A hierarchical structural analysis of perfectionism and its relation to other personality characteristics

This study examined components of perfectionism and their relation to other personality constructs, based on data on the Frost et al. [Frost, R. O., Heimberg, R. G., Holt, C. S., Mattia, J.S., & Neubauer, A. L. (1993). A comparison of two measures of perfectionism. Personality and Individual Differences, 14, 119–126; Frost, R. O., Marten, P., Lahart, C., & Rosenblate, R. (1990). The dimensions of perfectionism. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 15, 245–261] Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Brief Symptom Inventory, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in a population of academically talented students. The six scales of the MPS had been well recovered factor-analytically before. On a somewhat higher level of generality, four intercorrelated factors, Concerns and Doubts, Personal Standards, Organization and Parental Pressure were found to underlie self description on the MPS. This finding was consistent with previous observations. Two orthogonal higher-order factors were extracted from the intercorrelations of these four dimensions. These two factors could be clearly interpreted as healthy and unhealthy perfectionism; similar factors had been observed before in analyses of the scale scores on the MPS. This hierarchical structure of four first-order and two second-order factors could be well replicated in a second sample of subjects. The various factors on both levels showed distinct patterns of correlations with a large range of personality characteristics as measured by the other questionnaires mentioned above. In particular, healthy perfectionism was correlated with conscientiousness, unhealthy perfectionism with lack of self-esteem. Given this pattern of correlations, healthy and unhealthy perfectionism appear not to be opposite poles of one continuum, but distinct, independent factors, which are embedded in the overall personality in different ways.