بستگی دارد: کمال گرایی به عنوان یک تعدیل استرس ناشی از تجربه

Specific diathesis stress models assume that perfectionistic strivings (PS) and perfectionistic concerns (PC) are differentially associated with stress responses. The present study expanded existing research by investigating the incremental validity of interactive effects of PS and PC beyond their main effects on affective and endocrine (cortisol) stress responses. We also applied an experimental between-subjects design to standardize and systematically vary situational demand. We divided 84 participants between two experimental conditions (high vs. low situational demand). Moderated regression analyses on the affective stress response revealed a significant three-way interaction of PS, PC, and situational demand. This result affirms that the effects of PS, PC, and situational demand must not be interpreted independently of each other. For the endocrine stress response, the analyses revealed only a main effect of situational demand but no main or interactive effects of PS and PC.

According to the latest representative population surveys, more than 80% of the German population suffer from stress (Techniker Krankenkasse, 2009), and approximately 22% of Americans report experiencing extreme stress (APA, 2011). As a consequence, increases in a wide range of physical (e.g., cardiovascular and respiratory diseases) and mental health problems (e.g., affective and anxiety disorders) have been observed (see Everly & Lating, 2013, for an overview). 1.1. Diathesis stress models To deal with the problems that are associated with the experience of stress, it is essential to understand the processes that mediate or moderate the effects of potential stressors on psychological and physiological outcome variables. Diathesis stress models are primarily concerned with this issue. These models assume that potential stressors result in affective and physiological stress responses only if an individual is vulnerable to a stressor in a given situation (Lazarus, 2006). Broader dimensions of personality such as extraversion and neuroticism (Bolger and Zuckerman, 1995 and Hemenover and Dienstbier, 1996) and lower order personality traits such as dependency and self-criticism (Zuroff, Mongrain, & Santor, 2004) have been identified as vulnerability factors. 1.2. Perfectionism One important vulnerability factor in socio-evaluative achievement situations is perfectionism (Dunkley et al., 2003 and Flett et al., 1989). Perfectionism is defined as setting and striving for exceedingly high standards combined with a critical evaluation of one’s own behavior and concerns about the consequences of not living up to those standards (see Stoeber & Otto, 2006, for an overview). The different facets that comprise the construct of perfectionism can be represented by two broader dimensions. The first dimension—perfectionistic concerns (PC)—has consistently been found to be associated with negative psychosocial adjustment (e.g., DiBartolo et al., 2008 and Flett and Hewitt, 2002). By contrast, the second dimension—perfectionistic strivings (PS)—is associated with some positive psychological and performance outcomes (e.g., Frost et al., 1990 and Gilman and Ashby, 2003). Perfectionism-specific diathesis stress models view PC as a core vulnerability factor. Empirical evidence has confirmed this assumption (e.g., Blankstein et al., 2007 and Chang and Rand, 2000) although studies on perfectionism-specific diathesis stress models have applied different measures of PS and PC and thus somewhat different conceptualizations of the two dimensions. By contrast, empirical findings for PS as a vulnerability factor have not been as consistent. Whereas some studies have confirmed PS as a vulnerability factor (Hewitt, Flett, & Ediger, 1996), others have found no effects (Chang et al., 2004 and Dunkley et al., 2003), whilst others found that PS acts as a resiliency factor (Enns, Cox, & Clara, 2005). The present study investigated two possible explanations for these inconsistent results: First, inconsistencies concerning PS as a diathesis factor might be—at least partially—explained by the correlation and interaction of PS and PC. Stoeber and Otto (2006) addressed effects of an often-found substantial correlation between PS and PC; thus, this overlap has resulted in inflated correlations between PS and negative outcome variables. Depending on whether or not this overlap is statistically controlled for, the direction and significance of the effects of PS might differ markedly. Furthermore, Gaudreau and Thompson (2010) postulate that beyond statistically controlled main effects, potential interactive effects should be analyzed. Based on the combination of high/low scores on PS with high/low scores on PC, Gaudreau and Thompson extracted four types of perfectionism and found evidence for different levels of psychological adjustment for the different combinations (e.g., Douilliez and Lefèvre, 2011 and Gaudreau and Verner-Filion, 2012). Taken together, inconsistent results concerning perfectionism-specific diathesis stress models might be attributable to differences in statistical approaches implied by different assumptions about the interplay of PS and PC. Hierarchical moderated regression analyses allow to control shared variance and test for main effects and interaction effects. Therefore, we applied this approach to test and compare different models of the interaction between PC and PS. Second, with only a few exceptions (Altstötter-Gleich et al., 2012 and Wirtz et al., 2007), stress has mostly been assessed with self-report measures of daily hassles, stressful life events, or stress questionnaires, resulting in shared method variance and response biases. Additionally, this approach does not permit situation-specific aspects to be separated from personality-specific aspects of the individual stress response. To investigate the moderating effects of personality on stress responses postulated by diathesis stress models, it is important that each participant objectively experiences the same situation. Therefore, we choose a well-established paradigm to induce achievement-related stress: the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST; Kirschbaum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993). Wirtz et al. (2007) implemented the TSST to examine the relations between PC and stress responses. We extended her research by including PS and examining perfectionism-specific effects not only in the highly demanding TSST but also in a less demanding placebo condition (see description below). Our third aim was to examine the incremental validity of perfectionism beyond the variance explained by the higher order trait neuroticism, which has been found to be strongly associated with PC (e.g., Stumpf & Parker, 2000). Also, empirical evidence has questioned the incremental validity of PC beyond neuroticism as a vulnerability factor (see Enns et al., 2005). Based on these restrictions of previous research on perfectionism-specific diathesis stress models, we aimed to: 1) Test perfectionism as a vulnerability factor under two experimentally controlled conditions, characterized by high vs. low situational demand. 2) Evaluate the incremental validity of interaction effects beyond the main effects of PS and PC. 3) Evaluate the incremental validity of perfectionism as a vulnerability factor beyond neuroticism.