Running head: MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 1

Age of Intervention on Maladaptive Perfectionism

Jane Chung

The Pennsylvania State University

April 24, 2016

MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 2

Abstract

The purpose of this study will be to examine the effect of age at the start of intervention

on decreasing maladaptive perfectionism. Participants will come to the lab and have Cognitive

Behavioral Therapy or no treatment every week to decrease their maladaptive perfectionism.

Some participants will be 15 years old, and some will be 25 years old. It is expected that

participants who are 15 years old participating in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy will have a

greater decrease in maladaptive perfectionism than participants who are 25 years old in

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. There will be no difference in decreasing maladaptive

perfectionism between the age groups, but there will be a difference in decreasing maladaptive

perfectionism between the intervention groups. These results will imply age at the start of

intervention is significant in decreasing maladaptive perfectionism.

MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 3

Age of Intervention on Maladaptive Perfectionism

Setting high standards and aiming higher is a characteristic called perfectionism.

Perfectionism in itself can be a good quality, as challenging yourself to do better is an admirable

feature. However, it can become destructive if standards are set too high where the goals become

unrealistic and unattainable.

Currently, there is a two-factor model that identifies the development of two types of

perfectionism: adaptive and maladaptive. Adaptive perfectionism is defined by setting high

standards for oneself (Enns, Cox, & Clara, 2002). People with adaptive perfectionism are not

looking to be perfect but achieve their high self-standards. Therefore, they have the ability to

take pride in their work that may be less than perfect. Achieving their personal standards help

adaptive perfectionists gain self-esteem (Rice & Mirzadeh, 2000). Maladaptive perfectionism, on

the other hand, is defined by setting high standards for oneself that cannot be attainable or

flexible. Because it is not attainable, maladaptive perfectionists cannot take pride in ones

performance and cannot be confident in their abilities. Therefore, these consistent failures to

achieve perfectionism result in a lower self-esteem (Enns et al., 2002).

Maladaptive perfectionism, or self-critical perfectionism, has many disadvantages

compared to its counterpart, adaptive perfectionism. Some of these negative psychological

effects include increase in stress and the development of a mental health disorder (Rice, Sauer,

Richardson, Roberts, & Garrison, 2015). Studies have shown that it is correlated with depression,

anxiety, and eating disorders (Rice & Mirzadeh, 2000). Also, maladaptive perfectionism can lead

to poorer functioning in other areas such as interpersonal relationships, academic and job-

oriented activities (Rice et al., 2015).

MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 4

On the other hand, adaptive perfectionists are considered the healthy perfectionists out of

the two types. Adaptive perfectionism leads to a decrease in psychological distress and an overall

better psychological well-being (Rice et al., 2015). Studies also have shown that adaptive

perfectionism is correlated positively with positive affect and efficacy. Not surprisingly, adaptive

perfectionism is also negatively correlated to the frequency of procrastination (Rice & Mirzadeh,

2000).

Rice et al. (2015) examined the effects perfectionism has on psychological symptoms

during treatment. The notion behind this study was that there has been previous research that has

indicated maladaptive perfectionism as an interference with treatment outcome for people with

depression. This concern has led to the idea that perfectionism must be accounted for before the

start of therapy. Their study was a naturalistic study where they received data from patients who

were already receiving treatment from the clinic. Patients were mainly receiving treatment for

major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders and were examined based on their interpersonal

problems and symptomatic distress. Researchers utilized these two aspects to determine

improvement. Through these two aspects, Rice et al. (2015) were able to find that both types of

patients had an overall improvement in interpersonal problems and symptomatic distress. At the

beginning of therapy, maladaptive perfectionists were associated with higher interpersonal

problems and higher symptomatic distress. However, there was no correlation between the level

of symptoms and maladaptive perfectionism at the end of therapy. An interesting find was that

patients with maladaptive perfectionism had little change in the quality of their relationships

even though they had the most concern over them at the beginning of therapy. Adaptive

perfectionists were associated with less interpersonal problems and symptomatic distress in the

beginning and end of therapy (Rice et al., 2015). Because of this studys findings, it is necessary
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 5

to be aware of the improvement expected at the end of the treatment for future studies, as

maladaptive perfectionists did not improve as well as adaptive perfectionists. For the

experimental study of this proposal, it is necessary to elongate the study to find a more

significant difference in symptom change. It is also necessary to be cautious about involving

participants with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder or another mental health disorder, as

these disorders may interfere with results to decrease maladaptive perfectionistic tendencies in

mainly healthy participants.

