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Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode Teaching For Better Humans.

About Thomas Curran's TED Talk

Many students feel unrelenting pressure to be ... perfect. Social psychologist Thomas Curran warns that striving for perfectionism isn't just impossible — it's also dangerous to children's health.

About Thomas Curran

Social psychologist Thomas Curran currently teaches and conducts research at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

He is a member of the Centre for Motivation and Health Behavior Change, as well as the Motivation, Personality, and Well-being Research Group.

He has written and spoken extensively on how we have created societies calibrated to promote perfectionism, which is contributing to almost epidemic levels of mental illness among young people.

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