AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR: HOW PERFECTIONISM INFLUENCES THE PATTERN OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AFFECT ACROSS THE CALENDAR YEAR

Transcription

1 AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR MILYAVSKAYA ET AL. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 33, No. 2, 2014, pp AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR: HOW PERFECTIONISM INFLUENCES THE PATTERN OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AFFECT ACROSS THE CALENDAR YEAR Marina Milyavskaya University of Toronto Brenda Harvey Concordia University Richard Koestner McGill University Theodore Powers University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth Joe Rosenbaum, Iana Ianakieva, and Alexandra Prior McGill University The current study used a prospective design to examine the relation of self-critical and personal standards perfectionism with university students affect over a full calendar year. Specifically, we investigated the relation between the two forms of perfectionism and students positive and negative affect within both the semester achievement demand and the holiday respite contexts. Two hundred and forty university students completed baseline measures of perfectionism and reported This research was supported by a grant to Richard Koestner from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Marina Milyavskaya was supported by a doctoral fellowship from SSHRC. Address correspondence to Marina Milyavskaya, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M1C 1A4; marina.milyavskaya@utoronto.ca 2014 Guilford Publications, Inc. 124

2 AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR 125 their affect at six follow-ups over two semesters and the winter and summer holidays. Stress experienced during the winter holiday was also assessed. Students affect generally followed a cyclical pattern, declining over the fall and winter semesters but rebounding during the holidays. Results showed that while selfcritical perfectionism was consistently related to worsened affect, this was not the case for personal standards perfectionism, which was specifically related to increased positive affect during the holidays. Perceived stress differentially mediated the rejuvenation effect for the two types of perfectionism. The present study highlights the value of examining how the two types of perfectionism differentially relate to negative and positive affect experienced in achievement versus respite contexts. Most individuals who went to college may recall that their affect seemed to follow a cyclical pattern over the calendar year that matched the ebb and flow of academic demands and pressures. Additionally, some students appear to be more susceptible than others to such fluctuations in affect. Understanding how personality and contextual factors impact emotional well-being can shed light on this phenomenon. Traditionally, positive and negative affect were conceptualized to either be unrelated (bivariate model) or inversely related (bipolar model). However, a more recent conceptualization, the Dynamic Model of Affect (DMA), posits that both systems are present, and contextual factors, such as the experience of stress, decide which is active at a given moment (Reich, Zautra, & Davis, 2003; Zautra, Potter, & Reich, 1997). In line with this model, it is essential to study affect in different contexts with varying levels of stress in order to better understand emotional well-being. One important contextual distinction is between temporal periods of work and respite. Past studies have shown that affect can follow a contextually-driven cyclical pattern whereby individuals experience increased positive affect and/or decreased negative affect over respite periods such as weekends, but show the reverse pattern when they return to more stressful work environments (Kennedy- Moore, Greenberg, Newman, & Stone, 1992; McFarlane, Martin, & Williams, 1988; Rossi & Rossi, 1977; Ryan, Bernstein, & Brown, 2010; Sheldon, Ryan, & Reis, 1996). Such a cyclical pattern should also be evident among university students as they proceed from the fall semester, to the winter holidays, to the winter semester and finally to the summer holidays. That is, one would expect emotional well being to be higher during the winter and summer respites than during the semesters, matching the ebb and flow of academic demands

