Are perfectionism cognitions and cognitive emotion regulation strategies mediators between perfectionism and psychological distress?

Abstract

Recent studies proposed that maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation (CER) is associated with negative dimensions of perfectionism and mediates the relationship between this trait and negative affect dimensions. In the present longitudinal study, our aim was to examine whether and which perfectionism cognitions and CER strategies would mediate the relationship between perfectionism traits and psychological distress, controlling for perceived stress, social support and outcome measure at one year before.At T0 and after approximately one year (T1), 258 college students (79.8% female) filled in the Portuguese validated versions of self-report questionnaires to evaluate perfectionism trait dimensions (perfectionistic concerns and perfectionistic strivings), perfectionism cognitions, CER dimensions, perceived stress, social support and psychological distress (depression, hostility-anxiety, and amiability-vigor).We found that higher perfectionistic concerns at T0 contribute significantly, after one year, to maladaptive perfectionism cognitions, which in turn are associated with higher levels of catastrophizing and rumination, and altogether will ultimately contribute to greater anxiety/hostility (total indirect effect: 0.03; 95% CI: 0.01 to 0.07) and depression (total indirect effect: 0.06; 95% CI: 0.02 to 0.13).In this cognitive setting, perfectionist individuals may benefit from psychological interventions to reduce their tendency to use maladaptive CER strategies.