Diferenças individuais em perfeccionismo e sua relação com traços de personalidade e vínculos parentais

Abstract

Perfectionism is a psychological characteristic that predisposes individuals to pursue high standards of performance. Currently, perfectionism is considered a multidimensional construct comprising adaptive and maladaptive features. There is evidences about parental relationships influences over development of perfectionism and, in turn, personality traits show consistent patterns of association with the types of perfectionism and dimensions across studies. Nevertheless, little is known about how personality traits and parental bonds are associated with individual differences in perfectionism when analyzed together. Regarding this, the aim of this work was to explore the relationship between the dimensions of perfectionism, based on Slaney's three-factorial model, personality traits as postulated by the five-factors model, and parental bonding. The study was transversal with a total of 515 subjects, which 79% female, mean age of 25.3 years (SD = 7.8), from public and private higher education institutions. The instruments, used were the Almost-Perfect Scale Revised Brazilian version, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Neo FFi-R) and the Parental Bonding scale - Brazilian version. The results show associations of High Standards with Conscientiousness (r = .52), Openness (r = .17) and Maternal Care (r = .09); Order with Conscientiousness (r =.57); Agreeableness (r = .13), Extroversion (r =.12), Neuroticism (r=.12) and Paternal Care (r = .10); Discrepancy with Neuroticism (r = .56), Extroversion (r = -.25), Agreeableness (r = -.17) and Conscientiousness (r = -.17), Maternal Care (r = -.22), Parental Care (r = .16) Maternal Overprotection (r = .28) and Paternal Overprotection (r = .11).All statistically significant at α <0,05. In the regression analyzes, only Neuroticism and Maternal Overprotection were significant predictors of Discrepancy explaining 33% of variance. In the Order score only, Conscientiousness was a significant predictor explaining 32% of its variance. In High Standards the age, Conscientiousness and Openness were significant predictors, explaining 32% of the variance of this score. There was a prevalence of 32% of adaptive perfectionists, 30.6% of nonadaptive perfectionists and 37.4% of non-perfectionists in this samples found by K-means clusters. These groups differed in Neuroticism, Extroversion, Consciousness Maternal affection and Maternal Overprotection, all at p <0.05. These results are evidences about the role of personality traits as the main direct predictor of individual differences in perfectionism. Whereas the effect of parental bonds is most evident in the differentiation of types of perfectionism. Such results, although the study has limitations regarding the heterogeneity of the sample, foster the discussion about perfectionism as a characteristic adaptation of the personality.