ابعاد کنترل روانشناختی والدین: ارتباطات با پرخاشگری فیزیکی و رابطه پیش دبستانی در روسیه

Findings from cross-sectional studies on the relationship between perfectionism and the Big Five personality traits demonstrate that conscientiousness shows significant positive correlations with self-oriented perfectionism, and neuroticism with socially prescribed perfectionism. The question is whether conscientiousness and neuroticism also predict longitudinal changes in self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism. A sample of 214 adolescents aged 14–19 years completed measures of the Big Five and perfectionism twice over a period of 5–8 months. As was expected, conscientiousness predicted longitudinal increases in self-oriented perfectionism. Neuroticism, however, did not predict any longitudinal increases in perfectionism—neither in self-oriented nor in socially prescribed perfectionism. Providing support for McCrae and Costa’s dynamic personality theory (McCrae & Costa, 1999), which holds that broad personality traits play a part in the development of lower-level personality characteristics, the findings suggest that conscientiousness is a trait that plays a role in the development of self-oriented perfectionism.

Over the past 15 years, perfectionism research has made great progress in understanding the nature, correlates, and consequences of perfectionism (see Enns & Cox, 2002). Moreover, research has gained comprehensive knowledge on the role that family factors play in the development of perfectionism (see Flett, Hewitt, Oliver, & Macdonald, 2002). In contrast, no study so far has investigated the role that personality traits play in this development. The present study aims to remedy this situation by providing the first investigation examining whether the Big Five personality traits predict longitudinal changes in perfectionism. 1.1. Perfectionism According to dictionary definitions, perfectionism is the “disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable,” with perfection defined as flawlessness or an “unsurpassable degree of accuracy or excellence” (Merriam-Webster OnLine dictionary, details from the author). Scientific theory and research, however, have progressed to a more differentiated view that conceptualizes perfectionism as a multidimensional personality characteristic (e.g., Frost et al., 1990, Hewitt and Flett, 1991 and Slaney et al., 2001). Regarding multidimensional models of perfectionism, the most prevalent and most widely researched model is Hewitt and Flett’s (1991) model of perfectionism. This model differentiates between two main forms of perfectionism: self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism.1 Self-oriented perfectionism comprises beliefs that striving for perfection and being perfect are important and is characterized by setting excessively high standards for oneself. In contrast, socially prescribed perfectionism comprises beliefs that others have high standards for oneself and that acceptance by others is conditional on fulfilling these standards (Campbell and Di Paula, 2002, Enns and Cox, 2002, Hewitt and Flett, 1991 and Hewitt and Flett, 2004). When reviewing the literature on self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism, the findings are in agreement that socially prescribed perfectionism is a negative form of perfectionism showing strong and consistent positive correlations with negative affect and various other indicators of psychological maladjustment such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation (Enns and Cox, 2002 and Hewitt and Flett, 2004). Self-oriented perfectionism, in comparison, is a more ambivalent form of perfectionism (Enns & Cox, 2002). While self-oriented perfectionism too has shown positive correlations with indicators of psychological maladjustment (Hewitt & Flett, 2004), it also has shown significant positive correlations with indicators of good psychological adjustment such as positive affect, goal progress, and academic achievement (e.g., Molnar et al., 2006, Powers et al., 2005 and Witcher et al., 2007). 1.2. Perfectionism and the Big Five Differences between self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism also show when correlations with personality traits are regarded. Personality traits are broad descriptions of individual differences between people referring to consistent patterns in the way people behave, feel, and think. Traits not only represent relatively general and enduring dispositions that unite different responses to diverse stimuli producing broad consistencies in behavior, but also predict changes in personality growth and development (Allport, 1961 and McCrae et al., 1999). Today’s most prevalent system to describe personality traits is the “Big Five” personality system according to which personality can be described by five broad trait dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (Costa & McCrae, 1992; see John & Srivastava, 1999, for a review). Consequently, a considerable number of studies have investigated how self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism are related to the Big Five personality traits (Dunkley and Kyparissis, 2008, Enns et al., 2005, Fee and Tangney, 2000, Hewitt and Flett, 2004, Hill et al., 1997, Langendörfer et al., 2006, Miquelon et al., 2005, Nathanson et