3 126 MILYAVSKAYA ET AL. and pressures. However, while a cyclical pattern has been observed over the course of a week, the progression of student affect over the calendar year has never been empirically established, despite countless studies conducted using student participants. While we expect to find the aforementioned patterns in college students well-being over the academic year, it is likely that individuals vary in the extent to which they become entrained by these patterns. One personality trait that may play an important role in students emotional experiences over the academic year is perfectionism. Perfectionism heightens one s concerns with achievement standards and involves striving for perfection and to avoid error. Originally, perfectionism was believed to be a unidimensional personality style characterized by excessively high standards for one s performance, striving for flawlessness, and being overly critical of one s behavior (Hewitt & Flett, 1991; Stoeber & Otto, 2006). However, it is now generally accepted that perfectionism is multidimensional, involving intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990; Hewitt & Flett, 1991), and consists of at least two dimensions: (1) personal standards perfectionism and (2) self-critical perfectionism (Campbell & Di Paula, 2002; Enns & Cox, 2002; Hewitt & Flett, 1991, 2004; Slade & Owen, 1998; Stoeber & Otto, 2006). Though referred to by many names (e.g., perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns), these two essentially represent the normal (personal standards) and neurotic (self-critical) forms of perfectionism that was first suggested by Hamachek (1978). It has been argued that a fundamental aspect of the neurotic or personal concerns perfectionism involves self-criticism, which includes hypersensitivity to potential criticism and perceived external standards and a self-denigrating component. For these reasons, this dimension has been referred to as self-critical perfectionism (Dunkley, Zuroff, & Blankstein, 2003; Powers, Koestner, Zuroff, Milyavskaya, & Gorin, 2011; Powers, Zuroff, & Topciu, 2004). Self-criticism reflects a maladaptive form of self-definition characterized by negative cognitive appraisals of the self, guilt, and fear of loss of approval for failing to live up to standards (Blankstein & Dunkley, 2002; Blatt, 2004; Blatt & Zuroff, 1992; Dunkley et al., 2003; Powers et al., 2004). Self-critical perfectionism has been consistently associated with impaired functioning, and lower life satisfaction and well-being (Stoeber, Otto, & Dalbert, 2009; Dunkley, Zuroff, & Blankstein, 2006). Furthermore, various forms of psychopathology, including

4 AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR 127 anxiety, depression, and obsessive compulsive symptoms have been consistently associated with self-critical perfectionism (Enns & Cox, 2002; Stoeber & Otto, 2006). Personal standards perfectionism, in contrast to self-critical perfectionism, does not appear to involve the internalized harshly critical evaluation of the self or the hypersensitivity to external scrutiny (Dunkley et al., 2003; Powers et al., 2004; Stoeber & Otto, 2006). With a few exceptions, personal standards perfectionism has been associated with various positive characteristics, such as self-esteem, higher satisfaction and well-being, and lower levels of maladaptive coping and psychopathology (Stoeber & Otto, 2006). However, these findings primarily hold only when controlling for the overlap between self-critical and personal standards perfectionism. Indeed, Stoeber and Otto (2006) reviewed 35 studies investigating the outcomes associated with the positive form of perfectionism (personal standards perfectionism) and found that when they controlled for perfectionistic concerns (self-critical perfectionism), 22 studies showed positive outcomes, no studies showed negative outcomes, seven studies showed mixed results, and six studies had null results. In summary, it is now accepted that self-critical perfectionism, which is associated with poor adaptation, can be distinguished from personal standards perfectionism, which is often associated with positive outcomes. A recent program of research by Powers and colleagues (2011; Powers, Milyavskaya, & Koestner, 2012) has focused on using prospective, longitudinal research designs to examine the differential relations of personal standards and self-critical perfectionism to goal progress. In these studies, a consistent pattern of negative association between self-critical perfectionism and goal progress emerged, with a positive association between personal standards perfectionism and goal progress evident when statistically controlling for self-critical perfectionism. The present investigation builds on the recent work by Powers and colleagues by using a prospective design over a full calendar year to examine the relation of the two forms of perfectionism with university students affective outcomes over time. Very few studies that have examined perfectionism and affective outcomes have included longitudinal designs and none have included a prospective, longitudinal design that lasted more than a few weeks or included more than a few time points. In the present study, we assessed affect intermittently over the course of a year,

