The Relationship among Perfectionism Defense Styles, and Depression Symptoms in Students

In this study the relationship among perfectionism, defense styles and depression symptoms was studied. Participants were 426 undergraduate students from the University of Guilan (264 females, 162 males), who were selected through randomized clustering multistage method. All participants were asked to complete the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Hewitt & Flett, 1991), the Defense Styles Questionnaire (Andrews et al., 1993), and the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck et al,1996). The results showed that there Were positive and significant correlations between the three dimensions of perfectionism (self-oriented, other-oriented, socially prescribed) and depression symptoms and maladaptive defense styles (neurotic and immature). In addition, the immature defense style showed a positive significant correlation with depression symptoms. The results of regression analysis indicated that four out of six predictor variables (socially prescribed & self-oriented perfectionism, mature & immature defense style) show significant coefficients, predicting the student's depression symptoms. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the immature defense style for both socially prescribed and other-oriented perfectionism in relation to the depression symptoms has a moderational effect and mature defense style moderates the relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism and the depression symptoms.