Personality and Individual Differences 58 (2014) 6570

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Personality and Individual Differences

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The mediating role of coping in the relationship between subtypes of perfectionism and job burnout: A test of the 2 2 model of perfectionism with employees in China
Xu Li a,1, Zhi-Jin Hou a,, Hao-Yang Chi a, Jiao Liu a, Mark J. Hager b
a b

School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, No. 19 Xinjiekouwai St., Haidian Dist., Beijing 100875, China Menlo College, 1000 El Camino Real, Atherton, CA 94027, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
This study addressed the four hypotheses proposed in the 2 2 model of perfectionism (Gaudreau, 2013) and investigated the relationship between perfectionism, coping style, and job burnout among IT employees in China. The Chinese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (Li & Shi, 2003), Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (Slaney, Rice, Mobley, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001), and Problem-Focused Style of Coping (Heppner, Cook, Wright, & Johnson, 1995) scale were administered to 345 Chinese IT employees. Using cluster analysis, participants were categorized into four perfectionism groups, which were then analyzed with ANOVA and path analysis. Results indicated: (1) signicant differences on coping and burnout were found between the pure Evaluative Concerns Perfectionism (ECP) and the Non-Perfectionism (NP) delineated in the 2 2 model; (2) when investigating the relationships between subtypes of perfectionism and job burnout, results supported the Hypothesis 1A, 2, and 4 proposed in Gaudreau (2013) but failed to corroborate its Hypothesis 3; and (3) controlling for the other two, each of the three coping styles partially or completely mediated the relationship between perfectionism and burnout. 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Article history: Received 6 October 2012 Received in revised form 26 September 2013 Accepted 12 October 2013 Available online 8 November 2013 Keywords: Perfectionism Coping style Job burnout Mediating effect IT employees

1. Introduction Job burnout has been revealed to be a pervasive workplace hazard and has thus received much attention from social science researchers (Schaufeli, Leiter, & Maslach, 2009). From more recent literature, one personality variable that has been frequently examined in association with burnout is perfectionism (Hill, Hall, & Appleton, 2010; Stoeber & Rennert, 2008; Zhang, Gan, & Cham, 2007), which is a type of personality trait most prominently characterized by setting excessively high standards for performance accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990). Despite this original denition, cumulative evidence has indicated that perfectionism is more likely a multidimensional construct, and researchers have been attempting to construct several models to conceptualize the hidden underlying structure of perfectionism. Among these models, the tripartite formulation by Stoeber and Otto (2006) and the quadripartite 2 2 model by Gaudreau and Thompson (2010) seem to have been the focus of recent studies (Stoeber, 2012).
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 58802102.
E-mail address: zhijinhou@163.com (Z.-J. Hou). Xu Li is now a doctoral student in Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education, University of Maryland, College Park.
1

Both models considered the differential interactions of Personal Standards or Perfectionistic Strivings Perfectionism (PSP) and Evaluative Concerns Perfectionism (ECP) within each person, and labeled the high PSP low ECP combination as the adaptive or pure PSP subtype and the high PSP high ECP combination as the maladaptive or Mixed Perfectionism (MP) subtype. The key difference between the tripartite and the quadripartite model was that the Non-Perfectionism (NP) subtype in the former was further classied into a pure ECP subtype and a real NP subtype in the latter. Some evidence has been found that provided preliminary support for this distinction (Franche, Gaudreau, & Miranda, in press; Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010; Sironic & Reeve, 2012), and the rst objective of this study was to examine whether individuals with pure ECP and NP would display signicant differences in coping style and job burnout which would lend support to conceptualizing them as two distinct subtypes with a sample of Chinese IT employees. Along with the 2 2 conceptualization, four hypotheses were proposed in Gaudreau and Thompson (2010) and further revised in Gaudreau (2013). In the updated model (Gaudreau, 2013, p.352), Hypothesis 1 (H1) addressed the comparative adaptiveness of pure PSP and NP with H1A favoring pure PSP, H1B favoring NP and H1C claiming no difference. Hypothesis 2 (H2) maintained that pure ECP was less adaptive than NP. MP was hypothesized to be

