The present study aimed to investigate the role of self-oriented and socially prescribed
perfectionism in conjunction with stressful life experiences in suicidal ideation, potential, and
prior attempts among depressed adolescents. Self-oriented perfectionism involves striving to
meet one's own unrealistically high standards and evaluating one's performance stringently.
Socially prescribed perfectionism involves the perception that significant others have very high
expectations for oneself, which the perfectionist strives to meet. This study examined
correlations between these perfectionism dimensions and suicidal ideation, potential or risk, and
prior attempts in addition to investigating whether either perfectionism dimension accounted for
additional variance in suicide outcomes beyond the established risk factors depression and
hopelessness. Also examined was a moderational model whereby dimensions of perfectionism
were hypothesized to interact with stress to predict suicide outcomes. A sample of 55
adolescents (41 females, 14 males) who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders - Fourth Edition (DSM-IV; APA, 1994) criteria for Major Depression (65.5%),
Dysthymia (16.4%), or Depressive Disorder NOS (18.2%) completed self-report measures of
perfectionism, daily hassles, depression, hopelessness, suicidal ideation, suicide potential, and
prior suicidal attempts. Additionally, adolescents and one of their parents completed a
diagnostic interview and a stress interview measuring major stressful experiences. Results
revealed that self-oriented perfectionism was not correlated with any aspect of suicide; however,
socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with suicide potential. Hierarchical regression
analyses indicated that self-oriented perfectionism did not account for unique variance in suicide
outcomes, whereas, socially prescribed perfectionism predicted additional variance in suicide
potential once depression and hopelessness were controlled. Regarding the moderational model,
both self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism were found to interact with aspects of
stress to predict suicidality. More specifically, self-oriented perfectionism interacted with daily
hassles to predict suicide potential/risk. Socially prescribed perfectionism interacted with
subjective and objective ratings of major stressful experiences and with daily hassles to predict
suicide potential/risk. Neither perfectionism dimension interacted with stress to predict suicidal
ideation or prior suicide attempts. Taken together, these findings suggest that among depressed
adolescents, socially prescribed perfectionism is correlated with suicide risk and predicts unique
variance in this suicide outcome beyond other established risk factors. Additionally, both selforiented
and socially prescribed perfectionism act as vulnerability factors that are predictive of
suicide potential when adolescents experience elevated levels of stress. As these relationships
were apparent even after controlling for the contributions of depression and hopelessness to
suicide, the results of this study highlight the importance of considering perfectionistic
tendencies when evaluating suicide risk among youth. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/16980 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Caelian, Carmen |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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