Regular Article
Personality Correlates of Depression and Health Symptoms: A Test of a Self-Regulation Model

https://doi.org/10.1006/jrpe.1996.0017Get rights and content

Abstract

Previous research has implicated personality traits in the experience of both physical and psychological symptoms among college students. The current study assessed the extent to which various personality factors (e.g. perfectionism, procrastination, self-efficacy expectancies) are correlated with depressive symptom and psychosomatic symptom self-report in a college sample. In addition, the present research also tested predictions from self-regulation models that would suggest that personality factors may interact to account for unique variance in depression and health symptoms. A total of 179 students (77 men, 102 women) completed measures of perfectionism, self-efficacy, procrastination, health symptoms, and depression. Correlational analyses revealed that depression scores were related to socially prescribed perfectionism, self-efficacy dimensions, and procrastination. Physical symptom report was associated with personal and social dimensions of perfectionism, low self-efficacy, and depression. Regression results indicated that self-efficacy and socially prescribed perfectionism interacted to predict unique variance in depression and physical symptom report. The results provided partial support for the application of a self-regulation model to the study of psychological distress and somatic problems in college students. Results are discussed in terms of their practical and theoretical implications.

References (0)

Cited by (96)

  • The destructiveness and public health significance of socially prescribed perfectionism: A review, analysis, and conceptual extension

    2022, Clinical Psychology Review
    Citation Excerpt :

    Evidence suggests they have difficulty accepting the past (Sherry, Sherry, Hewitt, Mushquash, & Flett, 2015), and a wealth of data suggests that current experiences are marked by distress and other difficulties (see Hewitt, Flett, & Mikail, 2017 for a review). As for views of the future, findings indicate socially prescribed perfectionism is associated negatively with trait optimism (Blankstein, Lumley, & Crawford, 2007; Martin, Flett, Hewitt, Krames, & Szanto, 1996) as well as a greater number of negative expectancies about the future and fewer positive expectancies when participants predicted the future probability of events (Stoeber & Corr, 2017). Previously, Hunter and O’Connor (2003) found among clinical patients who had engaged in parasuicide that socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with fewer positive thoughts about the future after controlling for self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionism.

  • What makes a good study day? An intraindividual study on university students’ time investment by means of time-series analyses

    2019, Learning and Instruction
    Citation Excerpt :

    Meta-analyses (Richardson, Bond, & Abraham, 2012; van Eerde, 2003) have revealed a weak significant relation with performance. Finally, procrastination has been linked with negative affective outcomes, like higher levels of depression and lower levels of self-esteem (Lay & Schouwenburg, 1993; Lay, 1992; Martin, Flett, Hewitt, Krames, & Szanto, 1996). Against this background, we suggest that procrastination is inversely related with students' daily study satisfaction.

  • Perfectionism as a Critical Disadvantage for Sustainable Development in Organizational Contexts

    2023, Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development in Organizations
View all citing articles on Scopus

The present article is based on a master's thesis conducted by the first author under the supervision of the second author. Portions of this paper were presented during August, 1993, at the 101st annual conference of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and during April, 1994, at the 65th annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association in Providence, Rhode Island. The authors thank Michael Friendly, Clarry Lay, and Kathyrn Koenig for their helpful advice on earlier versions of this work. This research was supported by Grant 410-91-0856 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded to the second and third authors. Address reprint requests to Gordon L. Flett, Department of Psychology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, North York, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada.

View full text