Adolescent Perceived Parental Psychological Control, Need Frustration and Perfectionism: Concurrent and Longitudinal Association

The present study sought to explore the developmental antecedent of adolescent perfectionism. In doing so, we examined the concurrent and longitudinal relationships between two domain-specific expressions of perceived parental psychological control (i.e., dependency-oriented and achievement-oriented) and perfectionism (i.e., evaluative concern and striving) and whether three forms of need frustration (i.e., autonomy, relatedness and competence need frustration) mediated these links. A total of 2,170 adolescents (48.4 % female; Mage = 14 years) participated in this three-wave longitudinal study with 6-month intervals. Overall, the concurrent analysis results indicated that DPC and APC were positively related to evaluative concern. Relatedness and competence frustration mediated both relationships. Interestingly, the longitudinal findings revealed that DPC and APC respectively predicted decreases and increases in adolescent striving rather than evaluative concern one year later. Although APC had no direct effect on evaluative concern, it predicted increases in evaluative concern through relatedness frustration. Overall, the results showed that psychological control from interpersonal and achievement domain each have unique contributions to the development of the two forms of perfectionism. It also extended past research by showing that need frustration can be an explanatory mechanism among these associations.