negatively worded items. Still, the Cox et al. (2002) findings suggest that briefer subscales can be created for
the HFMPS.
Campbell and Di Paula (2002) suggested on the basis of their analysis of self-beliefs in perfectionism that
socially prescribed perfectionism is comprised of two facets known as conditional acceptance and other’s high
standards. They then reported that on the basis of factor analyses of university student responses to the 15 items
that comprise the socially prescribed perfectionism the two factors tapping conditional acceptance and others’
high standards were identified with conditional acceptance being the maladaptive facet. In addition, factor analy-
ses by Campbell and Di Paula (2002) of the 15 items assessing self-oriented perfectionism also yielded two
factors, each loading on five items. The factors were labeled ‘Importance of being perfect’ and ‘Perfectionistic
striving.’ Along with the factor of Self-oriented perfectionism, they further indicated that the Perfectionistic
striving factor is largely adaptive and relates to positive affect, while the Importance of being perfect factor is
associated with positive self-esteem. Note that the authors did not provide specific details of their factor analytic
methodology.
Recently, we assessed the replicability of the Campbell and Di Paula (2002) results. Our findings across four
large samples (945 university students, 846 adults from the general community, 933 chronically ill adults, and
1109 psychiatric patients) utilizing confirmatory factor analyses did not support the notion of facets within
HFMPS dimensions. Our analyses suggest that both self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism should be
treated empirically and regarded conceptually as intact dimensions contributing to a multidimensional frame-
work ( Flett, Molnar, & Hewitt, 2014 ).
Criterion/Predictive
Research compared the ability of the HFMPS subscales and dysfunctional attitudes measures of perfectionism
and dependency to predict unique variance in depressive symptoms in a sample of 280 university students and a
clinical sample of 70 patients (see Sherry, Hewitt, Flett, & Harvey, 2003 ). As expected, perfectionistic dysfunc-
tional attitudes were correlated significantly with both self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism in the
student sample (respective r’s of .23 and .51 for men and .32 and .62 for women) and in the total clinical sample
(respective r’s of .53 and .62). Subsequent hierarchical regression analyses found that the HFMPS indices
accounted for substantial unique variance in depression over and above the variance attributable to dysfunctional
attitudes for both university men and women. The significant individual predictor was socially prescribed perfec-
tionism. It appears that despite being highly correlated with other perfectionism measures, socially prescribed
perfectionism often emerges as a unique predictor. Also, a key consideration is whether there is validity evidence
involving behavioral measures. Kobori and Tanno (2012) compared 20 students from Japan with high levels of
self-oriented perfectionism (75 or higher) and 20 students from Japan with low levels of self-oriented perfection-
ism (56 or lower). Results from a Stroop task showed that when presented with failure and neutral words, the
group high in self-oriented perfectionism did not take longer to respond to failure words than neutral words, in
contrast to one of the main hypotheses of this study. But group comparisons showed that they took longer to
respond to failure words than did the participants in the low perfectionism group. These data support the valid-
ity of this subscale in terms of the proposed tendency for perfectionists to be sensitive to failure.
Location
Hewitt, P.L., & Flett, G.L. (1991). Perfectionism in the self and social contexts: Conceptualization, assessment,
and association with psychopathology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ,60, 456/C0470.
Hewitt, P.L., & Flett, G.L. (2004). The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale: Manual . Toronto: Multi-Health
Systems, Inc.
Results and Comments
The HFMPS has items that are high in face validity. The HFPS is unique with its focus on other-oriented per-
fectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism, and there is a growing literature attesting to the destructive
impact of high socially prescribed perfectionism. The measure is well-supported in terms of norms for various
populations (see Hewitt & Flett, 2004 ). While the scale requires only a sixth grade reading ability, there are sev-
eral reverse-worded items on each subscale and subsequent revisions of the measure could simplify the instru-
ment by reducing the number of these items.604 21. MEASURES OF PERFECTIONISM
V. VICES AND VIRTUES