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Perfectionism and rumination in depression

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between perfectionism, rumination, and depression severity in non-clinical and clinical populations. To this end, a sample of 151 Argentinian university students (i.e., the non-clinical sample) and a sample of 42 Argentinian outpatients in psychotherapy with a diagnosis of a depression (i.e., the clinical sample) completed the Almost Perfect Scale, Beck’s Depression Inventory, the Rumination–Reflection Questionnaire and the Positive Beliefs About Rumination Scale. We found an association between maladaptive perfectionism, rumination, and depressive symptomatology, in both samples. Also, the study yielded differences between the profiles of perfectionism for the variables rumination and depressive symptomatology. Rumination mediated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and depression. Finally, we found that the level of endorsement of positive beliefs about rumination moderated the indirect effect of maladaptive perfectionism on depression. The implications of these results for clinical intervention are discussed, both in relation to the different profiles of perfectionism and to rumination as a cognitive mechanism of emotion regulation. Among the limitations of this study we can mention the use of self-report measures and the fact that the non-clinical sample was entirely obtained from a population of mostly female students of Psychology.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. As mentioned above in this bootstrapping procedures, a significant effect occurs when zero is not included within the confidence interval (Hayes, 2013).

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Acknowledgments

We thank the clinicians and researchers from our institution for their contribution to this research project. We thank Juan Martín Gómez Penedo for reading the draft and contributing with many insightful methodological suggestions. Finally, we express our gratitude to all the participants in this study.

Credit Author Statement

Lorena De Rosa: Investigation and writing original draft.

Mariana C. Miracco: Project administration, writing, review and editing.

Marina S. Galarregui: Investigation, data analysis, visualization and editing.

Eduardo G. Keegan: Supervision, review and editing.

Funding

This project received financial support from the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBACyT 20020130100863BA).

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  1. Instituto de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Lavalle 2353, C1052AAA, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Lorena De Rosa, Mariana Carolina Miracco, Marina Soledad Galarregui & Eduardo Gustavo Keegan

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  1. Lorena De Rosa
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  2. Mariana Carolina Miracco
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  3. Marina Soledad Galarregui
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  4. Eduardo Gustavo Keegan
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Correspondence to Lorena De Rosa.

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Ethical Approval

The study was assessed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Research of the Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Buenos Aires.

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Animal Rights This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Lorena De Rosa, Mariana C. Miracco, Marina S. Galarregui and Eduardo G. Keegan declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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De Rosa, L., Miracco, M.C., Galarregui, M.S. et al. Perfectionism and rumination in depression. Curr Psychol 42, 4851–4861 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01834-0

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