Another study examined the attachment bonds with their parents and the differences in

maladaptive perfectionism and adaptive perfectionism. Rice and Mirzadeh (2000) hypothesized

that maladaptive perfectionists would have insecure attachments with their parents, and adaptive

perfectionists would have secure attachments with their parents. The notion behind these

hypotheses is that there have been previous studies that have found associations between parents

and maladaptive perfectionists. These associations are that self-criticism is associated with

poorer relationship with parents. Maladaptive perfectionists reported that their parents are

demanding and critical compared to adaptive perfectionists (Rice, Ashby, & Preusser, 1996).

Because insecure attachment manifests in a lack of approval or acceptance by the parents, it

would make sense that children would develop these unattainable standards for themselves that

are unattainable. Also, researchers hypothesized that adaptive perfectionists will have less

depression and have a high academic integration, but maladaptive perfectionists will have more

depression and lower academic integration.

For the first hypothesis, Rice and Mirzadeh (2000) recruited undergraduates and asked

them to answer questions or statements regarding their demographics, attachment, and

perfectionism. For the second hypothesis, Rice and Mirzadeh (2000) recruited different
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 6

undergraduates and asked them the same questions asked in the first hypothesis. However, they

added questions regarding academic integration and depression. The results for both studies

show that more adaptive perfectionists had secure attachments, and more maladaptive

perfectionists had insecure attachments. Also, adaptive perfectionists had better academic

integration than maladaptive perfectionists. In regards to depression, maladaptive perfectionists,

on average, had depression at clinically significant levels. Overall, this study shows that

maladaptive perfectionism has almost no benefits compared to adaptive perfectionism.

Maladaptive perfectionists are at a disadvantage emotionally and do not have an advantage

academically. Knowing these advantages of adaptive perfectionism and the possible origins of

maladaptive perfectionism, it is necessary to conduct a study on the intervention to change

maladaptive perfectionism to adaptive perfectionism so that people can enjoy the advantages of

perfectionism, not the disadvantages.

Like the previous study mentioned, Enns et al. (2002) examined the association between

parenting experiences and the development of the type perfectionism. Also, they studied the

association between the type of perfectionism and depression proneness. The notion behind

studying these three variables is that there is speculation that the early parent-child relationship

plays a role in determining the type of perfectionism. However, there is little empirical evidence

to support this hypothesis. They hypothesized that harsh parenting and perfectionistic parenting

would be associated with maladaptive perfectionism, and perfectionistic parenting only would be

associated with adaptive perfectionism. Additionally, they hypothesized that maladaptive

perfectionism would be associated with depression proneness, and adaptive perfectionism would

have an inverse relationship with depression proneness. Enns et al. (2002) recruited

undergraduates in an introductory psychology course at the University of Manitoba to come in

MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 7

and answer questions about their experiences with their parents, their current mood, and their

type of perfectionism. Their results supported their hypothesis in that harsh parenting and

perfectionistic parenting was associated with maladaptive perfectionism, but harsh parenting was

not associated with adaptive perfectionism. Also, their results supported their hypothesis that

adaptive perfectionism had an inverse relationship with depression proneness, while maladaptive

perfectionism was associated with depression proneness. Since this study supports that early

child-parent relationships have an influence over the type of perfectionism a child later develops,

early intervention may be optimal in changing potential maladaptive perfectionism to adaptive

perfectionism.

