MULTIDIMENSIONAL PERFECTIONISM AND ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION: RELATIONSHIPS WITH DEPRESSION IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Psychological Reports, 1993, 73, 863-871. O Psychological Reports 1993

MULTIDIMENSIONAL PERFECTIONISM AND ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION: RELATIONSHIPS WITH

DEPRESSION IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

C. DOUGLAS SADDLER AND LAURIE A. SACKS

California Lutheran University California School of Professional Psychology Fresno

Summary.-Depression in university students is associated with numerous problematic outcomes. Unidimensional perfectionism and academic procrastination have each independently been related with depression and with one another in university students. Multidimensional perfectionism, consisting of self and social dimensions, and academic procrastination have not been simultaneously examined for their interrelationships with one another and with depression. Measures of multidimensional perfectionism, academic procrastination, and depression were administered to 150 undergraduate and graduate students. Analyses showed that only one dimension of perfectionism was correlated with procrastination, although both perfectionism and procrastination were important in accounting for depression in these students. Findings are discussed as they relate to the treatment of university students for the symptoms of depression.

Depression has been shown to be a serious problem for students on university campuses and is related to loneliness, isoIation, and suicidal ideation and attempts (Westefeld & Furr, 1987). One leading theory of depression is the cognitive one developed chiefly by Beck (1987). He views depression as characterized partly by negatively distorted cognition comprised of negative automatic thoughts, dysfunctional attitudes, and distorted thought processes. One example of such distorted thought processes is perfectionistic thinking.

Hewitt and Flett and their associates have extended this work by con- ceptualizing a perfectionistic personality style as a multidimensional construct made up of self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed perfectionism. Self-oriented perfectionism entails setting exacting standards for self and engaging in stringent self-evaluation while striving to attain perfection and to avoid failure. Other-oriented perfectionists hold unrealistic standards for significant others, place importance on being perfect, and stringently evaluate their performance. Socially prescribed perfectionists believe that significant others hold unrealistic standards for them, stringently evaluate them, and pressure them to be perfect (Hewitt & Flett, 1991b).

Perfectionism as a unidimensional self construct and as a mdtidimen- sional self and social construct has been related to various forms of psychopathology, including depression (Ferrari, 1992; Hewitt & Dyck, 1986; Hew- itt & Flett, 1990; Solomon & Rothblum, 1984). Hewitt and Flett (1991a)

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864 C. D. SADDLER & L. A . SACKS

used the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Hewitt & Flett, 1991b) to investigate the association of unipolar depression to the three dimensions of perfectionism. They found that depression was associated with hgher scores on self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism but not with scores on other-oriented perfectionism. Their study, however, did not examine factors which might mediate between perfectionism and depression, such as a mal- adaptive coping style like procrastination.

Research on procrastination has tended to separate the construct into general procrastination or academic procrastination, the latter having been the subject of much of the research (Ferrari, 1992; McCown, Johnson, & Petzel, 1989; Rothblum, Solomon, & Murakami, 1986; Solomon & Roth- blum, 1984). Rothblum, et al. (1986) defined academic procrastination as the (a) self-reported tendency to put off academic tasks nearly always or always and (b) to experience nearly always or always problematic levels of anxiety associated with this procrastination (cf. p. 387). They reported that procrastination was negatively correlated with academic achievement and that procrastinators were more likely than nonprocrastinators to experience problematic levels of anxiety. Solomon and Rothblum (1984) found that academic procrastination was ~ o s i t i v e l ~ correlated with anxiety and depression in college students.

Limited research has examined associations among procrastination, unidimensional perfectionism, various other cognitive-behavioral factors, and depression. Solomon and Rothblum (1984) studied academic procrastination in college students and found that a small, homogeneous group of students stated they procrastinated for Fear of Failure. This factor was positively correlated with depression scores and consisted of evaluation anxiety, low self- confidence, and ~erfectionistic standards for one's ~erformance. In Hewitt and Flett's (1991b) terms, this type of perfectionism resembles aspects of both self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism. Ferrari (1992) inves- tigated general procrastination and compared procrastinators with nonprocrastinators on several factors, including perfectionism. He found that procrastinators seemed to engage in ~erfectionism because they felt anxiety about how others might evaluate rheir performance; this process resembles socially prescribed perfectionism. Nonprocrastinators, on the other hand, seemed motivated to engage in perfectionism to produce a perfect product; this process resembles self-oriented perfectionism.

