Gen Z Are Terrified Of Getting Things Wrong. Here's Why

“The belief that others demand perfection” is growing among young people, research has found.

Young people today aren’t just anxious about failure, they’re experiencing it at levels their parents never did. And the data now proves it.

A recent study published in Psychological Bulletin in May 2026, co-authored by Dr Thomas Curran, Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics (LSE), analysed data from 307 studies involving more than 82,000 university students across the UK, US and Canada between 1989 and 2024. The findings are striking: “perfectionistic concerns” encompassing fear of failure, excessive concern over mistakes, indecisiveness and anxiety about being negatively judged, have increased substantially over 35 years, with a sharp acceleration since the early 2000s.

This isn’t just about wanting top marks. As Dr Curran puts it: “Our findings show that perfectionism among young people is accelerating, particularly the belief that others demand perfection of them.” So what’s driving it? And why does Generation Z carry the heaviest burden?

A Job Market That Punishes Inexperience

For previous generations, the path from education to employment was imperfect but navigable. You graduated, you applied, you got your foot in the door. New graduates are stepping into a broken system: jobs that aren’t really entry-level, internships you can’t afford to take, and industries that restructure before you’ve even got your foot in the door.

The LSE study found that rising inequality and declining GDP per capita are closely linked to steeper increases........

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