al., 2006, Rice et al., 2007 and Sherry et al., 2007). Only two of the Big Five traits showed correlations with perfectionism that replicated across studies: conscientiousness and neuroticism. While extraversion, openness, and agreeableness showed an inconsistent pattern of correlations with self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism, a consistent pattern emerged for conscientiousness and neuroticism: All studies found conscientiousness to show significant positive correlations with self-oriented perfectionism (but not with socially prescribed perfectionism), and neuroticism to show significant positive correlations with socially prescribed perfectionism (but not with self-oriented perfectionism). Conscientiousness is the Big Five personality trait capturing individual differences in the degree of organization, persistence, and motivation in goal-directed behavior: people high in conscientiousness are described as organized, reliable, and ambitious (Costa et al., 1992 and John and Srivastava, 1999). In contrast, neuroticism is the Big Five personality trait capturing individual differences in maladjustment indicated by a proneness to psychological distress and unrealistic ideas: people high in neuroticism are described as tense, emotionally unstable, and insecure (ibid.). Consequently, it is not surprising that self-oriented perfectionism (forming part of the strivings dimension of perfectionism; Stoeber & Otto, 2006) is correlated with conscientiousness whereas socially prescribed perfectionism (forming part of the concerns dimension of perfectionism; Stoeber & Otto, 2006) is correlated with neuroticism. The important question, however, is whether conscientiousness and neuroticism are merely correlates of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism—or whether they predict longitudinal increases in self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism. 1.3. The present research According to McCrae and Costa’s (1999) five-factor theory of personality, the Big Five personality traits form part of a dynamic personality system. In this system, the Big Five represent endogenous basic tendencies that, together with external influences (e.g., cultural norms and expectations), lead to the formation of characteristic adaptations and the development of culturally-conditioned personal characteristics. Consequently, the cross-sectional correlations of conscientiousness/self-oriented perfectionism and neuroticism/socially prescribed perfectionism may reflect “snapshots” of dynamic processes suggesting that conscientiousness and neuroticism may be more than mere correlates of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism: they may be factors that play a role in the development of the two forms of perfectionism. Regarding the development of perfectionism in children and adolescents, Flett et al. (2002) suggest that—besides parent factors (e.g., parenting style) and environmental pressures (e.g., teachers)—the child’s personality (e.g., temperament) plays an important role for the development of perfectionism. However, which personality dimensions play an important role is unclear. Whereas McCrae et al. (1999) regard neuroticism as the Big Five personality trait that plays a role in the development of perfectionism, perfectionism researchers regard conscientiousness (rather than neuroticism) as the Big Five trait that plays a role in the development of perfectionism (e.g., Hewitt and Flett, 2007 and Parker, 1997). Moreover, both views may be correct. Regarding the evidence from the previous studies on perfectionism and the Big Five, it may be that neuroticism plays a role in the development of socially prescribed perfectionism whereas conscientiousness plays a role in the development of self-oriented perfectionism. Evidence to support this expectation is missing, however, because all previous studies on the Big Five and perfectionism are cross-sectional only. Thus they convey only information about the co-occurrence of conscientiousness/self-oriented perfectionism and neuroticism/socially prescribed perfectionism, but they do not convey information about whether conscientiousness and neuroticism have an influence on the development of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism. To investigate such an influence, longitudinal studies are needed (Taris, 2000). Consequently, the present study used a longitudinal design to investigate whether the Big Five personality traits have an influence on the development of individual differences in self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism. To address this question, we investigated a sample of adolescent school students aged 14–19 years. Adolescents were chosen because adolescence is the period of life in which personality and identity are formed making adolescence a most suitable period of life to study changes in personality characteristics (Steinberg, 2008). Moreover, there are so far no published studies on how self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism are related to the Big Five in adolescents of this age range. Based on the empirical findings from the cross-sectional studies, we expected that conscientiousness would predict increases in self-oriented perfectionism, and neuroticism would predict increases in socially prescribed perfectionism.