Procrastination and unidimensional perfectionism have been related to one another and to depression. The nature of the relationshp appears to be that academic procrastination is related to both self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism, and general procrastination is related only to socially pescribed perfectionism. However, previous studies used a unidimensional measure of perfectionism; therefore, clarification of the relationship between

PERFECTIONISM, PROCRASTINATION, AND DEPRESSION 865

academic procrastination and multidimensional perfectionism is necessary if these processes are to be better understood. Also, clarification of the means by which each process independently and in combination may contribute to depressive symptoms in university students is desirable. Our study had two objectives; these were (a) to clarify the nature of the interrelationships among academic procrastination, self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism, and depression and (b) to examine the existence and quality of any mediating effects of these dimensions of perfectionism and academic procrastination on one another in their relationship with depression.

Subjects The subjects were 150 undergraduate and graduate students at a small,

private university in southern California; they were enrolled in summer ses- sion courses during the summer of 1992. Students agreed to participate in assessments during class; no student declined. The sample included 100 women and 50 men. Seven were freshmen (M age 19.6, SD 2.1 yr.), nine were sophomores (M age 25.8, SD 5.8 yr.), 10 were juniors (M age 26.6, SD 9.3 yr.), 16 were seniors (M age 24.8, SD 6.2 yr.), and 108 were graduate students (M age 32.5, SD 9.2 yr.). One hundred twenty students were Cau- casian, seven were African-American, 15 were Hispanic, six were Asian- American, and two were classified as Other. This ethnic distribution was representative of the campus population.

Perfectionism was measured by the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Hewitt & Flett, 1991b), a 45-item inventory designed to measure three dimensions of perfectionism, self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed. The scale requires a seventh-grade reading level and uses a 7- point scale in Likert format which allows items to be rated from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." High scores on the scale indicate a tendency to be perfectionistic on the dimension measured by that scale. The inventory possesses good psychometric properties and is both valid and reliable (Hewitt & Flett, 1991b; Hewitt, Flett, Turnbull-Donovan, & Mikail, 1991).

Procrastination was measured by the Aitken Procrastination Inventory, a 19-item inventory constructed and~validated for use with college students (Aitken, 1982). The scale consistently differentiated chronic academic procrastinators from other students and has acceptable psychometric properties (McCown, 1986). Students respond on a 5-point scale in Likert format to items that describe a tendency to delay completing tasks. One-half of the items are reverse keyed; high scores indicate tendencies to procrastinate.

Depression was measured by the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, 1978), a widely used measure of subclinical and clinical depression. The in-

866 C. D. SADDLER & L. A. SACKS

ventory has 21 items which show good psychometric properties; extensive validity and reliability data have been summarized by Beck and Steer (1987). Subjects respond to items, each of which consists of a group of statements, by marking the statement of each item that best describes the respondent during the preceding week. High scores indicate more depression; the manual provides guidelines on the severity of depression that corresponds to various score ranges.

During undergraduate and graduate classes, students were asked to com- plete a battery consisting of the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, the Aitken Procrastination Inventory, and the Beck Depression Inventory. The assessments were scheduled during the first six-week summer term and were completed within the first three weeks of that term.

Data Ana lysb

Descriptive statistics, t tests for independent samples, and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were computed for the scores on the three inventories and demographic data, including grade, gender, and ethnicity. A chi-squared test of independence was computed for gender and grade. Direct and stepwise multiple-regression analyses were conducted for all variables using depression as the criterion. A double-classification analysis of variance was computed to compare scores of subjects who scored high on both procrastination and socially prescribed perfectionism with those subjects who scored low on both.

RESULTS Ranges, means, and standard deviations by gender for perfectionism,

procrastination, and depression scores are presented in Table 1. Of the t tests for independent samples which were conducted for all perfectionism scale scores and for procrastination and depression scores separately by gender and ethnicity, only one was significant, and that was a comparison of men and women on procrastination (t,,, = 3.08, p = .002). Men reported more procrastination than women.

