Perfectionism and the Big Five: Conscientiousness predicts longitudinal increases in self-oriented perfectionism

Abstract

Findings from cross-sectional studies on the relationship between perfectionism and the Big Five personality traits demonstrate that conscientiousness shows significant positive correlations with self-oriented perfectionism, and neuroticism with socially prescribed perfectionism. The question is whether conscientiousness and neuroticism also predict longitudinal changes in self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism. A sample of 214 adolescents aged 14-19 years completed measures of the Big Five and perfectionism twice over a period of 5 to 8 months. As was expected, conscientiousness predicted longitudinal increases in self-oriented perfectionism. Neuroticism, however, did not predict any longitudinal increases in perfectionism-neither in self-oriented nor in socially prescribed perfectionism.

Perfectionism and Performance

“…Moreover, other factors than parental factors need to be taken into account, for example, differences in children's broad personality traits. As was shown in a recent longitudinal study, adolescents who were high in the personality trait of conscientiousness (i.e., the personality trait capturing individual differences in J. Stoeber: Perfectionism and Performance 20 organization, persistence, and motivation in goal-directed behavior) were found to show increases in perfectionistic strivings over time (Stoeber, Otto, & Dalbert, 2009), indicating that individual differences in trait conscientiousness are a factor in the development of perfectionistic strivings.…”

Longitudinal Links Between Perfectionism and Depression in Children

“…In the current study Hewitt and Flett's (1991b) conceptualization of perfectionism was used because it is well-validated and most commonly used in perfectionism research (e.g., Chang and Rand, 2000;Flett, Coulter, Hewitt, & Nepon, 2011;Flett et al, 1995;Flett, Panico, & Hewitt, 2011;Stoeber, Otto, & Dalbert, 2009). Hewitt and Flett posited that perfectionism consists of three dimensions which differ not in the behaviour per se, but in the target (self vs. others) and motivation (socially-vs. self-motivated) of the perfectionistic behaviour.…”

Personalidad e infancia. Diferencias en función de los niveles de Perfeccionismo Auto-Orientado

“…Sin embargo, aseguran que la consideración del PAO como un rasgo positivo se debe a la confusión de este constructo con la conciencia, uno de los cinco grandes rasgos de la personalidad (véase John y Srivastava, 1999, para una revisión). En este sentido, son diversas las investigaciones que han analizado la relación entre el PAO y el modelo de los cinco grandes rasgos: Extraversión, Neuroticismo, Conciencia, Apertura a la Experiencia y Cordialidad (Cuttler y Graf, 2007;De Cuyper, Claes, Hermans, Pieters y Smits, 2015;Dunkley y Kyparissis, 2008;Hill, McIntire y Bacharach, 1997;Nathanson, Paulhus y Williams, 2006;Sherry, Hewitt, Flett, LeeBaggley y Hall, 2007;Stoeber, Otto y Dalbert, 2009). Hill et al (1997) encontraron, en una muestra de 214 universitarios estadounidenses con una edad media de 19 años, que el PAO correlacionó positiva y significativamente tan sólo con Conciencia.…”

“…Con datos longitudinales y empleando 214 adolescentes alemanes entre 14 y 19 años, Stoeber et al (2009) observaron que el PAO correlacionó significativa y positivamente con las puntuaciones en Conciencia para un intervalo de 5 a 8 meses, así como significativa y negativamente con Cordialidad. No obstante, la relación entre el PAO y los rasgos de Neuroticismo, Extraversión y Apertura a la experiencia no alcanzaron la significación estadística.…”

“…Hipótesis 1: los alumnos con alto PAO obtengan significativamente puntuaciones más altas en conciencia que sus iguales con bajo PAO, en consonancia con las investigaciones previas que han hallado evidencias acerca de una relación positiva y significativa entre ambas variables (Cuttler y Graf, 2007;De Cuyper et al, 2015;Dunkley y Kyparissis, 2008;Hill et al, 1997;Nathanson et al, 2006;Sherry et al, 2007;Stoeber et al, 2009).…”