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associated with better psychological adjustment than pure ECP in Hypothesis 3 (H3) and poorer adjustment than pure PSP in Hypothesis 4 (H4). Stoeber (2012) called for future studies to test the comparative adaptiveness of the four subtypes of perfectionism, therefore the second objective of this study was to address this question by examining their differential roles in predicting job burnout. The third question to explore, besides the direct relationship, is the specic mechanisms through which perfectionism inuences burnout, i.e., identifying potential mediating or moderating variables. Among the investigated variables, coping style has recently become an important focus (Fry, 1995; Hill et al., 2010; Ogus, 2008; Stoeber & Rennert, 2008). Various studies have demonstrated signicant correlations of coping style with both perfectionism and burnout (Ogus, 2008; Stoeber & Rennert, 2008). Moreover, two studies further suggested that it could serve as a potential mediator (Chang, 2012; Hill et al., 2010). For example, Hill et al. (2010) found that problem-focused and avoidant coping mediated the effects of self-oriented or socially prescribed perfectionism on athlete burnout. And in Changs (2012) study, it was found that in a sample of nurses, emotion-focused coping (dened as the latent construct behind suppressive and reective coping style) mediated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and burnout. However, although the above two studies have examined the mediating effects of coping style between perfectionism and burnout, they only focused on athletes and nurses. While empirical evidence has suggested that job burnout could be found in industries besides human service (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Schaufeli, Leiter, Maslach, & Jackson, 1996), studies targeting on such populations do not seem sufcient, especially in the Asian cultural context with its vast scope of established and emerging industries. The present study attempted to address this limitation by focusing on employees in the eld of Information Technology (IT) in China. IT is a kind of profession that requires employees to continuously add to their knowledge base to create more accurate, efcient, and useful software. To achieve this, they have to pay great attention to details in order to keep the computer programs perfectly right without any possible error. This demand for absolute rigor, meticulous execution, and total absence of errors characterizes relevant jobs in this eld by high workloads and various kinds of stressors (Maudgalya, Wallace, Daraiseh, & Salem, 2006; Sethi, King, & Quick, 2004). Moreover, there has also been strong evidence to show signicant correlations between work pressure or workloads and burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1981; Maslach & Leiter, 2008). These ndings suggest that IT employees are a high-risk group of potential sufferers of job burnout, and this risk is even more salient in the current Chinese society given its rapid pace of development which in effect imposes great stress on employees working in various enterprises. Unfortunately however, little scientic research has been located that systematically investigated job burnout and its pertinent variables and mechanisms among the special population of Chinese IT employees. Therefore, the third objective of this study was to examine the relationship between perfectionism and burnout and the potential mediating role of coping style in the IT profession in China, with an attempt to somewhat further our understanding of employees mental health in this particular occupation.

development and test, technical support or internet information. All participants were recruited through online advertisements and were asked to ll out the questionnaires on an internet platform. Among the 462 responses received, a total of 345 questionnaires (74.7%) qualied for further analysis (with less than 5% missing data), of which 76.8% (n = 265) were male and 23.2% (n = 80) were female. Their age ranged from 19 to 42 with a mean of 28.41 and SD of 5.78. Missing data analysis was performed and no signicant differences were found between the excluded cases and the retained cases. 2.2. Measures 2.2.1. Burnout The Chinese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory- General Survey (MBI-GS, Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996), localized and revised by Li and Shi (2003), was used to measure the IT employees burnout level; it contains 15 items divided into three subscales, Emotional Exhaustion, Cynicism, and Professional Efcacy. Participants are required to respond on a 7-point scale ranging from 0 = never to 6 = very frequently. Higher scores indicate higher levels of emotional exhaustion and cynicism and a lower level of professional efcacy. The Chinese version of MBI-GS (Li & Shi, 2003) displayed good reliability with the data in the present research: the internal consistency coefcient for the overall inventory (Cronbachs alpha) was 0.89; and were 0.90, 0.89 and 0.89 for the aforementioned subscales respectively. 2.2.2. Perfectionism The Almost Perfect Scale Revised (APS-R, Slaney, Rice, Mobley, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001) was used to measure participants perfectionism from three dimensions: Discrepancy, High Standards, and Order. This inventory consists of 23 items rated on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). Higher scores on these dimensions respectively indicate higher discrepancy between self-expectation and reality, higher standards the individual sets for himself or herself, and a stronger sense of and inclination for order. The original APS-R was adapted into Chinese using the translate and back-translate procedure, and displayed good reliability with the data in this research: the internal consistency (Cronbachs alpha) was 0.89 for the whole scale, 0.91 for Discrepancy, 0.81 for High Standards, and 0.66 for Order. 2.2.3. Coping style The Problem-Focused Style of Coping (PF-SOC; Heppner, Cook, Wright, & Johnson, 1995) was used. The Chinese version of PFSOC revised by Zhan and Gan (2008) was employed to assess participants coping style. This inventory consists of 18 items which are categorized into three subscales: Reective, Reactive, and Suppressive coping (Heppner et al., 1995). Participants were asked to respond on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = almost never and 5 = almost all of the time). A higher score on the Reective subscale represents a greater tendency towards problem-focused coping, while on the other two subscales it means less problem-focused coping. The inventory has good reliability with the data in this study: the internal consistency (Cronbachs alpha) for the general scale was 0.79, for Reective 0.77, for Reactive 0.75, and for Suppressive 0.87. 3. Results

