The Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Failure Scale: Psychometric Properties and Associations with Depression and Social Anxiety

Abstract

. Objective s: The current article introduces a new measure designed to assess self-appraisals of the ability to present oneself as perfect. We discuss some recent findings involving perfectionistic self-presentation and then describe a new measure titled the Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Failure Scale. Methods : Research is described with a sample of 140 university students who completed our new measure along with the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, the Perfectionistic Self-Presentation Scale, and measures of depression and social anxiety. Results: Psychometric analyses confirmed the presence of reliable and meaningful individual differences in self-appraisals of the ability or capability to portray oneself as perfect and limit mistakes made in public. Correlational analyses established that perfectionistic self-presentational failure was linked with higher levels of trait perfectionism, perfectionistic self-presentation, depression, and social anxiety. Additional analyses indicated that scores on this new measure predict unique variance in depression beyond the variance attributable to perfectionistic self-presentation and self-presentation failure mediates the link between perfectionistic self-presentation and depression. Conclusion and Implications: Many perfectionistic self-presenters are highly aware and troubled by previous times in which their mistakes, faults, failures, and imperfections have been on display and they see themselves as failures at perfectionistic self-presentation. These results underscore the negative self-views of people who need to seem perfect and how these views extend to seeing oneself as unable to seem perfect. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for conceptual advances and the assessment and treatment of perfectionistic self-presentation and other debilitating forms of perfectionism.