary are two prominent researchers who have looked at Latter-day Saints. In two separate studies examining scrupulosity and perfectionism, they found that the majority of Latter-day Saints have high levels of healthy perfectionism (the kind of perfectionism that connects with higher levels of well-being).”

I’m not well enough versed in this type of field to know if this division of perfectionism into good perfectionism and bad perfectionism is warranted. However, I think it is important to understand the results.

Next is that the study is based on self reported answers. I’m not sure how they would avoid this but I also think it is important to understand.

I found this little gem in the discussion of using self reported answers:

Quote:

“However, although there may be some misreporting, research has shown that religious individuals, and Latter-day Saints in particular, are the most likely to give accurate self-reports.12 While religious individuals may feel more embarrassed about reporting things that do not make them “look good,” they are more likely to accurately report those things. Thus, while we should acknowledge the limitations inherent in self-reported data, it is also important to acknowledge that the Latter-day Saints in our sample are, based on previous research, likely to report with a high degree of accuracy.”

Finally, the following quotes help to explain why people in danger of leaving the church and people that have left the church experience what the study might identify as the bad kind of perfectionism.

Quote:

Figure 2 shows that individuals with higher levels of toxic perfectionism were far more likely to disaffiliate from their religious denomination than those who had low levels of toxic perfectionism. In fact, those with high levels of toxic perfectionism were more than twice as likely to disaffiliate than those with low toxic perfectionism.

Quote:

Most results suggested that perfectionism led to poorer connections with one’s church and one’s relationship with God. For instance, socially prescribed perfectionism is related to less church attendance between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. During this late-adolescent period, youth are gaining more independence, and those who feel they have to be perfect for other people may begin to distance themselves from church.

Allow me to tie this together with gross generalizations.

1) There is good perfectionism and bad perfectionism.

2) We are going to ask people how they feel about the standards and pressures at church and their mental health etc. It may be that LDS church members are more honest while providing answers that do not make themselves look good. However, I would speculate that many LDS members would be extremely reticent about providing answers that do not make their CHURCH look good.

3) People with the bad kind of perfectionism are more than twice as likely to leave their church. IOW, people that self report that their church experience is causing them mental anguish are more than twice as likely to leave their church as people that do not self report mental anguish related to their church experience.

[Author]

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