2. Methods 3.1. Grouping participants in terms of perfectionism 2.1. Participants Participants of this study were urban mainland Chinese IT employees working in departments of software/hardware With regard to the rst research question, we employed cluster analysis procedures similar to Rice and Ashby (2007) to group the participants according to their responses in the APS-R. To align

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with the 2 2 model, we maintained the cluster number to be four, and hierarchical clustering was adopted rst to determine the cluster centroids for use in the subsequent non-hierarchical K-Means clustering. This combination of both hierarchical and non-hierarchical methods was also suggested in Hair, Black, Babin, and Anderson (2009) to compensate for each others weakness. To further understand the four groups identied, ANOVA tests and post hoc analyses were then conducted to inspect their differences on the High Standard and Discrepancy dimensions. Relevant results were demonstrated in Fig. 1 and Table 1. As expected, the rst (n = 123) and second (n = 81) group of participants displayed signicantly higher High Standard scores than Group 3 (n = 62) and 4 (n = 79) as well as the sample median score of this dimension (Md = 5.00); while the second and the fourth group of participants showed signicantly higher Discrepancy scores than Group 1 and 3 as well as the corresponding dimension median score (Md = 3.50). These results suggested that the clusters which emerged from the empirical data were consistent with the 2 2 theoretical conceptualization of perfectionism, based on which the four obtained clusters were thereby named as pure PSP, MP, NP, and pure ECP respectively. The second research question was also addressed by the ANOVA tests. Results showed that, for coping style, signicant group differences were manifest in all its dimensions (Reective, Suppressive, and Reactive coping, F(3,341) = 10.26, 34.85, and

30.05 respectively, all p < .001). Post-hoc analyses revealed that: on Reective coping, pure PSP perfectionists exhibited higher scores than the other three groups; while on Suppressive and Reactive coping, MP and pure ECP groups reported higher scores vis-avis pure PSP and NP groups. With regard to burnout, signicant group differences were also found in all three dimensions (Emotional Exhaustion, Cynicism, and Professional Efcacy) and scale total score (F(3,341) = 19.94, 16.67, 46.01, and 30.07 respectively, all p < .001). Post-hoc analyses revealed that while pure PSP and NP both scored signicantly lower than pure ECP and MP in Emotional Exhaustion, Cynicism, and burnout total score, pure PSP perfectionists demonstrated an even higher level of professional efcacy than the NP group. 3.2. The relationships between groups of perfectionism, coping style and burnout The descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations of all the variables are displayed in Table 2. To address the third objective of this study and explore the relationships between the three variables, we conducted multivariate path analysis with multiple mediators. Specically, we looked at how different coping styles mediated the inuences of the four groups of perfectionism on burnout using Mplus6.0 software. Considering the categorical nature of the perfectionism group variable, we recoded it into three dummy variables as (PfDum1, PfDum2, PfDum3) with the scheme of pure PSP = (1, 1, 1), MP = (1, 2, 0), NP = (1, 1, 1), and pure ECP = (3, 0, 0). Therefore, the PfDum1 differentiated the pure ECP (with a negative value of 3) from the other three categories (with a positive value of 1), PfDum2 differentiated MP (with a negative value of 2) from pure PSP and NP (with a positive value of 1), and PfDum3 differentiated NP (with a negative value of 1) from pure PSP (with a positive value of 1). This coding design allowed for comparisons to address the hypotheses proposed in Gaudreau (2013). Then, the three dummy variables, three coping style dimensions, and burnout total score were entered into the path model, which is depicted in Fig. 2. We opted to simultaneously include all three dimensions of coping to unravel the unique effect of each coping style, controlling for the other two. Maximum Likelihood technique was adopted for model estimation. The model was perfectly tted (v2 = 0.00) and signicant individual path coefcients are displayed in Fig. 2. In order to test the mediating effects of three coping styles between perfectionism and burnout, we performed effect analysis using the bootstrap technique, which was recommended over other methods due to its highest power and best Type I error control (Hayes, 2009, p. 411). Combining pertinent results in Table 3 and Fig. 2, it was found that Reective

