Research paperLatent profile analysis of impulsivity and perfectionism dimensions and associations with psychiatric symptoms
Section snippets
Participants
Participants were 1,353 students recruited via SONA, an online research pool of students enrolled in an undergraduate psychology class at a midwestern university. Students were consented and completed questionnaires online at one timepoint. Participants were compensated with class credit or extra credit. See Table 1 for a breakdown of participant demographics and self-report clinical diagnoses.
Predictor variables
The UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale (UPPS-P). The UPPS-P (Whiteside and Lynam, 2001) is a 59-item
Descriptive statistics
Many individuals in this sample endorsed symptoms above recommended clinical cut-off scores across forms of psychopathology. The least endorsed symptom was social phobia, with 17.9% of the sample scoring above the recommended clinical cut-off, and the most endorsed was worry, with 83.4% of the sample endorsing moderate to high worry. See Table 2 for the frequency of participants scoring in the clinical range for the other measures, as well as the mean, standard deviation, and range for all
Discussion
This study classified meaningful subgroups of a large undergraduate sample using impulsivity and perfectionism dimensions. We also tested whether subgroups showed differential associations with ten domains of psychopathology. In line with our first hypothesis regarding class identification, we identified low impulsivity/perfectionism, high impulsivity, and high perfectionism groups. Additionally, a group high on both impulsivity and perfectionism was identified. Consistent with our second
Conclusions
The current study represents an important first step for understanding the complex interplay of perfectionism and impulsivity on psychopathology. The results of the LPA identified four distinct subgroups in our undergraduate sample: high perfectionism, high impulsivity, high perfectionism/impulsivity, and low perfectionism/impulsivity. The high perfectionism/impulsivity group comprised half the sample and was associated with high scores across both internalizing and externalizing
Author statement
All authors made substantial contributions to study design and manuscript formulation and approved the current draft of the manuscript for submission. CC was involved in conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, writing - original draft, and writing -review and editing. ZBC was involved in formal analysis, writing - original draft, and visualization. RAH was involved in conceptualization and writing - original draft. AMLO was involved in writing - original draft. JED was involved with
Declaration of Competing Interest
Authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Acknowledgments
There are no acknowledgments for this manuscript.
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This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.