Selective attention in perfectionism: Dissociating valence from perfectionism-relevance
Abstract
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..
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Other experimental studies using attention and interpretation bias paradigms have found support for the cognitive behavioural model of perfectionism.
“Other experimental studies using attention and interpretation bias paradigms have also found support for the cognitive behavioural model of perfectionism (Howell et al., 2016, 2019; Tonta et al., 2019).”
From Coming of age: A reflection of the first 21 years of cognitive behaviour therapy for perfectionism (2023) · cites this paper as Howell et al., 2016
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- Authors
- Howell, J. A., McEvoy, P. M., Grafton, B., Macleod, C., Kane, R. T., Anderson, R. A., & Egan, S. J.
- Affiliations
- Curtin University (AU)
- The University of Western Australia (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Howell, Joel A.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-06
- Volume
- 51
- Pages
- 100-108
- ISSN
- 0005-7916 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2233987656
- Cited by
- 20
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 3.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) (submittedVersion)
- eSpace (Curtin University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Australian Research Council (DP140104448, DP140103713)
- Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research (PNII-ID-PCCE-2011-2-0045)
- CNCS
- UEFISCDI
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Perfectionism, Procrastination, Anxiety Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders
- Keywords
- maladaptive perfectionism, attentional bias, emotional valence, negative information processing
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Anxiety, Attention, Depression, Dissociative Disorders, Female, Humans, Male, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Surveys and Questionnaires, Bias, Young Adult
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