Table 2 presents the Pearson correlation matrix for the demographic variables, the three scales of perfectionism, the procrastination measure, and the depression measure. In the matrix are negative correlations between age and grade or year in school and perfectionism, procrastination, and depression. The older the students and the higher their classification, the less perfectionism, procrastination, and depression they reported. To assess whether there were gender differences in age, a t test for independent samples of men and women was conducted for age. No difference was found. To judge whether gender was related to grade classification, scores were collapsed into categories of lower division, upper division, and graduate level, and a chi-

PERFECTIONISM, PROCRASTINATION, AND DEPRESSION

TABLE I DESCR~P~~VE STATISTICS BY GENDER FOR PERFECTIONISM,

DEPRESSION, AND PROCRAS'TTNATION SCORES

Self Other Socially Depression Procrastination Prescribed

Men, n = 50 Minimum 37.00 5.00 25.00 0.00 4.00 Maximum 105.00 95.00 85.00 35.00 91.00 M 72.42 59.98 53.68 7.90 49.00 SD 17.26 16.24 13.18 9.44 16.76

Women, n = 100 Minimum 37.00 28.00 21.00 0.00 3.00 Maximum 104.00 85.00 83.00 33.00 82.00 M 69.44 58.09 50.47 6.51 42.38 SD 16.69 11.82 13.64 6.39 12.60

squared test compared the grade classification of men and women. Results showed that men were disproportionately overrepresented and women under- represented for freshman and sophomore groups (X,' = 11.54, p < ,005). The three types of perfectionism and procrastination separately were each positively correlated with depression, although only socially prescribed perfectionism was positively related to procrastination.

TABLE 2 PEARSON CORRELATION MATRIX FOR ALL VARIABLES

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Age 2. Class .369$ 3. Self-oriented -.202* -.197* 4. Other-oriented -.lo4 -.187* .478$ 5. Socially Prescribed -.I24 -.227t .465$ .393$ 6. Depression - . 2 l l t -.323$ .355$ .244t .369$ 7. Procrastination -.286$ -.326$ ,053 ,032 ,2277 .306$ 8. Gender ,056 .195' -.083 -.067 -.I12 -.087 -.245t 9. Ethnicity -.073 -.171* ,112 -.090 -.029 ,093 ,095 -.177*

*p<.05. tp<.Ol. $p<.OOl.

The correlation matrix shown in Table 2 reflects substantial intercorrela- tion among these variables. Therefore, multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to identify which variables were the best predictors of depression. First, a direct multiple-regression analysis was conducted using all demographic variables, the perfectionism scale scores, and procrastination scores as predictors for depression; see Table 3 . Second, a stepwise multiple-regression analysis was conducted using the same set of predictors and criterion; see Table 4. These analyses confirm the predictors to be grade clas-


TABLE 3 REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF ALL VARIABLES ON DEPRESSION

N = 150 R = ,517 R~ = .268 RAdiZ = ,226 SE of Estimate = 6.635

Variable R SE b Tolerance t D*

Constant

Age Class Self-oriented Other-oriented Socially Prescribed Procrastination Gender E t h c i ty

Source

-

-6.984 5.959 0.000 -0.021 0.065 -0.026 0.809 -1.069 0.549 -0.162 0 752

0.091 0.040 0.203 0 638 0.024 0.048 0.044 0 707 0.100 0.048 0.179 0.694 0.104 0.042 0.200 0.789 0.660 1.212 0.041 0.899 0.447 0.891 0.038 0.902

Analysis of Variance

SS d f MS

Regression 2267.00 8 283.38 6.44 <.001 Residual 6206.89 141 44.02

'Two-tailed.

sification, self-oriented perfectionism, socially prescribed perfectionism, and procrastination. The predictors account for approximately 26% of the variance in depression scores for each analysis.

TABLE 4 STEPWISE REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF ALL VARIABLES ON DEPRESSION

N = 150 R = ,513 R2 = ,263 RAd? = ,243 SE of Estimate = 6.561

Variable B SE b Tolerance t D* -

Constant -4.869 4.399 0.000 -1.11 .27 Class -1.150 0.510 -0.174 0.854 -2.26 .03 SelF-oriented 0.101 0.036 0.227 0.768 2.79 .01 Socially Prescribed 0.100 0.046 0.180 0.737 2.17 .03 Procrastination 0.102 0.040 0.197 0.861 2.56 .01

Analysis of Variance

Source SS d f MS F D

Regression 2232.73 4 558.18 12.97 < ,001 Residual 6241.16 145 43.04

As socially prescribed perfectionism was the only perfectionism dimension related to procrastination, a double-classification analysis of variance was conducted using these as independent variables and depression as the dependent variable. This was done to assess whether an interaction was present in their effect on depression. The results presented in Table 5 show each variable independently affects depression, but there is no interaction.

