Parent autonomy support as moderator: Testing the expanded perfectionism social disconnection model

Perfectionism is a bidimensional trait that has been linked to anxiety. While the positive relationship between evaluative concerns perfectionism (ECP)1 and anxiety has consistently been demonstrated in the literature, a debate still exists on whether personal standards perfectionism (PSP)2 is positively or negatively related to clinical constructs. This inconsistency in evidence highlights a need to test for factors that moderate this relationship. Using the expanded perfectionism social disconnection model (PSDM)3 as framework, parent autonomy support was examined as a moderator to the relationship between PSP and anxiety. Using longitudinal data from a sample of Filipino university students (N = 312), it was found that parent autonomy support interacted with PSP to predict anxiety even after controlling for the effects of sex, age, depression, stress, ECP, and anxiety at baseline. Longitudinal evidence for the perfectionism stress mediation model was found for ECP, but the mediating effect of stress between ECP and anxiety only became significant when the effects of the covariates were not accounted for. Given the prevalence of mental health problems among the youth, implications of the findings are discussed.