In todays world, life has become more competitive. There is competition to get the best

grades to get into the best college, to be successful in ones career. Society emphasizes its

citizens to be perfect because that is the way to becoming successful or happy. Because there are

plenty of smart people who are competing for similar things, there is a high demand for

perfection. Only having good grades do not hold a secure future in being successful. Being

perfect in one area is almost unattainable for most of the population. Now, one must excel above

others in many different areas of life in order to have a chance to be successful. This mentality

breeds the idea that one is never good enough. It makes sense that maladaptive perfectionism is a

growing problem in recent generations. Therefore, there has been growing number of studies on

this topic, though there is still very little in comparison to other mental health research.

To further the knowledge about maladaptive perfectionism and ways to prevent it, this

proposed longitudinal study first will further support whether maladaptive perfectionism can

change to adaptive perfectionism. Then, it examines the efficacy of early intervention to change

the development of maladaptive perfectionism to adaptive perfectionism. This study

MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 8

hypothesizes that it can. My two conceptual independent variables would be the age of

intervention and the type of intervention. The conceptual dependent variable would be

maladaptive perfectionism. For the age of intervention, there will be no average differences, or

main effect, between the two age groups, 15 years old and 25 years old on maladaptive

perfectionism. For the type of intervention, there will be average differences or a main effect

between the two types of interventions, CBT or no treatment on maladaptive perfectionism.

There will be an interaction between these two independent variables because it is known that

adolescents brains are more malleable than adults. It would be easier for adolescents to change

their self-concept with the help of a therapy. Therefore, 15-year-old participants who receive an

intervention will have a greater decrease in maladaptive perfectionism than in 25-year-old

participants. The effect of age of intervention on maladaptive perfectionism will depend on the

type of intervention.

Method

Design

This longitudinal study is a 2 (Intervention type: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, no

treatment) X 2 (Age of intervention: Fifteen years old, twenty five years old) between

participants factorial design. The dependent variable will be the participants maladaptive

perfectionism scores. This will also be a quasi-experimental research design as it contains one

independent variable that cannot be randomly assigned.

Participants

There will be 240 participants. Out of the 240 participants, there will be 120 participants

near the age of 15, and 120 participants near the age of 25 years old. Participants will all be

Caucasian and living in wealthy suburban communities. All participants will not be clinical, and
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 9

will be recruited only after a screening. They will be eligible to participate only if they meet for

maladaptive perfectionism and show mild depressive symptoms. All participants will be paid at

the rate 10 per session for their participation and will sign a consent form before starting.

Participants under the age of 18 will have their legal guardian consent to their participation.

Materials

Flyers will used to recruit participants. Then, a screener will be used that will ask

questions that screen for maladaptive perfectionistic traits and the level of depressive symptoms.

Only maladaptive perfectionists without major depressive disorder are eligible to participate in

this study. This is because of the link between major depressive disorder and maladaptive

perfectionism. Research, as stated previously, shows that perfectionism can interfere with the

efficacy of treatment outcome for patients with major depressive disorder. Therefore, a screener

must be used to prevent major depressive disorder becoming a confounding variable. The

screener will have essentials questions about maladaptive perfectionism and depression picked

from the baseline measure that is about to be discussed. A baseline measure will also be included,

in order to establish a comparison for each participant. Also, a baseline measure will be included

to prevent extraneous variables. A majority of this questionnaire will consist of the

Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Hewitt & Flett, 1991). This MPS is a 45-item

questionnaire with a Likert scale of one to seven (disagree to agree) measuring perfectionism on

three factors, self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism, and socially prescribed

perfectionism. However, questions measuring for other-oriented perfectionism will not be

included, as these questions look for having high expectations for other people, not oneself. Self-

oriented perfectionism is about having high expectations for oneself, and while socially

prescribed perfectionism is ones perception of others having high expectations for him or her.
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 10

These two factors will be able to determine maladaptive perfectionists. In the same

questionnaire, there will be another scale called the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Ward,

Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961). This 21-item self-report measure requires the participant

to circle statements numbered from zero to four based on how he or she feels in currently or in

the past week. These statements measure depressive symptoms, and thus the level of depression.