5 128 MILYAVSKAYA ET AL. which allowed us to examine contextual factors that might influence the degree to which the two forms of perfectionism shape students emotional experiences. One could imagine that perfectionistic students at a highly competitive university would experience increasing negative affect and decreasing positive affect as the semester progresses, when there are many deadlines and exams, compared to the start of the semester, or compared to the winter or summer holidays. Interestingly, both self-critical and personal standards perfectionists are thought to be highly attuned to achievement norms, demands, and feedback, but it seems likely that the two forms of perfectionism would be associated with qualitatively different ways of adapting to a changing pattern of demands and pressures. For example, heightening school demands should trigger the ruminative, self-doubting tendencies of self-critical perfectionists, whereas personal standards perfectionists may be more likely to view the increasing academic demands as challenges that offer the opportunity to demonstrate competence. It is especially interesting to ask how the two forms of perfectionism will relate to changes in affect over holiday periods when cues related to academic achievement and performance are minimized or removed. Specifically, do holiday periods provide self-critical perfectionists a respite from achievement demands and pressures? A recent study of college professors suggests the answer is yes (Flaxman, Menard, Kinman, & Bond, 2012). These researchers conducted a short-term prospective study to examine the relations between self-critical perfectionism and negative emotional experiences before, during, and after a respite from work. The results revealed that when academics were classified as being either high or low in a self-critical form of perfectionism, a divergent pattern of emotional responses emerged post-respite but not during the respite. Specifically, during the respite, the two groups of academics appeared to experience similar emotions. However, after the respite, the academics who were high in self-critical perfectionism reported significantly higher levels of negative affect which appeared to be the result of worry and rumination. These authors concluded that these findings support the view that self-critical perfectionists vulnerability to negative emotional experiences is activated by direct exposure to achievement-related stressors. The research by Flaxman and colleagues (2012) was the first to examine the emotional functioning of perfectionists over time as a function of contextual exposure to achievement related cues. How-

6 AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR 129 ever, it is essential to note that these researchers did not assess personal standards perfectionism in their study. The failure to assess personal standards perfectionism may be important for two reasons. First, it seems possible that personal standard perfectionists may respond quite differently than self-critics to contextual variations in achievement standards and pressures. Indeed, it is possible that personal standards perfectionists may adapt especially well to the respite period since such an achievement-free context can provide them with the opportunity to focus on other pursuits and interests. Second, recent research by Stoeber and Otto (2006) and Powers and colleagues (2011) suggests that the effects of self-critical perfectionism on negative outcomes (such as poor coping or a failure to reach one s goals) will be underestimated if the overlap between selfcriticism and personal standards perfectionism is not statistically controlled. Measures of the two forms of perfectionism correlate at the level of r =.50 and it has been shown that apparently non-significant zero-order relations between self-critical perfectionism and maladaptive outcomes become statistically significant when the overlap with personal standards perfectionism is partialled out. An additional weakness of the study by Flaxman and colleagues is the reliance on a median split to arbitrarily dichotomize participants into groups high versus low on perfectionism, a practice shown to have serious flaws (MacCallum, Zhang, Preacher, & Rucker, 2002). We therefore planned a conceptually similar prospective study of college students in which we assessed both forms of perfectionism as continuous rather than dichotomous variables. We expected that self-critical perfectionism and personal standards perfectionism would relate in different ways to affect over the course of the calendar year. Self-criticism was expected to predict lower positive affect and higher negative affect over time, whereas personal standards perfectionism was expected to be unrelated to affect or to show the opposite pattern with either one or both types of affect, consistent with previous mixed findings (Stoeber & Otto, 2006). In an effort to clarify these mixed findings, we were especially interested in examining whether personal standards perfectionism had a differential influence on affect at different times during the semester, including during the respite periods when achievement pressures are lower. In particular, we thought that personal standards perfectionism may be especially beneficial in the recovery process during these respite periods. Striving for success

7 130 MILYAVSKAYA ET AL. without having judgemental and self-critical tendencies should allow people to turn off achievement cues and pressures when in a designated respite context, and instead to focus on other important aspects of their lives, such as enjoying the company of family and friends during the winter holiday period. In contrast, we expected that students high on self-critical perfectionism would be unable to dissociate themselves from the semester s achievement demands and thereby not recover during the winter and summer holidays. The present study thus had four major goals. First, we wanted to empirically establish the pattern of changes in students affect across a full calendar year. We hypothesized that students would experience a decrease in positive affect and increase in negative affect throughout the semester as stress and pressure increased, but would experience a rejuvenation effect during the winter and summer breaks. Second, we wanted to examine the role of personal standards and self-critical perfectionism on changes in affect across the year. We expected self-critical perfectionism to be consistently related to worsening affect whereas personal standards perfectionism was expected to be associated with better affect over time, although we also expected that this relationship may be moderated by contextual influences. The third goal of the present research was to explore how the two forms of perfectionism related to affect during periods of respite, rectifying the analytical problems of previous research which has examined this question (Flaxman et al., 2012). We hypothesized that contrary to Flaxman s results, selfcritical perfectionism would be related to decreased positive and increased negative affect during the holiday periods, while personal standards perfectionism would have the inverse relationship with either one or both types of affect. Finally, we wanted to examine whether subjective stress experienced by self-critical and personal standards perfectionists during the respite was the reason for the expected differences in affect. We thus hypothesized the effects of the two types of perfectionism on rejuvenation after the winter respite to be mediated by experiences of stress. In particular, we expected that students high on self-critical perfectionism would experience greater stress throughout the winter holiday, which would then be reflected in decreased wellbeing, while the opposite would be true for those high on personal standards perfectionism.

