Perfectionism and Attitudes Towards Performance: Comparing and Contrasting the Impact of Perfectionism in Various Performance Domains

The present study examined the relationship between performance domains and attitudes towards performance. The study sought to compare performance domains on performance anxiety, perfectionism, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and mood to determine whether performance domain impacts attitudes towards performance. The study consisted of 76 undergraduate students from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Completing an ANOVA revealed no significant differences between performance domains and attitudes towards performance on any of the dependent variables examined. However, the analysis revealed significant relationships between performance anxiety, self-esteem, negative affect, and perfectionism. A strong negative correlation was found between self-esteem and performance anxiety, whereas negative affect and perfectionism illustrated strong positive correlations with performance anxiety. Using a multiple regression model, self-esteem was the best predictor of performance anxiety, with perfectionism also demonstrating significant influence. Upon further examination of the data using a Correlation Matrix, the relationship between performance anxiety and perfectionism, exhibited that maladaptive forms of perfectionism tend to be the driving force of this relationship through the significant findings between performance anxiety and the APS-R Discrepancy scale.