Self-critical perfectionism and depressive and anxious symptoms over 4 years: The mediating role of daily stress reactivity.

Abstract

This study of 150 community adults examined heightened emotional reactivity to daily stress as a mediator in the relationships between self-critical (SC) perfectionism and depressive and anxious symptoms over a period of 4 years. Participants completed questionnaires assessing: perfectionism dimensions, general depressive symptoms (i.e., shared with anxiety), specific depressive symptoms (i.e., anhedonia), general anxious symptoms (i.e., shared with depression), and specific anxious symptoms (i.e., somatic anxious arousal) at Time 1; daily stress and affect (e.g., sadness, negative affect) for 14 consecutive days at Month 6 and Year 3; and depressive and anxious symptoms at Year 4. Path analyses indicated that SC perfectionism predicted daily stress-sadness reactivity (i.e., greater increases in sadness in response to increases in stress) across Month 6 and Year 3, which in turn explained why individuals with higher SC perfectionism had more general depressive symptoms, anhedonic depressive symptoms, and general anxious symptoms, respectively, 4 years later. In contrast, daily reactivity to stress with negative affect did not mediate the prospective relation between SC perfectionism and anhedonic depressive symptoms. Findings also demonstrated that higher mean levels of daily stress did not mediate the relationship between SC perfectionism and depressive and anxious symptoms 4 years later. These findings highlight the importance of targeting enduring heightened stress reactivity in order to reduce SC perfectionists' vulnerability to depressive and anxious symptoms over the long term.

Parental Cultural Socialization and Adolescent Private Regard: Exploring Mediating Pathways Through Daily Experiences

“…Indeed, theoretical work has highlighted the developmental importance of interrelated events that occur repeatedly over time (Elder et al, 2015). This assertion is further supported with empirical observations on stress reactivity where the daily association between stress and negative mood (i.e., stress reactivity) predicts subsequent psychological well-being (Charles et al, 2013;Mandel et al, 2015). The investigation of associative, or strength of relationship, mediation is made possible by intensive longitudinal data measuring individual experiences across situations, highlighting the value of experience sampling approaches for elucidating nuanced, dynamic pathways of development.…”

“…In our model, the random slope is not only an outcome (as considered in cross‐level interaction), but also a predictor that can translate into long‐term development. A similar notion of strength of relationship has recently been used in research assessing individuals' affective responses to stress in daily lives (Charles, Piazza, Mogle, Sliwinski, & Almeida, ; Mandel, Dunkley, & Moroz, ). By linking the person‐level association between daily stress and affect (i.e., stress reactivity) to long‐term psychological well‐being, this line of work highlights the developmental significance of investigating accumulative affective responses in daily lives.…”

Does an emotion‐focused two‐chair dialogue add to the therapeutic effect of the empathic attunement to affect?

“…The two‐chair dialogue in EFT is specifically designed to be employed when clients display destructive self‐criticism. Self‐criticism is a transdiagnostic phenomenon that is associated with a range of psychological disorders, including depression (Kopala‐Sibley, Zuroff, Hankin, & Abela, ; Moroz & Dunkley, ; Yamaguchi, Kim, & Akutsu, ) and anxiety (Kopala‐Sibley, Zuroff, Russell, & Moskowitz, ; Mandel, Dunkley, & Moroz, ). Conversely, reducing self‐criticism is associated with a reduction in the symptoms of different kinds of psychological distress (Iancu, Bodner, & Ben‐Zion, ; Kelly, Zuroff, & Shapira, ; Leaviss & Uttley, ; Moroz & Dunkley, ; Shahar et al, ).…”

The Role of Trait and State Perfectionism in Psychological Detachment From Daily Job Demands

“…Beyond these main effects of trait perfectionism on psychological adjustment, the diathesis-stress model states that certain facets of perfectionism should enhance the probability that distress will emerge in the face of a stressful situation (Chang & Rand, 2000;Flett, Hewitt, & Dyck, 1989;Hewitt & Dyck, 1986). Different studies have supported the idea that DPC were associated with an enhanced reactivity to daily stress, life stress, and experimentally induced demands, whereas DPS were associated with less negative and even some positive responses, especially when THE ROLE OF PERFECTIONISM IN DETACHMENT 6 the overlap with DPC was controlled for (e.g., Besser, Flett, Hewitt, & Guez, 2008;Chang & Rand, 2000;Mandel, Dunkley, & Moroz, 2015;Wirtz et al, 2007). Whereas perfectionism has frequently been investigated in student and athlete samples, the specific role of perfectionism for employees' job-related behavior and well-being has been left largely unexplored.…”