8 AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR 131 METHOD PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE Two hundred and forty participants (age 17 48, M = 20.45, 77% female) were recruited through on-campus and online classified advertisements at a Canadian university for a school-year-long online study on personality, goal setting, and well-being. Participants completed an initial questionnaire in early September, with follow-up questionnaires in the middle and end of the fall semester (early November and mid-december), over the winter holiday (early January) and in the middle and end of the winter semester (in early March and mid-april). Seventy-one percent of participants (N = 171) completed the six assessments through the school year, and only ten participants (4%) did not complete any of the follow-up assessments. At the final follow-up in April, participants were asked if they could be contacted again in the future. One hundred and eighty-two participants consented and were contacted again in August; of those, 72% (N = 131) completed an additional questionnaire. Those who completed the summer follow-up did not differ from those who did not on demographic measures or on perfectionism. In September, participants completed measures of self-critical and personal standards perfectionism, as well as measures of positive and negative affect. These measures of affect were completed again at each of the follow-ups including in the summer. In January, in addition to measuring affect, a stress measure was also included. Participants were compensated based on the number of assessments completed, for a total compensation of up to $50. MEASURES Perfectionism Scales. The self-critical perfectionism scale was created by using 12 items from the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ; Blatt, D Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1976). These items were those that loaded highest on the self-criticism factor for the DEQ. The twelve-item scale correlates highly with a standard factorscored self-criticism scale from the DEQ, r =.87 (Koestner, 2013). An illustrative item is, I tend to be very critical of myself. The internal reliability for the self-criticism scale was excellent, alpha =

9 132 MILYAVSKAYA ET AL..92. Previous researchers have argued that self-criticism represents the fundamental feature of neurotic perfectionism (Dunkley et al., 2003; 2006; Powers et al., 2004, 2011). We used a five-item version of the self-oriented perfectionism scale from the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS; Hewitt & Flett, 1991, 2004), which was derived from factor analyses (Cox, Enns, & Clara, 2002). A sample item is I strive to be as perfect as I can be. The five-items were balanced in terms of assessing striving for perfection and importance of being perfect (Campbell & Di Paula, 2002). The internal reliability of this five-item scale was adequate, alpha =.82. A previous study found that the five-item scale correlated highly with the full 15-item scale, r =.92 (Powers et al., 2011). The self-critical and self-oriented perfectionism items were interspersed in a 17-item survey. Participants were asked to rate their agreement with each item on a seven-point scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree). This combination of items has previously been used to assess self-critical and personal standards perfectionism (Powers et al., 2011, 2012). Affect. Students positive and negative affect was assessed seven times throughout the study. Participants completed a nine-item scale of affect (Emmons, 1992) which included four positive (e.g., joyful) and five negative (e.g., frustrated) items. To ensure that responses reflected participants recent (rather than general) affect, participants were instructed to think about how they have felt over the past two weeks when responding to all items. All items were rated on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely). Both scales were reliable, all αs >.80 at each assessment. Positive and negative affect were significantly negatively related to each other at each of the seven assessments, rs ranging from -.34 to -.51, all ps <.001. Stress. Academic, interpersonal, and general stress experienced over the past two weeks was assessed in January. Participants were asked to rate how much stress they experienced over the past two weeks (i.e., over the winter break) on a scale of 1 (no stress at all) to 7 (very much stress) for academic/school stress, interpersonal stress, and general stress (e.g., in your job, activities, other responsibilities, etc.).

