The starting point for the project is the finding that modern Western societies reproduce themselves dynamically, i.e., they are based on constant growth and innovation, and that the modes of increasing effectiveness change in the course of this process. Dynamic growth thus not only implies the acceleration of social processes, but also requires the permanent optimization of social practice in various areas of life. The various optimization logics in different sub-areas, some of which are structurally opposed to each other, must in turn be balanced at the level of individual lifestyles and, in this sense, attempts must be made to perfect them.
The project is thus guided by the assumption that there is a specific connection between acceleration, optimization, and perfection, which has yet to be investigated at various levels of society. Based on the hypothesis that the demands of a perfected lifestyle favor biographical patterns and coping mechanisms that systematically tend to undermine the resources of social relationships and psychological processing capacities, the potentially counterproductive consequences of perfectionist demands are examined in particular. From this perspective, there are obvious connections between (aporias of) perfectionism and phenomena that can be understood as pathologies typical of our time, such as exhaustion and excessive demands, as well as pathologically exaggerated forms of self-optimization (especially those involving body manipulation). Against this background, the project aims to compare the similarities and differences between everyday biographical patterns of optimization and perfectionism and the coping strategies of clinically conspicuous groups.
To this end, a three-pronged, multidisciplinary approach has been designed that combines various qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first subproject (Rosa), a matrix for a diagnosis of the times and society will be developed from a macrosociological perspective which will be further differentiated in the second subproject (King) through a biographical microanalysis that takes into account generational aspects of socialization processes and psychological processing patterns, while the third subproject (Gerisch) will focus on the effects at the psychological level with a view to the turning point between self-optimization and self-destruction.
The innovative benefit of this three-pronged research approach lies in the opportunity it provides to explore open questions in social theory regarding the complex mediation of social and individual factors in the context of the cultural transformation processes described above. The results are relevant for socialization and development research as well as for clinical diagnosis and prevention—and are also of great interest from a societal perspective.
Original language: German
Projektbeginn: 01/2012
Projektende: 04/2018