Perfectionism, neuroticism, and daily stress reactivity and coping effectiveness 6 months and 3 years later.

Abstract

The present study addressed a fundamental gap between research and clinical work by advancing longitudinal explanatory conceptualizations of stress and coping processes that trigger daily affect in the short- and long-term for individuals with higher levels of personality vulnerability. Community adults completed measures of 2 higher order dimensions of perfectionism (personal standards [PS], self-criticism [SC]), neuroticism, and conscientiousness. Then, 6 months later and again 3 years later, participants completed daily questionnaires of stress, coping, and affect for 14 consecutive days. PS was associated with aggregated daily problem-focused coping and positive reinterpretation, whereas SC was uniquely associated with daily negative social interactions, avoidant coping, negative affect, and sadness at Month 6 and Year 3. Multilevel modeling results demonstrated that both individuals with higher PS and those with higher SC were emotionally reactive to event stress, negative social interactions, and avoidant coping at Month 6 and Year 3 and to less perceived control at Year 3. Positive reinterpretation was especially effective for individuals with higher SC at Month 6 and Year 3. The effects of PS on daily stress reactivity and coping (in)effectiveness were clearly distinguished from the effects of neuroticism and conscientiousness, whereas the SC effects were due to shared overlap with PS and neuroticism. The present findings demonstrate the promise of using repeated daily diary methodologies to help therapists and clients reliably predict future client reactions to daily stressors, which, in turn, could help guide interventions to break apart dysfunctional patterns connected to distress and build resilience for vulnerable individuals.

Perfectionism and negative/positive affect associations: the role of cognitive emotion regulation and perceived distress/coping

“…6 Nevertheless, it is part of several measures of perfectionism, and we decided to explore it to compare our results with those from studies which also included this dimension. Our results showed that organization was the only perfectionism dimension Finally, the finding that maladaptive perfectionists use low adaptive CER strategies that lead to NA increase complements the results of Dunkley et al, 26,27 showing that low task-oriented coping mediated the association between maladaptive perfectionism and psychological distress. Then, when maladaptive perfectionists engage in problem-focused and positive reinterpretation, they may experience greater decreases in negative emotions, such as in sadness.…”

“…20,22,23 Similarly, EC were prospectively associated with high use of avoidant coping and with low use of problem-focused and positive reinterpretation. 27 In our study, maladaptive perfectionism was also related to increased perceived distress and decreased perceived coping. These results confirm the literature findings, suggesting that perfectionism is implicated in stress generation, anticipation, enhancement and maintenance.…”

“…These results confirm the literature findings, suggesting that perfectionism is implicated in stress generation, anticipation, enhancement and maintenance. 2,24,26,27 Concerning the adaptive perfectionism dimensions (PS, SOP and PStr), the significant positive correlation with perceived distress and with several maladaptive CER strategies (consistently with self-blame), as well as the absence of significant association with perceived coping and with adaptive CER, were somewhat unexpected.…”

“…26,27 The findings from the correlation analysis showed that maladaptive perfectionism dimensions were associated with high levels of maladaptive and low levels of adaptive CER strategies. These results were expected, since they are negative dimensions of perfectionism and have been consistently associated with negative processes and outcomes.…”

“…Then, when maladaptive perfectionists engage in problem-focused and positive reinterpretation, they may experience greater decreases in negative emotions, such as in sadness. 27 Therefore, the use of adaptive coping/CER may be particularly effective in well-being promotion in self-critical perfectionists.…”