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Perfectionism and Negative Automatic Thoughts: Using Mindfulness to Help Perfectionists Effectively Respond to Failure

Geis, Hannah R.
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7008-2505
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1509561200908797

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, Psychology/Clinical.
Research links perfectionism, the tendency to hold and pursue unrealistically high standards (Hewitt, Mittelstaedt, & Wollert, 1989), to negative mental health outcomes such as eating disorders, anxiety, and depression (Egan, Wade, & Shafran, 2011). With university students reporting high rates of perfectionism (e.g., Pirbaglou et al., 2013), developing interventions for perfectionistic university students is an important area of research. Mindfulness-based interventions may be helpful for perfectionists as these interventions show promise in reducing worry and rumination, both of which mediate the relation between perfectionism and psychological distress (Short & Mazmanian, 2013). Additionally, mindfulness-based interventions show potential for increasing heart rate variability (HRV; Shearer, Hunt, Chowdhury, & Nicol, 2015), a physiological measure of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS)’s ability to regulate stress. A study examining the effect of mindfulness meditation on HRV for university students found that HRV only increased during recovery from stress for non-perfectionists, and not for perfectionists (Azam et al., 2015). However, the mindfulness meditation in the study did not incorporate a non-judgment element, which may be a key component for individuals prone to repetitive thoughts. In the current study, I explored whether mindfulness with a focus on non-judgment helps perfectionists effectively respond to failure, as measured by HRV levels during stress recovery. The results showed that participants in both conditions—mindfulness with and without a non-judgment component—had significantly higher HRV during the last five minutes of recovery than at baseline or during the stressor. This indicates that overall, perfectionists showed autonomic improvement during the last five minutes of recovery.
Eric Dubow, Ph.D. (Advisor)
William O'Brien, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Richard Anderson, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
88 p.
Psychology
perfectionism; mindfulness; HRV; worry; rumination; college students

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Geis, H. R. (2017). Perfectionism and Negative Automatic Thoughts: Using Mindfulness to Help Perfectionists Effectively Respond to Failure [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1509561200908797

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Geis, Hannah. Perfectionism and Negative Automatic Thoughts: Using Mindfulness to Help Perfectionists Effectively Respond to Failure. 2017. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1509561200908797.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Geis, Hannah. "Perfectionism and Negative Automatic Thoughts: Using Mindfulness to Help Perfectionists Effectively Respond to Failure." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1509561200908797

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1509561200908797
1,648
© 2017, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Perfectionism and Negative Automatic Thoughts: Using Mindfulness to Help Perfectionists Effectively Respond to Failure by Hannah R. Geis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.