Research finds perfectionism rising among college students, with fear of failure and judgment growing faster than the drive to achieve. You have described children who receive attention only when they achieve something and end up bound to proving themselves for life. Does today's perfectionism among young people grow from the same root?

I'm curious what kind of study this is. I imagine it would differ considerably depending on the country. I don't know what group is being referred to, but if perfectionism is increasing among the younger generation, I don't think it can be explained by generalizing from the mechanism in the example I mentioned earlier. Focusing more on fear and loss is a natural human tendency, so the candidate causes for that phenomenon that I can guess at right now are an increase in opportunities to be exposed to such negative feedback (social media being the typical example), or an environment where it is difficult to form the strong attachments that would allow a person to protect the self from that loss.