رابطه بین کمال گرایی ناسازگارانه و نشانه های افسردگی: نقش میانجی نشخوار فکری

Maladaptive perfectionism is associated with both rumination and depressive symptoms (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990). In the current study we tested whether rumination, as well as the rumination components of reflective pondering and brooding, mediates the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and depressive symptoms. College students (N = 96) completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale-Frost ( Frost et al., 1990) and retrospectively reported levels of rumination on the Response Styles Questionnaire ( Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991) and depressive symptoms on the Beck Depression Inventory II ( Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996) following a disappointing exam. Consistent with our model, rumination mediated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and depressive symptoms. Brooding, a component of rumination, also mediated this relationship whereas reflective pondering was a partial mediator. Results support a model whereby students who score high on maladaptive perfectionism report higher depressive symptoms through a mechanism of rumination.

Perfectionism is associated with increased depressive symptoms (e.g., Enns and Cox, 1999 and Frost et al., 1993) and predicts the development of later episodes of major depression (Hewitt, Flett, & Ediger, 1996). In this study we tested whether rumination, which is associated with both perfectionism and depressive symptoms, is a possible mediator of this relationship (Flett, Madorsky, Hewitt, & Heisel, 2002). According to this model, perfectionistic individuals are more likely to ruminate about mistakes, thereby increasing their depressive symptoms. Perfectionism has been conceptualized in a variety of ways (Enns & Cox, 2002), but is often viewed as a broad construct with multiple facets. One commonly used measure of perfectionism, the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale-Frost (MPS; Frost et al., 1990), is used to assess six dimensions of perfectionism: Concern over Mistakes (CM), Personal Standards (PS), Parental Expectations (PE), Parental Criticism (PC), Doubts about Action (DA), and Organization (O). Factor analytic studies of the MPS-Frost alone or in combination with other perfectionism scales have consistently found two factors (e.g., Cox et al., 2002 and Frost et al., 1993). Although authors have used different labels for these factors, they regularly find one factor associated with setting high standards and striving toward those goals, often called “positive striving” or “adaptive perfectionism” (Dunkley, Blankstein, Masheb, & Grilo, 2006). The PS and O subscales of the MPS-Frost have been found to load on factors of adaptive perfectionism (Enns & Cox, 1999). Multiple studies have found that positive striving is not associated or only weakly associated with subsequent depressive symptoms (e.g., Antony et al., 1998, Enns and Cox, 1999 and Stöber, 1998) and is associated with conscientiousness (e.g., Campbell and Di Paula, 2002 and Enns and Cox, 2002) and coping (Blankstein & Dunkley, 2002). Some authors have even referred to the positive striving component as Adaptive Perfectionism (Enns and Cox, 1999 and Slaney et al., 2002) or Positive Perfectionism (Slade & Owens, 1998), although others contend that no form of perfectionism is adaptive (Blatt, 1995 and Flett and Hewitt, 2006). The second factor is characterized by being overly critical of one’s own behavior and concerned about others’ criticism and expectations, often called “excessive evaluation concerns” or “maladaptive perfectionism” (Dunkley et al., 2006). The relationship between perfectionism and depression appears to be due to the excessive evaluative component of perfectionism, which includes the CM and DA subscales of the MPS-Frost (e.g., Sherry, Hewitt, Flett, & Harvey, 2003). CM and DA have been found to have the largest correlations with depressive symptoms and have been shown to interact with negative life events to predict depressive symptoms five months later (Enns, Cox, & Clara, 2005). When combined into a single scale, CM and DA correlate with symptoms of depression and anxiety (Stöber, 1998). Maladaptive perfectionism has been shown to be associated with major depression (e.g., Hewitt et al., 1996), obsessive compulsive disorder, social phobia and panic disorder (Antony et al., 1998), and may be a factor in comorbidity of psychopathology (Bieling, Summerfeldt, Israeli, & Antony, 2004). Several mediators and moderators have been proposed to more thoroughly examine the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and depressive symptoms. Support has been found for mediating roles of self-criticism (Dunkley et al., 2006), self-esteem (Flett, Hewitt, Blankstein, & O’Brien, 1991), maladaptive defense styles (Flett, Besser, & Hewitt, 2005), and maladaptive coping styles (Dunkley, Zuroff, & Blankstien, 2003). Moderators of the relationship between perfectionism and psychological distress include coping styles (Sherry et al., 2003) and negative attributional style (Chang & Sanna, 2001). Rumination may be a mechanism that explains how maladaptive perfectionism leads to later depressive symptoms. Rumination is defined as the thoughts and behaviors that focus one’s attention on his or her depressive symptoms and the potential causes for those symptoms (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). It has been found to predict a longer duration of depressive symptoms, new onsets of Major Depressive Episode, and the length of the episode (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000 and Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 1993). Rumination is also associated with perfectionism (DiBartolo et al., 2001 and Flett et al., 2002). Some aspects of perfectionism are associated with a cognitive style characterized by frequent, perseverative, perfectionistic thoughts, as well as affective distress following a personal failure (Flett, Hewitt, Blankstein, & Gray, 1998). Perfectionistic people engage in rumination about the failure and their need to be perfect, thereby focusing on the discrepancy between their actual selves versus their ideal selves (Hewitt & Flett, 2002). Those high on CM may be particularly likely to ruminate following perceived failures. In a diary study where participants were asked to complete a “mistakes journal” recording their mistakes and subsequent cognitive reactions, those high on CM reported more rumination and more negative affect following mistakes than those low on CM. The authors concluded that this was evidence of a ruminative process in the high CM group (Frost et al., 1997). Similarly, high CM athletes reported more recurring images about mistakes and more difficulty forgetting mistakes than low CM athletes (Frost & Henderson, 1991). Rumination is typically measured using the Response Styles Questionnaire (RSQ; Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). One criticism of this measure is that some items from the RSQ are highly correlated with items on the Beck Depression Inventory, thereby artificially inflating the correlation between these constructs (Conway, Csank, Holm, & Blake, 2000). Treynor, Gonzalez, and Nolen-Hoeksema (2003) used factor analysis to identify a principal component of depression-related items that could be removed from the scale. They also identified two additional principal components of rumination: reflective pondering and brooding. Reflective pondering is defined as engaging in cognitive problem solving which helps alleviate an individual’s depressive symptoms. Brooding, defined as thinking anxiously or worrying, is a maladaptive process that is associated with some unachieved standard. Both components are associated with depressive symptoms in the short term but only brooding has been shown to have a longitudinal association with depression (Treynor et al., 2003). Taken together, these results suggest a model where maladaptive perfectionism leads to depressive symptoms through the mediating variable of rumination. Some support for this mediating model was found by Flett et al. (2002). After controlling for levels of rumination, previously significant correlations between perfectionism dimensions and depressive symptoms were no longer significant. Similar results were reported by Ito and Agari (2002). Consistent with these findings, we predicted that following a disappointing test, students with high levels of maladaptive perfectionism (CM and DA) would be more likely to ruminate about this negative event, thereby leading to depressive symptoms. In addition, we predicted the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and depressive symptoms would diminish when rumination is added to the model. We also tested whether the model was specific to maladaptive pessimism, hypothesizing that adaptive perfectionism (PS and O) would not predict rumination or depressive symptoms in the model. In addition to replicating previous findings supporting a mediating model, this study makes several unique contributions. Although Flett et al. (2002) used a general measure of stressful life events to identify events that may have triggered rumination, in the present study we used a more standardized event of a disappointing test score. Neither of the previous studies used measures of rumination specifically designed to be free from the possible causal influence of depression. In the present study we used items from the RSQ that did not load on a factor of depressive symptoms. Finally, this study is unique in testing possible mediating roles of brooding and reflective pondering. We expected that this model would hold when brooding, but not reflective pondering, was used as the mediator.