Perfectionistic concerns suppress associations between perfectionistic strivings and positive life outcomes

Abstract

Perfectionism has been frequently associated with diverse negative psychological outcomes, but less frequently with positive psychological outcomes. This investigation reports multiple regression analyses based on survey data from 216 psychology students. These analyses indicate that adaptive perfectionistic strivings and maladaptive perfectionistic concerns predict desirable outcomes including psychological well-being, life satisfaction, and affect. That perfectionistic strivings predicted these outcomes is inconsistent with the small zero-order correlations between perfectionistic strivings and the positive outcomes, indicating that maladaptive perfectionistic concerns act as a suppressor variable in this relationship. These findings illustrate the importance of conceptualizing perfectionism as having both adaptive and maladaptive dimensions, and of assessing both simultaneously when examining relationships between perfectionism and other substantive variables.

Perfectionism and eating disorder symptoms in female university students: the central role of perfectionistic self-presentation

“…Whereas this effect has no practical relevance (e.g., no one would suggest to increase self-oriented perfectionism in order to decrease bulimia), it has theoretical relevance. Self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism form part of two higher-order dimensions representing perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns [26,27], and perfectionistic strivings often show negative relations with psychological maladjustment when perfectionistic concerns are statistically controlled, suggesting that perfectionistic strivings have adaptive aspects [28,27]. In addition, self-oriented perfectionism has shown positive relations with self-control [29].…”

Physical appearance perfectionism explains variance in eating disorder symptoms above general perfectionism

“…In contrast, perfectionistic concerns capture perfectionists' concern over mistakes and fear of negative evaluations. The PHYSICAL APPEARANCE PERFECTIONISM 3 differentiation of the two dimensions is important because only perfectionistic concerns consistently show positive correlations with processes and outcomes associated with psychological maladjustment (e.g., avoidant coping, negative affect), whereas perfectionistic strivings sometimes show positive correlations with processes and outcomes associated with psychological adjustment (e.g., active coping, positive affect)-particularly when the overlap between perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns is statistically controlled for and the unique relationships of perfectionistic strivings are regarded (Hill, Huelsman, & Araujo, 2010;Stoeber & Otto, 2006). Accordingly, in research on perfectionism and disordered eating, it is mostly the aspects of perfectionistic concerns that are associated with eating disorder symptoms.…”

Multidimensional Sexual Perfectionism

“…Moreover, from research on multidimensional perfectionism cognitions (Kobori & Tanno, 2005;Stoeber, Kobori, & Tanno, 2010), we expected self-oriented, partnerprescribed, and socially prescribed sexual perfectionism to show positive relationships with negative perfectionism cognitions during sex regarding the pursuit of perfection, but only partner-prescribed and socially prescribed sexual perfectionism to show positive relationships with concern over mistakes cognitions. Finally, based on previous findings from research on multidimensional perfectionism demonstrating that the overlap between different forms of perfectionism may obscure the differential pattern of unique relationships these forms have with positive and negative characteristics, processes, and outcomes (Hill, Huelsman, & Araujo, 2010;Stoeber & Otto, 2006), we expected the pattern of relationships to be more differentiated when the overlap between the four forms of sexual perfectionism was controlled for and unique relationships were examined by means of multiple regressions.…”

“…Hill et al, 2010). Consequently, we next computed multiple regressions controlling for the overlap between the different forms of sexual perfectionism.…”