Fig. 1. Categorization of participants into four groups of perfectionism using cluster analysis. The naming of the four groups was based on relevant ANOVA analyses and the2 2 model (Gaudreau and Thompson, 2010).

Table 1 Differences in perfectionism dimension scores, coping style and burnout across four perfectionism groups. a. Pure PSP M(SD) 1.HSd 2.Dis 3.Ord 4.Ref 5.Sup 6.Rea 7.Exh 8.Cyn 9.PE 10.Bout 5.44(0.49) 3.07(0.56) bcd 5.40(0.79)cd 3.48(0.65)bcd 1.66(0.51)bd 2.24(0.58)bd 2.44(0.95)bd 2.05(1.29)bd 1.36(0.80)bcd 1.9(0.76)bd
bcd

b. Mix P. M(SD) 5.69(0.59) 5.15(0.65)acd 5.22(0.97)cd 3.08(0.69)a 2.60(0.84)acd 3.02(0.70)acd 3.34(1.16)ac 3.17(1.28)ac 2.07(1.03)ac 2.79(0.81)ac
acd

c. Non. P. M(SD) 3.70(0.77) 2.62(0.49)abd 4.50(1.17)ab 3.06(0.79)a 1.82(0.68)bd 2.13(0.77)bd 2.35(1.16)bd 2.22(1.40)bd 1.76(1.21)abd 2.08(0.79)bd
abd

d. Pure ECP M(SD) 4.37(0.58) 4.05(0.51)abc 4.62(0.93)ab 3.03(0.60)a 2.12(0.69)abc 2.59(0.64)abc 2.91(1.00)ac 3.18(1.20)ac 2.24(0.84)ac 2.71(0.76)ac
abc

F 189.05 320.79 19.00 10.26 34.85 30.05 19.94 16.67 46.01 30.07

g2
0.62 0.74 0.14 0.08 0.23 0.21 0.15 0.13 0.29 0.21

Note. The letters on the right shoulder of each cell represent the groups which are signicantly different in mean value from that specic group. All F values are signicant at p < .001 level. HSd = high standard; Dis = discrepancy, Ord = order; Ref = reective coping; Sup = suppressive coping; Rea = reactive coping; Exh = emotional exhaustion; Cyn = cynicism; PE = professional efcacy (higher score on this dimension indicating lower professional efcacy); Bout = burnout total.

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Table 2 Means, standard deviations and pearson correlations for all variables. 1 1 HSd 2 Dis 3 Ord 4 Ref 5 Sup 6 Rea 7 Exh 8 Cyn 9 PE 10 Bout M SD .36** .48** .28** .04 .19** .08 .04 .26** .10 4.94 .96 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

.08 .12* .53** .55** .38** .38** .29** .46** 3.70 1.09

.26** .14* .03 .01 .08 .27** .15** 5.02 1.01

.12* .08 .07 .05 .44** .26** 3.21 .70

.63** .44** .48** .39** .57** 2.02 .76

.41** .42** .20** .45** 2.48 .74

.60** .16** .76** 2.74 1.12

.35** .84** 2.60 1.39

.68** 1.80 1.01

2.33 .87

Note. HSd = high standard; Dis = discrepancy, Ord = order; Ref = reective; Sup = suppressive; Rea = reactive; Exh = emotional exhaustion; Cyn = cynicism; PE = professional efcacy; Bout = burnout total. p < .05. ** p < .01. p < .001.
*

