| The purpose of the study was to examine the extent to which two types of perfectionism, self-oriented versus socially prescribed perfectionism, can be differentiated by their correlations with a variety of maladaptive and adaptive constructs such as self-esteem, perceived self-control, achievement motivation, depression, anxiety, suicidal proneness, shame, guilt, and procrastination. Additionally, this study also expected to confirm previous associations between the two types of perfectionism and these psychological variables. Participants (N = 475) came from a southeastern university (mean age of 20.9 years, 68% Caucasians). R to Z transformations indicated that self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism had significantly different levels of correlations with self-esteem, perceived self-control, achievement motivation, depression, anxiety, suicidal proneness, shame, guilt, and procrastination. Generally, socially prescribed perfectionism had stronger associations with maladaptive constructs than did self-oriented perfectionism. Consistent with Rice et al.'s (1998) theory, results were obtained that suggest that self-oriented perfectionism may contain adaptive aspects. |
