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Cognitive Therapy and Research

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01.06.2008 | Original Paper

How Do the Dimensions of Perfectionism Relate to Mental Health?

verfasst von: Patricia Marten DiBartolo, Chia Yen Li, Randy O. Frost

Erschienen in: Cognitive Therapy and Research | Ausgabe 3/2008

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Abstract

The present study examined the relationship between the two central dimensions of perfectionism, Pure Personal Standards (PPS) and Maladaptive Evaluative Concerns (MEC), and psychological distress as well as positive affect. The study also explored two potential mediators, self-concealment (SC) and contingent self-worth (CSW), of the relationship between these perfectionism dimensions and various mental health measures. Participants completed questionnaires assessing perfectionism, the two mediator variables, and a number of measures of mental health, including depression, fear of negative evaluation, positive affectivity, and eating disorder symptomatology. Analyses revealed that extracting out the MEC from PPS perfectionism scores using partial correlations removed the one significant correlation of PPS with psychopathology, and strengthened its positive correlation with well-being. In contrast, the MEC dimension of perfectionism was positively related to psychopathology and negatively related to well-being, even when controlling for PPS scores using partial correlations. Mediational analyses indicated that CSW significantly mediated the relationships between PPS and mental health, including fully mediating the relationship between PPS and each measure of psychopathology. Multiple mediational analyses revealed that SC and/or CSW mediated the relationships between MEC and mental health indices. These findings suggest that the central aspect of perfectionism related to psychopathology is the MEC dimension whereas PPS is more closely associated with positive features of mental health. Findings also suggest that future investigations of the relationship between perfectionism and psychopathology take into consideration the mediating effects of SC and CSW.

Shafran et al. (2002) critique the multidimensional models of perfectionism, declaring that many features of perfectionism measured in these models, particularly those representing Maladaptive Evaluative Concerns (MEC) (Frost et al. 1993), do not assess perfectionism. Although Shafran et al. claim to favor a unidimensional approach to the study of perfectionism, in some places their definition seems almost multidimensional. For example, they note that clinical perfectionism includes both striving to achieve exacting personal standards as well as a marked fear of failure which will generate self-criticism and negative self-evaluation when these standards are not met. In fact, this fear of failure and critical self-evaluative processes are what many other researchers describe as constituting the MEC dimension of perfectionism (cf. Frost et al. 1990; DiBartolo et al. 2004; Dunkley et al. 2006)

The possibility that there are items embedded within a perfectionism measure that may create inappropriate conceptual overlap between the Positive Achievement Striving (PAS) and MEC dimensions is not unique to Frost et al.’s (1990) MPS. There is additional evidence that items of the HMPS subscale (i.e., Self-Oriented Perfectionism) that belong to the PAS dimension of perfectionism may be similarly contaminated by items reflecting MEC (cf. McCreary et al. 2004). In addition, much of the work investigating the relationship between perfectionism and eating disorders relies on scores from the perfectionism subscale of the Eating Disorders Inventory (Garner et al. 1983), a presumptively unidimensional measure that factor analytic studies find includes both PAS and MEC aspects (Joiner and Schmidt 1995; Sherry et al. 2004).

The PSWS total scores were positively correlated (all p-values <0.001) with CSWS scores, r = 0.67, and each measure of psychopathology (FNE r = 0.50; DASS-D r = 0.42; EDDS r = 0.24) but not with positive affectivity. The ABSW and SBSW subscales of the PSWS evidenced the same pattern of correlations as the total score.

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Titel: How Do the Dimensions of Perfectionism Relate to Mental Health?
verfasst von: Patricia Marten DiBartolo
Chia Yen Li
Randy O. Frost
Publikationsdatum: 01.06.2008
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Cognitive Therapy and Research / Ausgabe 3/2008
Print ISSN: 0147-5916
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-2819
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-007-9157-7

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