10 AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR 133 FIGURE 1. Trajectory and means of positive and negative affect throughout the year. RESULTS GENERAL PATTERNS OF CHANGE IN AFFECT OVER THE CALENDAR YEAR Figure 1 shows the trajectory of positive affect and negative affect throughout the year. As expected, positive affect declined in the fall semester, rebounded over the break, dropped again in the winter semester, and then rebounded over the summer; the opposite pattern was seen in negative affect. Alternatively, it can be seen that although positive affect is always higher than negative affect, the difference between them narrows during the academic semester and then expands during the holiday periods. To statistically test whether students affect decreased as the semester progressed, multilevel analyses were conducted with the surveys, which took place during the school year nested within person. The analyses were conducted using linear mixed-effects modeling in SPSS (SPSS Inc., 2002).The number of days of each assessment from the start of the semester was entered as the independent variable, allowing us to examine the effect of time on affect. The measures were specified as repeated across assessments with a first-order autoregressive covariance structure. Results revealed that the time of assessment from the start of the semester affected both dependent variables,

11 134 MILYAVSKAYA ET AL. b = -.007, 95%CI [-.008;-.006], t = for positive affect, b =.006, 95%CI [.005;.007], t = 9.94 for negative affect, all p s <.001. Although the coefficients appear small, they represent the effect of each additional day from the start of the semester. This represents a weekly decrease in positive affect and increase in negative affect of an average of.04 to.05 points. Considering that the semester is approximately 15 weeks, this represents an average change of more than half of a standard deviation from baseline over the course of the semester that is due to the passage of time. PERFECTIONISM AND TEMPORAL CHANGES IN AFFECT We next examined the effects of self-critical and personal standards perfectionism on affect at each of the time points. The two types of perfectionism were correlated with each other at r =.51 (p <.001). We again used multilevel modeling with assessment occasions nested within individuals to look at the effects of self-critical and self-oriented perfectionism on affect at each time point, controlling for prior affect. Self-critical perfectionism and self-oriented perfectionism were included as level-2 predictors, and affect at the prior assessment was included as a level-1 predictor, so that the results for the level-2 (personality) variables reflect their effects on changes in affect from the previous assessment. The measures were specified as repeated across assessments with a first-order autoregressive covariance structure. The results for each measure of affect are presented in Table 1. Across both positive and negative affect, selfcritical perfectionism was associated with decreased well-being, while personal standards perfectionism was linked with increased well-being. Follow-up analyses showed that there were no interactions between the two forms of perfectionism on either positive (b =.01, p =.42, 95%CI [-.015;.037]) or negative (b = -.01, p =.61, 95%CI [-.034;.020]) affect. PERFECTIONISM AND REJUVENATION DURING RESPITE We were especially interested in whether self-critical and personal standards perfectionism had differential effects on affect during the semester and at respite. To examine this question, additional analyses were conducted with all the data. Each assessment point was

12 AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR 135 TABLE 1. Effects of Self-Critical and Personal Standards Perfectionism on Affect in Repeated-Measures Analyses. Positive Affect Negative Affect b [95%CI] t b [95%CI] t Personal Standards.06[.01;.10] 2.53*.06[.11;.02] 2.78** Self-Critical.10[.15;.06] 4.50**.20[.15;.25] 7.66** Prior Affect.52[.47;.57] 20.43**.54[.48;.59] 20.42** *p <.05; **p <.01 dummy-coded as taking place either during the semester or during the holiday (winter or summer). This code was entered as a level-1 categorical predictor in the multilevel analyses (with times of assessment nested within individual), and the interaction between the timing of assessment (semester or holiday) and both types of perfectionism were also included. Separate analyses were conducted for positive and negative affect, both controlling for prior affect. Results revealed a significant interaction between the dummy-coded respite variable and personal standards perfectionism on positive affect (F = 7.35, p <.01), such that personal standards perfectionism predicted increased positive affect only during the respite periods (b =.16, 95%CI [.07; 24], t = 3.49, p <.001), but not during the semester assessments (b =.002, ns). Only a main effect, but no interaction, was evident for self-critical perfectionism, suggesting that it influenced positive affect similarly across the semester and holiday periods. None of the interactions were significant for negative affect, with main effects evident for both types of perfectionism. These results suggest that although self-critical perfectionism is equally detrimental throughout the year, people high on positive standards perfectionism experience less increases in negative affect throughout the year and are better able to rejuvenate themselves during a respite. ROLE OF STRESS Finally, we tested our hypothesis that people high on self-critical perfectionism do not recover during the winter break because they continue to experience high levels of stress during that time. We tested three separate types of stress: academic, interpersonal, and general. Given that the direction of effects was similar on both measures of affect (with negative affect reversed), and that the two mea-

