Selective attention in perfectionism: Dissociating valence from perfectionism-relevance
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Maladaptive perfectionism has been identified as a predisposing and perpetuating factor for a range of disorders, including eating, anxiety, and mood disorders. An influential model of perfectionism, put forward by Shafran, Cooper, and Fairburn (2002), proposes that high p...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
2016
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/21643 |
| _version_ | 1848750647247110144 |
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| author | Howell, Joel McEvoy, Peter Grafton, B. Macleod, C. Kane, R. Anderson, Rebecca Egan, Sarah |
| author_facet | Howell, Joel McEvoy, Peter Grafton, B. Macleod, C. Kane, R. Anderson, Rebecca Egan, Sarah |
| author_sort | Howell, Joel |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Maladaptive perfectionism has been identified as a predisposing and perpetuating factor for a range of disorders, including eating, anxiety, and mood disorders. An influential model of perfectionism, put forward by Shafran, Cooper, and Fairburn (2002), proposes that high perfectionism reflects an attentional bias that operates to afford greater attention to negative information than to positive information, when this information is perfectionism-relevant. The present study is the first to experimentally test this hypothesis.. METHOD: The present study assessed the type of stimuli that high perfectionists (n = 31) preferentially attend to compared to low perfectionists (n = 25) within a non-clinical population. Using an attentional probe task, we compared high and low perfectionist attentional responding to stimulus words that differed in terms of their emotional valence (positive vs. negative) and perfectionism-relevance (perfectionism-relevant vs. -irrelevant). RESULTS: Analysis revealed that, unlike low perfectionists, high perfectionists displayed greater attentional preference to negative than to positive information, but only for perfectionism-relevant stimuli.. LIMITATIONS: The implications must be considered within the limitations of the present study. The present study did not assess clinical participants, as such conclusions cannot be made regarding attentional bias that characterize clinical disorders in which perfectionism is identified as a predisposing and perpetuating factor. CONCLUSIONS: Theoretically, the attentional dot-probe task lends weight to the cognitive-behavioral model of clinical perfectionism, which proposed a biased attentional processing of negative perfectionism relevant stimuli within perfectionism. This conclusion was previously based on clinical impressions, whereas the present study used an objective performance measure. Clinically, therapists should take this attentional bias into account when planning treatments that involve targeting perfectionism.. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T07:40:09Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-21643 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T07:40:09Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-216432017-09-13T13:52:23Z Selective attention in perfectionism: Dissociating valence from perfectionism-relevance Howell, Joel McEvoy, Peter Grafton, B. Macleod, C. Kane, R. Anderson, Rebecca Egan, Sarah BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Maladaptive perfectionism has been identified as a predisposing and perpetuating factor for a range of disorders, including eating, anxiety, and mood disorders. An influential model of perfectionism, put forward by Shafran, Cooper, and Fairburn (2002), proposes that high perfectionism reflects an attentional bias that operates to afford greater attention to negative information than to positive information, when this information is perfectionism-relevant. The present study is the first to experimentally test this hypothesis.. METHOD: The present study assessed the type of stimuli that high perfectionists (n = 31) preferentially attend to compared to low perfectionists (n = 25) within a non-clinical population. Using an attentional probe task, we compared high and low perfectionist attentional responding to stimulus words that differed in terms of their emotional valence (positive vs. negative) and perfectionism-relevance (perfectionism-relevant vs. -irrelevant). RESULTS: Analysis revealed that, unlike low perfectionists, high perfectionists displayed greater attentional preference to negative than to positive information, but only for perfectionism-relevant stimuli.. LIMITATIONS: The implications must be considered within the limitations of the present study. The present study did not assess clinical participants, as such conclusions cannot be made regarding attentional bias that characterize clinical disorders in which perfectionism is identified as a predisposing and perpetuating factor. CONCLUSIONS: Theoretically, the attentional dot-probe task lends weight to the cognitive-behavioral model of clinical perfectionism, which proposed a biased attentional processing of negative perfectionism relevant stimuli within perfectionism. This conclusion was previously based on clinical impressions, whereas the present study used an objective performance measure. Clinically, therapists should take this attentional bias into account when planning treatments that involve targeting perfectionism.. 2016 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/21643 10.1016/j.jbtep.2016.01.004 restricted |
| spellingShingle | Howell, Joel McEvoy, Peter Grafton, B. Macleod, C. Kane, R. Anderson, Rebecca Egan, Sarah Selective attention in perfectionism: Dissociating valence from perfectionism-relevance |
| title | Selective attention in perfectionism: Dissociating valence from perfectionism-relevance |
| title_full | Selective attention in perfectionism: Dissociating valence from perfectionism-relevance |
| title_fullStr | Selective attention in perfectionism: Dissociating valence from perfectionism-relevance |
| title_full_unstemmed | Selective attention in perfectionism: Dissociating valence from perfectionism-relevance |
| title_short | Selective attention in perfectionism: Dissociating valence from perfectionism-relevance |
| title_sort | selective attention in perfectionism: dissociating valence from perfectionism-relevance |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/21643 |