associated with lesser Reective coping which was related to higher burnout; MP (in contrast to pure PSP and NP as in PfDum2) was associated with lesser Reective coping, greater Suppressive and Reactive coping which all contributed to greater burnout; and NP (in contrast to pure PSP as in PfDum3) was correlated with lower Reective coping thus had higher risk of burnout. 4. Discussion This study examined the relationship between the personality trait of perfectionism, coping style, and job burnout in mainland Chinese IT employees. Specically, after clustering participants according to their proles on the APS scale under the 2 2 model, we adopted the path analysis to explore how the four groups of perfectionists were differentially associated with job burnout and whether this effect was mediated by an individuals coping style. Several important theoretical or practical implications that could be derived from the research results are discussed in the following section. 4.1. Groups of perfectionists in relation to coping style and job burnout The rst two research questions concerned the subtypes of perfectionism and their differential associations with coping style and burnout. In terms of the debate over whether a tripartite (Stoeber & Otto, 2006) or a quadripartite 2 2 model (Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010) presented a more precise conceptualization of the hidden structure of perfectionism, the ANOVA analyses revealed signicant differences between the NP individuals and the pure

Fig. 2. Structural equation model examining the mediating effects of coping styles between perfectionism and burnout. Ref = reective coping dimension score, Sup = suppressive coping dimension score, Rea = reactive coping dimension score. Bout = burnout total score. PfDum1: ECP vs. others; PfDum2: MP vs. PSP and NP; PfDum3: NP vs. PSP. All coefcients are standardized and signicant at p < .05 level. Non-signicant paths are displayed by dashed line.

coping partially mediated the predicting effect of PfDum1 on burnout and completely mediated the relationship between PfDum3 and burnout; while both Suppressive and Reactive Coping partially mediated the predicting effect of PfDum2 on burnout. Specically, pure ECP (in contrast to other three subtypes as in PfDum1) was

Table 3 Effect analysis between perfectionism, coping styles and burnout. Predictor Total direct Indirect effect via Ref Est. PfDum1 PfDum2 PfDum3 .170*** .097* .011 SE 0.039 0.050 0.044 Est. .019* .020 .039** SE 0.010 0.011 0.014 via Sup Est. .020 .179*** .029 SE 0.020 0.036 0.019 via Rea Est. .012 .073* .008 SE 0.009 0.030 0.010 Total Indirect Est. .051* .271*** .060* SE 0.027 0.033 0.028 Est. .222*** .368*** .071 SE 0.046 0.048 0.048 Total effect

Note. Dependent variable is burnout. PfDum1: ECP vs. others; PfDum2: MP vs. PSP and NP; PfDum3: NP vs. PSP; SE = standard Error. Est. = estimate. Ref = Reective Coping; Sup = Suppressive Coping; Rea = Reactive Coping. All estimates are standardized. p < .10. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.

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ECP individuals in dimensions of perfectionism, coping style, and also burnout. This seemed to be suggesting the existence of clear distinctions between these two subtypes of perfectionism that were questionably combined to form one single non-perfectionism group in Stoeber and Otto (2006), and provided evidence supporting the 2 2 model. In terms of the second research question concerning the four updated hypotheses in Gaudreau (2013), the ANOVA results indicated that pure PSP and NP group displayed signicantly lower levels of burnout than MP and pure ECP. Comparing pure PSP and NP, in spite of the non-signicant difference on burnout total score, pure PSP was still associated with greater professional efcacy, a positive construct in the burnout scale, than the NP group. Regarding MP and pure ECP, no signicant differences were found on either the burnout total score or any of its dimensions. Therefore, the data in this study supported H1A, H2, and H4 in Gaudreau (2013) but failed to corroborate H3. A further examination of the cluster results suggested a possible explanation for the absence of signicant difference between ECP and MP in terms of burnout (hypothesized in H3). Although not explicitly stated, the original 2 2 model seemed to be implying no signicant differences between ECP and MP on Discrepancy and between ECP and NP on Personal Standard. From Table 1 however, these differences were all signicant. Therefore, the pure ECP group derived from empirical data seemed to have higher-than-expected Personal Standard and lower-than-expected Discrepancy. Given that mental health variables are positively associated with Personal Standard and negatively correlated with Discrepancy (Stoeber & Otto, 2006), the specic combination of the pure ECP group in this study might have contributed to its lower burnout which didnt signicantly differ from that of MP. 4.2. The predicting and mediating effects of coping style Concerning coping style, results in this study indicated that a more problem-focused coping style negatively predicted burnout, while those less problem-focused styles displayed signicant positive associations with burnout. These results were in concordance with earlier research ndings which consistently suggested the protective function of problem-focused coping in both eastern and western cultures (Heppner, 1988; Li & Lu, 2008). Furthermore it was also revealed that, controlling for the other two coping styles, each specic coping style displayed signicant (partial or complete) mediating effects between subtypes of perfectionism and burnout, indicating that the personality of perfectionism exerted its inuence on individuals mental health (e.g., burnout) at least partly through coping. This evidence corroborated the aforementioned Hill et al. (2010) and Changs (2012) research results. These ndings conjointly underscore the signicant protective role of problem-focused coping in mediating the negative effects of the maladaptive aspects of perfectionism on ones occupational mental health, which may provide important implications for clinical practice. As suggested by Fig. 2, when working with MP or pure ECP clients, mental health professionals may nd it potentially helpful to assist these clients with problem-solving via taking not only behaviorally, but also emotionally and cognitively oriented actions (Heppner et al., 1995). Two observations are especially worth mentioning here. First, in order to address Hypothesis 1 in Gaudreau (2013), we adopted a dummy coding scheme that allowed for direct comparison between pure PSP and NP. Combining the path analysis and ANOVA results, it seemed that although non-perfectionists showed similarly low levels of dysfunctional (suppressive or reactive) coping style and unhealthy burnout symptoms (emotional exhaustion and cynicism) in comparison to pure PSP, they also lacked a more proactive attitude to take more problem-focused (reective) ap-