13 136 MILYAVSKAYA ET AL. sures were correlated (r = -.41, p <.001 at the January assessment) we used the combined scale in our analyses. Using the Preacher and Hayes (2008) indirect macro for SPSS, we estimated 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of the indirect effect using bootstrapping re-sampling (k = 5000) procedures. We first tested the link between self-critical perfectionism and January affect, mediated by the three types of stress, and controlling for December affect and personal standards perfectionism. The total indirect effect was (SE =.026), and the bootstrapped 95% CI estimates did not include zero [-.122; -.018] showing that the total indirect effect was different from zero at p <.05. Looking at each type of stress separately, both academic and interpersonal stress were mediators (academic and interpersonal 95% CIs[-.051; -.003] and [-.085, -.011], respectively); the 95% confidence intervals for general stress included zero, suggesting that only academic and interpersonal stress contributed to explaining the relationship between self-critical perfectionism and change in affect. We next repeated these analyses using personal standards perfectionism as the independent variable and controlling for selfcritical perfectionism. Although the total mediation effect was not significant (95%CIs[-.002;.103]), the relationship between personal standards perfectionism and improved affect was mediated by lower interpersonal stress experienced by those high on personal standards perfectionism (indirect effect =.033, 95%CI[.007;.073]). The other two types of stress were not significant mediators, as their 95%CIs included zero. DISCUSSION The present study had four main goals. First, we wanted to empirically establish the progression of changes in students affect across a full calendar year. Second, we sought to examine the relation of personal standards and self-critical perfectionism to students affect throughout the year. Third, we were interested in exploring how self-critical and personal standard perfectionism related to affect during the respite period. Finally we wanted to test the hypothesis that the influence of both types of perfectionism on rejuvenation over the January holiday would be mediated by the stress experienced by students over the holiday break. Students affect through the year followed a cyclical pattern, dropping with each passing day of the academic semester and re-

14 AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR 137 bounding during the winter and summer holidays. Paralleling the cyclical pattern previously found over the course of the workweek (e.g., Ryan et al., 2010), our study was the first demonstration of such a pattern over a longer period of time. Empirically establishing the pattern of students affect across the year is especially important considering that most psychology studies focusing on affect and well-being are conducted with undergraduate students. Our results point to the importance of taking into account the time of year during which such studies are conducted to ensure that conclusions are drawn based on true findings and not on spurious relationships with cyclical affect patterns. Conducting this study over the course of a full calendar year allowed us to examine university students perfectionism in two distinct contexts within a single study, including the context of academic pressures inherent during the school year and the context of winter and summer holidays which are typically devoid of achievement pressures. As we expected, self-critical perfectionism was related to negative affect across all time points, such that those higher on self-critical perfectionism consistently reported not only more negative and less positive affect but greater changes in affect (since prior affect was statistically controlled). Importantly, this pattern held across the winter and summer holiday periods, reflecting the fact that self-critical perfectionism was always related to worsening affect in both contexts, regardless of whether the environment is fraught with achievement cues. In contrast, personal standards perfectionism was only weakly associated with negative affect across all time points but was associated with improving positive affect during the respite periods, suggesting that students high on this trait are best able to benefit from the holidays. These results suggest that a possible reason for the mixed results reported for personal standards perfectionism (Stoeber & Otto, 2006) could be that the influence of personal standards perfectionism may depend on the context of the assessment. Our findings that personal standards perfectionism was uniquely related to positive affect (but not differentially related to negative affect) during respite periods are also consistent with the dynamic model of affect which suggests that during stress-free periods positive and negative affect are likely to become unlinked and to act independently of one another (Reich et al., 2003; Zautra et al., 1997). As predicted, the relation between self-critical perfectionism and the rejuvenation effect of the January respite was mediated

