The Relationships Between Adaptive and Maladaptive Perfectionism and Aggression Among Turkish Adolescents

Abstract

The associations between adaptive/maladaptive perfectionism and different dimensions of aggression among adolescents have seldom been made the focus of empirical research. Research in this area is important as only negative conceptualisation of perfectionism, proposed within the literature, represents a limited perspective of perfectionism for adolescents. The purpose of this research was to investigate the relations between adaptive/maladaptive perfectionism and aggression in a sample of 445 Turkish high school adolescents. The Almost Perfect Scale — Revised (APS-R; Slaney, Rice, Mobley, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001) and the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ; Buss & Perry, 1992) were used for data collection. The subdimensions of the APS-R were high standards, order (adaptive perfectionism), and discrepancy (maladaptive perfectionism). The subdimensions of the BPAQ were anger, physical aggression, hostility and verbal aggression. As hypothesised, the regression analyses revealed that, discrepancy was the positive predictor of anger, physical aggression and hostility while order was the negative predictor of anger, physical and verbal aggression. As predicted, high standards were found to be the negative predictor of hostility. However, unexpectedly, high standards were found to be the positive predictor of verbal aggression.