Causal Explanation of Girls Perfectionism Based on the Dark Traits of Personality, Contingent Self-Worth and Academic Self-Efficacy

Perfectionism is a widespread and severe problem among adolescents and one of the goals of psychological research is to identify variables related to it. So, this study aimed to investigate the mediating role of academic self-efficacy in the relationship between dark personality traits, conditional self-worth, and girls' perfectionism. This study was descriptive and the research design was correlational, a type of structural equations. The Statistical population included all female second high school students of Orumieh in the academic year 2021-2022, among whom 204 individuals were selected by Multi-stage cluster sampling. Jones and Paulhus's dark traits of personality scale (2014), Cracker et al.’s contingent self-worth scale (2003), Patrick, Hicks Ryan’s academic self-efficacy scale (1997), and Frost et al.’s perfectionism scale (1990) were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using Lisrel software and the proposed model was evaluated by structural equation modeling. The results of this study showed that the dark traits of personality, contingent self-worth, and academic self-efficacy were directly related to students’ perfectionism. Also, the dark traits of personality and contingent self-worth were indirectly related to students’ perfectionism through academic self-efficacy. These findings support the mediating role of academic self-efficacy in the causal relationship between the dark traits of personality and contingent self-worth on perfectionism.