The relationship between perfectionism and multidimensional life satisfaction among Croatian and American youth

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Abstract

Although much research investigating multidimensional perfectionism has been conducted among adults from various cultures, little is known of the cross-cultural manifestation of perfectionism among school-age youth. In addition, no cross-cultural studies have compared the perceived life quality of youth identified as adaptive perfectionists (i.e., high personal standards but low distress when the standards are not met), maladaptive perfectionists (i.e., high personal standards, high distress), and non-perfectionists (i.e., significantly lower personal standards). In this study, Croatian youth completed the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised and the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale. Reports from this group were compared to a group of American youth. Results found differential predictive values of personal standards and discrepancy across satisfaction domains for both groups. Further, adaptive perfectionists reported significantly higher satisfaction across many life domains for both groups than maladaptive perfectionists and non-perfectionists. Males and females reported statistically equivalent satisfaction levels across most life domains-with the exception of friendship satisfaction. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research conclude the paper.

Introduction

Although a precise definition of perfectionism remains elusive, the setting of especially high personal standards is a universally accepted characteristic (Flett & Hewitt, 2002). Historically, perfectionism has been conceptualized as a unidimensional construct with some authors viewing perfectionism as synonymous with psychological distress (e.g., Ellis, 1962, Missildine, 1963). Conversely, other authors believed that having high personal standards was necessary for positive mental health (e.g., Adler, 1956). To reconcile these disparate views, Hamachek (1978) proposed a multidimensional model of perfectionism consisting of two separate but related subtypes. Normal perfectionists are individuals who report excessively high standards but nevertheless accept the fact that these standards will not always be attained. In contrast, neurotic perfectionists set similarly high standards but have difficulty accepting instances when their standards cannot be accomplished. Individuals in this latter group often find it difficult to feel satisfied with themselves or their performance and are often driven by the fear of failure more than the desire to succeed.

Empirical studies among adults have supported Hamachek’s (1978) conceptualization. For example, normal (or adaptive) perfectionism has been significantly and positively related to self-esteem (Ashby & Rice, 2002), internal locus of control (Perisamy & Ashby, 2002), and positive affect (Rice & Mirzadeh, 2000). Conversely, neurotic (or maladaptive) perfectionism has been significantly related to depression (Bieling, Israeli, & Antony, 2004) and anxiety (Kawamura, Hunt, Frost, & DiBartolo, 2001).

Although extant findings have effectively challenged the view that perfectionism is unilaterally pathological, the majority of research continues to focus on maladaptive cognitions (Slaney, Rice, & Ashby, 2002). Very little research has investigated how the dimensions of perfectionism may contribute to positive psychological well-being, or life satisfaction (Bieling et al., 2004, Chang, 2000). Life satisfaction is defined as an individual’s conscious, cognitive appraisal of the quality of his or her life (Headey & Wearing, 1992) and may reflect a global (i.e., overall) appraisal as well as appraisals within specific life domains (e.g., family, self). Given that multidimensional life satisfaction reports are differentially related to a number of important psychological states and behaviors, including depression (Lewinsohn, Redner, & Seeley, 1991), self-esteem (Arrindell, Heesink, & Feij, 1999), and hope (Chang, 2003), the construct is considered to be a key indicator of an individuals’ successful adaptation to changes in life circumstances (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999).

Goal striving is one such circumstance that is significantly and positively related to life satisfaction reports (Diener, 2000), with these reports varying depending upon how well an individual can adapt to instances when goals cannot be attained (Emmons, 1986). Such findings are salient to perfectionistic individuals. That is, considering their cognitive flexibility adaptive perfectionists may report significantly higher life satisfaction than their maladaptive perfectionistic peers. As support for this hypothesis, Chang, Watkins, and Banks (2004) found that college students identified as adaptive perfectionists reported significantly higher global life satisfaction than maladaptive perfectionists. However, only global satisfaction was assessed in that study. Given that perfectionism can be manifested across a number of life domains (Flett & Hewitt, 2002), additional research is necessary to determine how multidimensional life satisfaction may differ with respect to adaptive and maladaptive subtypes.