15 138 MILYAVSKAYA ET AL. by both interpersonal and academic stress. Furthermore, personal standards perfectionism s relation to increased positive affect over the winter break was mediated by experiences of less interpersonal stress. This suggests that self-critical perfectionists do not experience the same rejuvenation effects because they experience more stress (academic and interpersonal) during the respite. Thus, selfcritics seem less able to turn-off their worries about achievement demands even during a designated respite period, and experience increased interpersonal difficulties during a time when many students find enjoyment and revitalization in reuniting with family and friends. For personal standards perfectionism, the results were mediated only by interpersonal stress. Thus, it seems that personal standards perfectionists benefit not from being better able to disengage in academic concerns but because they can reengage in social and interpersonal pursuits during the break. The present study represents the first attempt to explore the differential effects of the two types of perfectionism on student affect over the course of a full calendar year. Furthermore, it represents the first time personal standards perfectionism was examined in an environment in which achievement cues were removed. The latter represents an important advancement for the perfectionism literature, which until recently only examined the effects of perfectionism in environments in which achievement cues are salient. While past research has shown mixed results on the positive outcomes associated with personal standards perfectionism (i.e., often found to be unrelated to outcome measures) in achievement contexts, we showed that positive effects were moderated by context, suggesting that there might be something special about the non-achievement context that allows personal standards perfectionists to thrive. This finding adds additional support for the notion of a positive form of perfectionism. Consistent with previous research the present study found a substantial statistical overlap between positive and negative forms of perfectionism (Flett & Hewitt, 2006; Stoeber & Otto, 2006). We followed Stoeber and Otto s (2006) reasoning that the overlap makes it important to control for self-critical perfectionism when examining the relation of personal standards perfectionism to outcomes and vice versa. It seems that such a procedure is especially consequential for personal standards perfectionism where its positive relation to a number of outcomes is only revealed when self-critical concerns are controlled, pointing to a suppression effect of self-critical

16 AFFECT ACROSS THE YEAR 139 perfectionism on personal standards perfectionism (Congar, 1974). While partialling out the effects of the suppressor variable (in this case self-critical perfectionism) is a common statistical tool, a key pitfall of using this procedure is that the residualized scale may no longer represent the original construct (Lynam, Hoyle, & Newman, 2006). In our study, as previously discussed by Powers et al., (2011), removing self-criticism from personal standards perfectionism may conceptually change what Hewitt and Flett (1991) intend to be the meaning of self-oriented perfectionism, and perhaps perfectionistic strivings more generally. It is possible that the residual variance left by partialling self-criticism from personal standards perfectionism is essentially high standard setting alone, which is not the construct of self-oriented perfectionism as formulated by Hewitt and Flett. The present study focused on distinguishing two types of perfectionism whereas some theoretical conceptualizations posit three or even six factor models of perfectionism (Frost et al., 1990; Hewitt & Flett, 1991). While there is of course still some debate, we believe that there is considerable agreement in the literature at this point beginning with the theoretical distinction suggested by Hamachek (1978) and supported by multiple empirical studies (see review by Stoeber & Otto, 2006) that two basic factors represent the different dimensions of perfectionism. Our focus on the two-factor model, although supported by research, could of course be expanded to consider other specific forms of perfectionism. There are several limitations to the present study. First, we relied on very brief scales to measure both self-critical and personal standards perfectionism, using only 12 and 5 items respectively, rather that multiple, full-length scales often used in perfectionism research (e.g., Dunkley, Berg, & Zuroff, 2012). While we agree that the use of the full scales would be superior, the abbreviated scales have been used successfully in previous research and have been shown to correlate highly with the standard measures (r s >.85; Powers et al., 2011). Another limitation of the present study is our potentially simplistic conceptualization of affect. Previous research has shown that certain complexities exist in the affect literature and these complexities were not adequately addressed in the current study. For example, the negativity bias, which states that negativity is stronger than positivity, combined with the finding that individuals adapt to positive events faster than to negative events (Larsen, 2009), could perhaps partially explain why worsening affect is observed in an achievement context. We did not measure the intensity of the affec-

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