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How Other-Oriented Perfectionism Differs from Self-Oriented and Socially Prescribed Perfectionism: Further Findings

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Abstract

Investigating how other-oriented perfectionism (OOP) differed from self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) and socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP), Stoeber (Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 36, 329–338, 2014a) found OOP to show unique positive relationships with the Dark Triad personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) and unique negative relationships with nurturance, intimacy, and social development goals. Aiming to expand on Stoeber’s findings, the present study examined 229 university students investigating the unique relationships of the three forms of perfectionism with humor styles, callous-unemotional-uncaring traits, social value orientations, self- and other-interest, and positive self-evaluations (positive self-regard, feeling superior to others). When multiple regressions were conducted controlling for the overlap between the three forms of perfectionism, OOP showed unique positive relationships with aggressive humor, uncaring traits, an individualistic orientation, and positive self-regard and unique negative relationships with a prosocial orientation and other-interest. In contrast, SOP showed unique positive relationships with affiliative humor and other-interest and unique negative relationships with aggressive humor, callous-uncaring traits, and a competitive orientation whereas SPP showed unique positive relationships with self-depreciating humor and unemotional traits and unique negative relationships with both forms of positive self-evaluations. The findings provide further evidence that OOP is a “dark” form of perfectionism positively associated with narcissistic, antisocial, and uncaring personality characteristics.

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Notes

  1. If not stated otherwise, all studies described in the introduction examined adult samples (including university student samples).

  2. Participants did not have to complete the survey in one session but could pause and pick up where they interrupted at a later point of time. Hence the median is reported because the mean was extremely skewed from the few participants who took a day or more to complete the survey.

  3. Note, however, that the pattern of significant correlations and regression weights was the same when untransformed scores were used, with one exception: In Table 2, Regression 2, the regression weight of OOP-90 predicting an individualistic orientation was nonsignificant with β = 0.12, p = .095 when untransformed scores were used.

  4. Following Cohen (1992), correlations with absolute values of 0.10, 0.30, and 0.50 were regarded as small-, medium-, and large-sized.

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Conflict of Interest

Joachim Stoeber declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Experiment Participants

The study was approved by the relevant ethics committee and followed the British Psychological Society’s (2009) code of ethics and conduct.

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  1. School of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NP, UK

    Joachim Stoeber

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Stoeber, J. How Other-Oriented Perfectionism Differs from Self-Oriented and Socially Prescribed Perfectionism: Further Findings. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 37, 611–623 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-015-9485-y

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