Adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism in depression : preliminary evidence on the role of adaptive and maladaptive rumination

Perfectionism is a multidimensional construct, with some dimensions being adaptive (perfectionistic strivings) and others maladaptive (perfectionistic concerns). Evidence shows that perfectionistic concerns increase risk for depression because they foster rumination. In this paper two aspects of rumination are disentangled, i.e. abstract-analytical (AA) vs. concrete-experiential (CE), to show that depressive effects of perfectionism are associated with the AA rumination, whereas CE rumination should conversely be associated to perfectionistic strivings and unrelated to depression. Questionnaires assessing rumination, perfectionism and depressive symptoms were administered to 174 non-clinical participants. Consistent with hypotheses, results showed that AA rumination fully mediates the relationship between perfectionistic concerns and depressive symptoms. However, no complementary association was found between perfectionistic strivings and CE. Theoretical implications about adaptiveness of perfectionistic strivings, as well as cognitive treatment implications, are addressed in the discussion. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Theoretical background Perfectionism is conceived as a personality trait characterized by the tendency to hold and pursue exceedingly high standards and critical evaluations of one’s own behavior and performance (Flett & Hewitt, 2002; Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990). Although this trait is associated with high achievement (Witcher, Alexander, Onwuegbuzie, Collins, & Witcher, 2007), adaptive coping (Blankstein & Dunkley, 2002) and conscientiousness (Enns & Cox, 2002), a large body of evidence also demonstrated that perfectionists show a vulnerability to various forms of psychological distress, such as anxiety, depression and sustained anger (see for a review: Hewitt & Flett, 2002). As a consequence, perfectionism is commonly considered as a multi-dimensional construct, whose dimensions are in part adaptive and in part maladaptive. In the attempt to understand what does account for this difference, numerous studies have investigated the role of mental rumination (Flett, Madorsky, Hewitt, & Heisel, 2002; Harris, Pepper, & Maack, 2008). This idea is based on the fact that perfectionism fosters an excess of evaluation and criticism, which is phenomenologically consistent with rumination. ll rights reserved. sychology, Université catho8 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Schiena). The objective of this study is to further specify this pattern of association, distinguishing between adaptive and maladaptive components of rumination. The hypothesis is that maladaptive perfectionism increases the risk of developing depressive symptoms, as it is associated to a maladaptive type of rumination, whereas adaptive perfectionism is unrelated to depressive symptoms and it should be rather associated to an adaptive type of rumination. The following paragraphs summarize research conducted so far on this topic, for which the present study is an extension. 1.1. Adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism: Perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns The multidimensional conception of perfectionism is reflected in current measures of this trait. In particular the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, by Frost and colleagues (F-MPS; Frost et al., 1990), assesses five dimensions: Concern over Mistakes (CM), Personal Standards (PS), Parental Expectations (PE), Parental Criticism (PC), and Doubts about Action (DA). Factor analytic studies showed that these dimensions loaded on two main factors: the one labelled ‘‘perfectionistic concerns’’ and loaded by PE, PC, CM and DA, opposed to the other, loaded by PS and labelled ‘‘perfectionistic strivings’’ (Dunkley, Blankstein, Masheb, & Grilo, 2006; Stöber & Otto, 2006). In other terms, maladaptive perfectionism is characterized by being overcritical of one’s own behaviors, as well as by