Additionally, to decrease demand characteristics, two other scales will be included. One scale

will be the Body Awareness Questionnaire (Shields, Mallory & Simon, 1989). This questionnaire

has 18 statements that people have to rate how each statement describes them, on a Likert scale

from one to seven (not at all true of me to very true of me). These statements involve the

awareness of ones body processes. The other scale will be the Modern Sexism Scale (Swim,

Aikin, Hall, & Hunter, 1995). There are eight items asking the participant to rate on a Likert

scale of one to five, from strongly disagree to strongly agree. These items are about inequities

that women face in the United States. Also, there will be a Perfectionism Progression Scale-

Therapist Version (Chung, 2000). It is used for therapists to assess the participants progress after

six months of intervention. This questionnaire will involve questions about how they perceive

their participants are progressing, based on their impression at the start of treatment and at the six

months mark. It is rated on a Likert Scale from one to five (strongly disagree to strongly agree).

For example, it will ask, My patient has improved on his or her black and white thinking, based

on the past six months.

Procedure

To recruit participants, flyers will be put in wealthy suburban schools and its local

community stores, advertising to pay for Caucasian participants of the age of 15 or 25 to partake

in a yearlong study, which involve relationship formation. Also, this study will be advertised by
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 11

word of mouth in schools as a learning opportunity about research. Then, each participant will go

through a screener to determine if they have maladaptive perfectionism and their level of

depression. Those that score high for maladaptive perfectionism and score low depressive

symptoms will be recruited. These participants will be divided by the two different age groups,

and then randomly assigned to a condition. They will be told that the purpose of this study will

be to analyze the formation of a relationship. All participants in each condition will be required

to come in once every week for one hour to talk to a therapist for one year. However, the

participants will not be told that they are talking to a therapist, but another participant in the

study, in which they will have a casual conversation with. Participants must be open to sharing

about their personal lives, if conversation arises about their personal lives. Participants will be

paid each session, and if they completely finish the study, they will receive a monetary bonus.

Each therapist will be trained on Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Therapists will try to change the

rigidity and black and white thinking of the maladaptive perfectionist (only for participants in the

CBT condition). However, they will be trained to make the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy as

conversational as possible, as they have to pretend to be another participant in the study. For

participants who are receiving no intervention, the therapists will be instructed to have a casual

conversation about anything with the participant. At least once a month, the therapists have to

check in with the participant on their current depressive symptoms and maladaptive

perfectionistic tendencies as a manipulation check. They will record these checks on a designated

handout. At the six-month mark and twelve-month mark, therapists will be required to fill out a

questionnaire that assesses the participants maladaptive perfectionism and depression level. The

participants will also have to fill out the same questionnaire (baseline measure) they filled out at
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 12

the start of the study. There will be little retesting effects and significant differences between the

two tests since the study takes one year.

Results

An ANOVA will be used to analyze the effects of the type of intervention and the age of

intervention on maladaptive perfectionism. This experimental study has a 2 (Intervention type:

CBT, no treatment) x 2 (at age 15, at age 25) between participants factorial design. The scores on

maladaptive perfectionism is the dependent variable. A main effect for the independent variable

intervention type should be expected. On average, participants in the CBT condition should have

lower scores (M = 50) of maladaptive perfectionism than the scores for participants in the no

intervention condition (M =75; p < .05). There should not be a main effect for the age of

intervention, which is the second independent variable. On average, participants who are 15

years old (M = 90) should have similar high maladaptive perfectionism scores to the scores of the

participants who are 25 years old (M = 90; p > .05).

A significant interaction between the type of intervention and the age of intervention is

also to be expected in these results (p < .05). To see the pattern of expected means, refer to Table

1. The expected nature of the interaction can be seen in Figure 1. Figure 1 plots the means of

each condition. There will be no average difference in maladaptive perfectionism scores for

those who are 15 years old (M = 90) and those who are 25 years old (M = 90), if they go through

no treatment or intervention. However, when these participants go through a CBT treatment, the

15 years old participants (M = 30) will have, on average, significantly lower scores than the 25

years old participants (M =65). Therefore, participants at the age of 15 are expected to improve

the most to decrease maladaptive perfectionism with intervention like CBT, though participants

at the age of 25 do also improve but not as significantly.

MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 13

Discussion

The expected main effect for the type of intervention would support the idea that CBT

can facilitate the decrease of maladaptive perfectionism. Also, it would support that maladaptive

perfectionism can be decreased. However, if there is no main effect for the type of intervention,

then the ability for CBT to change patients to adopt adaptive perfectionism will be questioned.

Other studies must be conducted to support the inability for CBT to change patients, along with

testing other therapies or treatments in effort to change maladaptive perfectionism.

For the age of intervention, it is expected that there will not be a main effect. If the

expected results occur, then it will support the idea that ones aging does not naturally decrease

maladaptive perfectionism. Therefore, a facilitator is needed to help patients change their

maladaptive perfectionism, like treatment. However, if there is a main effect, then future studies

must further look at the processes of how age naturally changes ones perfectionism.

It is also expected that there would be an interaction between the age of intervention and

the type of intervention on maladaptive perfectionism, as it would support the idea that the age

people come to get help for their maladaptive perfectionism matters significantly. It will also

support the established theory that younger people are more malleable in their constructs than

older people. If the expected results do not occur, then it will support the idea that age of

treatment has no influence on the decrease of maladaptive perfectionism.

There may be concern over the construct validity for the independent variables in this

study. Though there may be better procedure for this manipulation, this study will use different

validation methods in order to ensure the age of intervention and type of intervention are

manipulating perfectionism. There will be manipulation checks established. Not only will

patients be expected to fill out their perceptions on their progress in the pre and post-test,
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 14

therapists also will be instructed to keep track of each patients progress. For example, each

therapist will be required to intentionally ask the patient about his or her perfectionism every

month. At the six-month mark, therapists must report their impressions on their patients

progression on perfectionism with a validated scale called the Perfectionism and Progression

Scale-Therapist Version. These therapist evaluations on patients will help create a nonreactive

measure so that participants do not know what is being measured. These manipulation checks

and nonreactive measures will ensure that the independent variables are manipulating the

dependent variable. There also may be concern for potential threats to the construct validity for

the dependent variable in this study. However, pre-existing scales that have good validity and

reliability will be used to measure maladaptive perfectionism. Perhaps to further increase

construct validity, a future study can replicate this study in addition to adding more validation

methods, like a pilot study.

Some threats to internal validity would be design confounds. To reduce this threat, this

study will use standardization of some conditions. For example, only Caucasians from wealthy

suburban communities will participate in the study. Also, every participant who will participate

will be exactly15 or 25 years old, at the start of treatment. Also, each participant recruited in this

study will have had the same severity of maladaptive perfectionism and will therefore start at the

same baseline. Therapists will not have previous training on CBT beforehand. For this study,

they will learn and will be instructed carefully on what they should do every session. However,

what they talk about with CBT people and with people in no intervention condition will not be

strictly regulated. Future studies may have a better way to decrease design confounds during

therapy sessions.
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 15

Another design confound is that people may drop out as it will be a yearlong study. To

encourage participants to keep coming weekly until the end of the study, there will be a large

monetary bonus for everyone who finishes the study and completes the post-test. It is expected

that all participants will complete the study. Participant data may not be used if therapists notice

a confounding variable that has occurred in his or her life.

Another threat to internal validity would be demand characteristics. Because these

participants have to come in for a whole year, they will have time to figure out what the purpose

of this study is, and it will influence their change in maladaptive perfectionism for better or

worse. To try to reduce demand characteristics, a cover story will be used. As described in the

procedure, participants will be notified that this study will be about relationship formation, and

that they will be interacting with a stranger for a whole year every week for the researchers to

analyze the process of relationship formation. Also, participants will be required to take a pretest

and posttest. These tests will have scales about depression and perfectionism. In order to reduce

the likelihood of guessing the topic of this study, scales on other topics such as body awareness

and modern sexism will be incorporated into the test. Through these cover stories and other

scales, the demand characteristics will be relatively low. However, future studies can be

conducted to further decrease demand characteristics by adding more methods.