School-aged youth were the group of interest in this study considering the overall sense of competitiveness stressed in many schools that has lead to a shift in perfectionistic thinking (Rice & Preusser, 2002). As Brown et al. (1999) noted, the prospect of evaluation is a ubiquitous experience for youth, and these prolonged and repeated experiences may lead to different perceptions of life quality among youth who establish high personal standards. Unfortunately, very little is known of how youth identified as either adaptive or maladaptive perfectionists perceive their life satisfaction across various domains. Further, these perceptions may be fundamentally different from youth who report comparatively lower personal standards (i.e., non-perfectionists), as has been documented among adult samples (Slaney et al., 2002). A recent study (Gilman & Ashby, 2003) found that adaptive perfectionists reported higher self-satisfaction than maladaptive perfectionists. Further, both perfectionistic groups reported higher self-satisfaction than non-perfectionists, suggesting that setting high standards maintains a level of self-worth that transcends distress when such standards are not met. Nevertheless, the Gilman and Ashby (2003) study is the only published study to date on this topic. Additional research is necessary to understand how perfectionistic subtypes may differentially report multidimensional life satisfaction, as well as to investigate unexplored but important areas.

One unexplored area focuses on cultural experiences and their influence on perceptions of life quality. While some research has reported cross-cultural differences in both life satisfaction (e.g., Park, Huebner, Laughlin, Valois, & Gilman, 2004) and perfectionism constructs among youth (Parker, Portesova, & Stumpf, 2001), cross-cultural studies have yet to investigate how multidimensional life satisfaction may differ across perfectionism subtypes. Further, although studies have investigated gender differences in perfectionism, most have investigated this relationship within the larger context of clinical syndromes such as eating disorders (Sherry, Hewitt, Besser, McGee, & Flett, 2004) and suicide risk (Gould, King, & Greenwald, 1998), or have utilized highly specific samples such as gifted youth (Siegle & Schuler, 2000). To our knowledge, no studies pertaining to this topic have been conducted among general samples of youth.

In this study, Croatian and American youth were administered the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (APS-R: Slaney et al., 2002) and the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS: Huebner, 1994). Croatian youth were chosen given the decades-long war that has resulted in debilitating economic, social, and occupational stressors. Such stressors have forced higher education to impose stricter college admission standards among students, which has lead to greater emphasis on high achievement at the middle and high school level (Knezevic and Ovsenik, 2001, Rijavec and Brdar, 2002). Given the similarly high expectations held for American youth (Rice & Preusser, 2002), and considering previous findings among this group (Gilman & Ashby, 2003), some similarity in life satisfaction reporting was expected among perfectionistic youth in both cultures. In particular, it was expected that youth identified as adaptive perfectionists would report significantly higher multidimensional satisfaction ratings than youth identified as maladaptive perfectionists. It was also expected that both perfectionistic subtypes would report significantly higher life satisfaction ratings than youth identified as non-perfectionists.

Section snippets

Participants

For the American sample, 341 students in one school district in the Southeast completed the research instruments. Permission to obtain individual socioeconomic status (SES) was not granted, although the school populations were known to include a wide range of SES levels. The sample was comprised of 57% female and 87% Caucasian (vs. 4% Asian–American, 2% African–American, 3% Hispanic–American, and 4% “Other”) students. The mean grade was 8.95 (SD = 1.98) and the mean age was 14.59 (SD = 2.14).

A

Results

Separate multiple regression analyses were first conducted to determine how the APS-R subscales may predict the MSLSS domains before specifically identifying perfectionistic youth. Given the number of variables analyzed, criterion for significance was set at .01 and only significant findings will be reported. As reported in Table 3, the Standards subscale was a positive and unique predictor of school satisfaction for the Croatian sample, while the Discrepancy subscale was a unique negative

Discussion

The results of this study found that holding high personal standards was a positive and unique predictor of school satisfaction for both cultural groups, suggesting that youth who maintain high standards perceive their school experiences in a more positive fashion. Further, satisfaction with self was the only domain in which the Standards and Discrepancy subscales contributed differential predictive values for both cultural groups. Considering that self-satisfaction closely parallels

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