The Comparison of Healthy and Unhealthy Perfectionism and Type A Personality in The Perceived Parenting Styles in University Students

The purpose of the present research is to study healthy and unhealthy per-fectionism as well as type A person-ality based on different parenting sty-les. With a ex-post-facto method, a sa-mple of undergraduate students at Shahid Beheshti University was selec-ted through random multistage cluster sampling with at least 80 students in every parenting style.This sample consists of 407 students: 235 girls and 172 boys. The subjects completed three questionnaires of per-ceived parenting style, positive and negative perfectionism scale and type A personality. The collected data was analyzed by statistical tests MANO-VA and ANOVA and Scheffe post hoc test. Results indicated that healthy perfectionism in the authoritative par-enting style is more and in negligent parenting style is lower than the other parenting styles. The unhealthy perfe-ctionism of the boys was more than girls. The interactive effect of the two variables namely parenting styles and gender upon healthy perfectionism was significant. Healthy¬ perfectionism in authoritative parenting style in girls was more than boys and in permissive parenting style healthy perfectionism in boys was more than girls. The gen-eral effect of parenting styles and general effect of gender in score of type A personality did not show significant difference; however, the interactive effect of parenting styles and gender upon type A personality was supported. Here in permissive parenting style the type A personality in boys is higher than girls and in authoritarian parenting style the type A personality in girls is higher than boys. Due to the crucial role of parent's parenting styles in creating healthy and unhealthy perfe-ctionism and also due to interactive effect of parenting style and gender on the healthy perfectionism and type A personality, educating parents on par-enting styles and also giving instr-uction to the families for raising heal-thy persons in the society is a high priority.