proaches in dealing with daily stress, which as a mediator might lead to a greater risk of job burnout. In fact, observing that pure PSP and NP only differed in the professional efcacy dimension of job burnout, it could be speculated that since problem-focused coping demands self-initiated efforts to handle the stressful situation (Heppner et al., 1995), the lack of internalized high standards and motivation in the NP group may prevent them from actively engaging in problem-solving behaviors. The scarcity of learning experiences in effectively dealing with difculties in turn brings about a diminished sense of self-efcacy (Bandura, 1997) thus a higher risk of burnout. As manifested in its low Personal Standard and low Discrepancy nature, people with the NP combination of perfectionism may really place comparatively lower standards on their performance or achievements. However, the results here seem to suggest that holding a moderate level of the perfectionistic trait and putting appropriate high standards on oneself would be benecial to problem-solving and occupational mental health. The second observation is the comparatively largest positive effect of suppressive coping in predicting burnout. This seems to be suggesting that suppressing problems (i.e., avoiding their existence or relinquishing personal efforts in resolving them) is a high risk factor that could mediate the effects of perfectionism and lead to deteriorated occupational mental health by itself. Although avoidance and denial may be understood as part of peoples natural defense or coping mechanisms (Bergman, Nyland, & Burns, 2007), especially in the face of intense traumatic events, always sidestepping the problem and recoiling from actions can eventually be counterproductive or even detrimental. As noted by scholars however, in the collectivistic Chinese traditional culture, avoidance and suppression of problems, emotions or conicts etc. to save face or in exchange for interpersonal harmony are characteristic features of Chinese peoples coping behaviors (Jing, 2002). Then this specic result would seem to be a caution to individuals in China who are highly attuned to this coping style: excessive adherence to passive coping and a lack of problem-solving skills in ones repertoire of coping strategies may in turn be hazardous to individuals mental health.

5. Limitations and future research directions Several limitations of the current study and suggestions for future research should be noted before concluding this paper. First of all, certain discrepancies were found between the data-driven cluster results and the theoretical construct of the 2 2 model. For example, the pure ECP group in this study seemed to have lower-than-expected Discrepancy and higher-than-expected High Standard. The presence of such discrepancies in conceptualizing perfectionism might limit the interpretation of current results in light of the 2 2 model, while future studies may try to further identify the underlying structure of perfectionism from both theoretically driven and data driven approaches. Secondly, the results in this study should be generalized to other work contexts with scientic caution. As mentioned before, the IT profession emphasizes perfect precision, where the PSP dimension of perfectionism might be more desirable since it seems a better t to this specic environment. It is possible one might nd a different relationship between pure PSP and NP with a sample from another profession, which could be explored in future research. Lastly, though this study attempted to explore the specic mechanism through which groups of perfectionism inuenced burnout, its cross-section design limited the interpretation of research results: only correlational results could be obtained. Therefore, future studies may be warranted to improve it by employing cross-lagged longitudinal designs or experimental designs that can shed light on the directionality or even causality between the three variables.

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