Learn Italian: Il perfezionismo e il materialismo sono due atteggiamenti diversi. - Perfectionism and materialism are two different attitudes.

In Italian, abstract nouns and broad, general concepts require a definite article when they act as the subject of a sentence. English usually drops the article for general concepts (saying "Perfectionism" instead of "The perfectionism"), so it is easy to forget them in Italian!

How does the suffix -ismo function in words like perfezionismo and materialismo?

While the -ismo suffix is frequently used to form nouns for political or philosophical ideologies (like capitalismo), it is also commonly used to describe psychological traits, behavioral tendencies, or mindsets. As the sentence explicitly points out, these two are atteggiamenti (attitudes).

If these are the attitudes, how do we use the -ista suffix to describe the people who have them?

You replace the -ismo ending with -ista. A person who shows perfezionismo is a perfezionista, and one who shows materialismo is a materialista. Remember that in the singular, -ista nouns do not change their ending for gender—you only change the article (e.g., il perfezionista for a man, la perfezionista for a woman).

How does the word atteggiamenti (attitudes) fit into the theme of derivational morphology?