Perfectionist? You Don’t Need to Sleep: An interplay of Daytime Sleepiness and Task Performance

Prior studies show the relationship between perfectionism and insomnia, and the detrimental effects of insomnia on performance, job satisfaction, self-control, organizational citizenship behavior, and interpersonal deviance. In the present study, we hypothesize that perfectionism has a significant impact on task performance. However, the relationship between the two is riddled by daytime sleepiness. The indirect effect of perfectionism on performance through daytime sleepiness is contingent upon the perfectionism level of an individual. Empirical investigation of the hypothesized relationships was conducted on four professional groups such as Consultants, Academicians, Marketing Managers and Technical professionals. A total no. of 419 responses were collected through questionnaire administration. Data was analyzed using SPSS, AMOS (version-22) and Process Macro for SPSS (2013). Results indicate that Self-oriented and Other-oriented perfectionism significantly predicts daytime sleepiness. Both perfectionism and daytime sleepiness are significant predictors of task performance. The mediation effect of daytime sleepiness on task performance significantly depends on the level of perfectionism of the participants. Grounded upon the study results, implications for future research are discussed.