PERFECTIONISM, PROCRASTINATION, AND DEPRESSION 869

TABLE 5

Source SS df MS F P

Procrastination 376.13 1 376.13 7.11 .O 1 Socially Prescribed 212.12 1 212.12 4.01 .05 Interaction 65.77 1 65.77 1.24 .27 Error 7729.46 146 52.94

DISCUSSION The correlation coefficients of Table 2 confirm previously established re-

lationships between perfectionism and depression and between procrastination and depression. In addition, students at lower grade-classifications tended to be more perfectionistic, more depressed, and to procrastinate more, which, with respect to procrastination, is not consistent with previous research (Semb, Glick, & Spencer, 1979). There are several interpretations possible for the relationships with grade-classification. First, in our sample there were twice as many women as men, and most were graduate students. The relatively small number of undergraduate students were not representative of undergraduate students in general in that men outnumbered women by more than a two-to-one ratio in the freshman and sophomore groups. This finding could therefore be an artifact of the sample. Second, it is possible that dif- ferential attrition and self-selection accounted for this result, with more perfectionistic, depressed, and procrastinating students tending to drop out be- fore reaching upper division status or graduate school. Third, it may be that younger and lower classified students simply are more depressed, more perfectionistic, and procrastinate more, and older students in higher grades are lower on these characteristics. One final correlation, confirmed by comparison of mean differences, is that men reported more procrastination than women, regardless of grade classification. This finding is at variance with previous research (Ferrari, 1992; Solomon & Rothblum, 1984) and may also be an artifact of our sample.

The regression analyses further clarify the relationship between perfectionism, procrastination, and depression. Self-oriented perfectionism, socially prescribed perfectionism, procrastination, and grade-classification predict depression. The relationship of grade-classification may be explained by the interpretations presented above. The findings regarding perfectionism and procrastination are noteworthy as they substantiate previous research, wlde they also afford the opportunity of extending our understanding of these cognitive-behavioral factors and their relationship to depression in university students. Attitudes that one holds toward oneself and that one believes others hold toward oneself and that entail stringent self-evaluation, attaining perfection, and avoiding failure seem to be instrumental in students' mood


problems. The mood problems may be exacerbated when these attitudes are coupled with tendencies to put off academic tasks and to experience conse- quent anxiety.

It is clear that self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism and procrastination independently are related to depression. Also, socially prescribed perfectionism but not self-oriented perfectionism is related to procrastination. This implies that academic procrastinators seem to be concerned about the standards others hold for them, how they believe they are evaluat- ed, and how they believe they are pressured to be perfect by others. Con- trary to the findings of Solomon and Rothblum (1984), procrastinators in our study apparently do not procrastinate because of low self-confidence or perfectionistic standards for their performance. Our results are consistent with those of Ferrari (1992) who found general procrastination to be related to socially prescribed perfectionism but not self-oriented perfectionism.

Socially prescribed perfectionism and procrastination are each independently related to depression, as the analysis in Table 5 substantiates. The analysis further indicates no interaction between the two in their relationship with depression. Students may experience both self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism along with procrastination behavior. They may also experience greater depression than students low on these characteristics. But, the consequences of scoring high on these characteristics are not more than additive. Neither socially prescribed perfectionism nor procrastination appears to mediate the effects of the other in relation to depression. These results imply that socially prescribed perfectionistic attitudes and beliefs are related to depression and procrasrination but the two do not combine and in- teract to exacerbate further the depressive symptoms of university students.

Our findings suggest that self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism and procrastination among students are especially problematic given their relationship with depression. These cognitive and behavioral characteristics are related to poor adjustment, poor performance, and risk of self- injury. In treating students with depressive symptoms, it seems worthwhile to consider the possible cognitive and behavioral components of perfectionism and procrastination which may contribute to mood difficulties. The di- rection of causality in this relationship is not clear from the present findings. However, it is known that mood affects cognitions and that cognitions affect mood in a circular fashion. Perfectionistic attitudes and procrastination beliefs and behavior must be considered in the treatment of students experienc- ing symptoms of depression.

A final comment concerns the fact that our findings do not corroborate those of previous research with respect to gender and grade-classification differences in procrastination. Our sample were mostly graduate students and women. Problems with procrastination were more characteristic of the men

PERFECTIONISM, PROCRASTINATION, AND DEPRESSION 87 1

and of undergraduate students. Since men were disproportionately represented at the lower grade levels, it is possible that our findings might be related to a relatively small number of rather extreme scores. It is also possible that this relationship and the relationships with perfectionism found in our study might be even more pronounced in a sample of only undergraduate students. This issue is one for further empirical research.

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Accepted August 19, 1993.