Relationships of perfectionism with selective attentional engagement and disengagement biases

This study aimed to investigate relationships between perfectionism and selective attentional engagement and disengagement biases to success- and failure-related words. Seventy-five undergraduates (33 male and 42 female) were asked to perform modified dot-probe tasks and to complete items in the Multidimensional Self-oriented Perfectionism Scale. The modified dot-probe tasks contained four kinds of stimuli such as success-related words, failure-related words, neutral words, and non-words. Using this task, selective attentional engagement and disengagement biases to success- and failure-related words were measured. Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficients between the selective attentional bias and perfectionism scale scores were observed. As a result, several relationships were found in males: personal standards positively correlated with disengagement bias to failure-related words; concern over mistakes positively correlated with engagement bias to failure-related words; and doubting of actions positively correlated with engagement bias to success-related words. These results suggest that male perfectionists have selective attentional engagement and disengagement biases to success or failure, and that each dimension of perfectionism is related to engagement bias and disengagement bias differently.