{
  "id": "perfectionism.zero-width",
  "term": "perfectionism",
  "sense": "zero-width",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 17,
  "domain": "psychology",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "a self-model whose window has been narrowed to nothing, so each parameter value reads as outside and maintenance never stops.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "self.personal",
      "model.representation",
      "window.range",
      "narrow.spatial",
      "nothing.absence",
      "parameter.condition",
      "value.worth",
      "read.information",
      "outside.spatial",
      "maintenance.upkeep",
      "never.temporal",
      "stop.action"
    ],
    "interaction": "The acceptance window is narrowed until it has no interior, so no achievable parameter value can ever register as inside, and the corrective maintenance that a window normally terminates runs without a stopping condition.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "uninhabitable acceptance window",
      "unterminating correction",
      "success-proof evaluation"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "A writer revises the first chapter for years because every draft reads as a failed version of the unwritten one.",
      "domain": "culture"
    },
    {
      "text": "A pixel-perfect design review rejects every build, so the product ships on a deadline exception instead of an approval.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "A gymnast scores near the maximum and files the routine with the failures.",
      "domain": "sport"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "good-enough.threshold",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "perfectionism narrows the window to nothing so maintenance never stops; good-enough stops maintenance at a wall while drift is already narrowing the window"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "perfectionism",
    "perfectionist",
    "perfectionists"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5:curated-selfmodel",
    "date": "2026-08-22",
    "confidence": 0.8,
    "sources": [
      "curated self-model expansion"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-perfectionism.zero-width"
}