The external validity of this study will be low because to increase internal validity,

standardization of conditions will be used. This standardization of conditions will significantly

decrease external validity because it may not be applicable to everyone as the sample was fairly

homogenous. The participants were all Caucasian, living in wealthy suburban communities. It

would not be safe to say that other types of populations may have the same results. Also, their

ages will be strictly 15 or 25 years old. This study would not be generalizable to different age
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 16

groups, only to adolescents and young adults who are working or in graduate school. It would

only be generalizable to people who do not have major depressive disorder or any other mental

health diagnosis, as major depressive disorder will be a probable confounding variable. As this

setting will be conducted in the United States, it will not be safe to say it is generalizable in other

countries with other cultures that may impact the development of maladaptive perfectionism at

different ages.

If this study is successful, it will need to be replicated by other studies to support the idea

that age of intervention has an effect on maladaptive perfectionism for treatment. More tested

variables are required to increase generalizability. To ensure there will be no curvilinear

relationship, a study would be done to examine the age of intervention on maladaptive

perfectionism with children. Another variable would be gender.

This study should be re-run with the extra variable gender because gender may have a big

impact on the decrease of maladaptive perfectionism. It is known in society that women tend to

have an easier time expressing their feelings and be introspective, which may make it easer for

women to decrease their maladaptive perfectionism with treatment. However, men tend to have a

harder time expressing their feelings. Therefore, it may take a longer time for men to decrease

their maladaptive perfectionistic tendencies.

If other studies also show similar results about the age of intervention, it may be wiser to

have early intervention programs implemented in grade school. As stated previously, society

demands more and more from its students as the career world has gotten more competitive.

Because of this high demand, students may grow up feeling like they are never good enough

despite their hard work. These thoughts or beliefs may have the potential to develop into

maladaptive perfectionism, and also lead to an increase in mental health problems and other
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 17

disadvantages. Therefore, if this study shows that age of intervention has an impact on the

change in maladaptive perfectionism in treatment, and then early intervention programs at school

act as a buffer to change these false beliefs, decrease maladaptive perfectionism, and change

students poor self-concepts to healthy self-concepts.

MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 18

References

Beck, A.T., Ward, C. H., Mendelson, M., Mock, J., & Erbaugh, J. (1961). An inventory for

measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 4, 561-571.

doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1961.01710120031004.

Chung, J. C. (2000). Reliability and validity of the perfectionism progression scale-therapist

version. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2, 555-600.

Enns, M. W., Cox, B. J., & Clara, I. (2002). Adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism:

developmental origins and association with depression proneness. Personality and

Individual Differences, 33, 921-935. doi: 10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00202-1

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(3), 456470. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.60.3.456

Rice, K. G., Ashby, J.S., & Preusser, K. J. (1996). Perfectionism, relationships with parents, and

self-esteem. Individual Psychology, 52, 246-260.

Rice, K. G., & Mirzadeh, S. A. (2000). Perfectionism, attachment, and adjustment. Journal of

Counseling Psychology, 47(2), 238-250. doi: 10.1037/0022-0167.47.2.238

Rice, K.G., Sauer, E. M, Richardson, C. M. E, Roberts, K. E., & Garrison, A. M. (2015).

Perfectionism affects change in psychological symptoms. Psychotherapy, 52(2), 210-227.

doi: 10.1037/a0036507

Shields, S. A., Mallory, M. E., & Simon, A. (1989). The body awareness questionnaire:

Reliability and validity. Journal of Personality Assessment, 53, 802-815.

MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 19

Swim, J. K., Aikin, K. J., Hall, W. S., & Hunter, B. A. (1995). Sexism and racism: Old-

fashioned and modern prejudices. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68,

199214. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.68.2.199

MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 20

Table 1

Influence of Age of Intervention and Type of Intervention on Maladaptive Perfectionism

Type of Intervention
Age of Intervention CBT No Intervention
15 years old 30 90
25 years old 65 90
MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM 21

100

90

80

70

60

Age 1550
Maladaptive Perfectionism Age 25
40

30

20

10

0
No Intervention CBT
Figure 1. Interaction between intervention type and age of intervention on maladaptive

perfectionism.