The Chain Mediating Effect of Negative Perfectionism on Procrastination: An Ego Depletion Perspective

Extant research has consistently demonstrated that negative perfectionism is an important driver of procrastination. However, existing studies suffer from several salient limitations, such as an inadequacy in understanding its mediating mechanism, and the lack of an overarching theoretical framework...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Yan, Bai, Xinwen, Yang, Wanyi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9368400/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35954719
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159355
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author Zhang, Yan
Bai, Xinwen
Yang, Wanyi
author_facet Zhang, Yan
Bai, Xinwen
Yang, Wanyi
author_sort Zhang, Yan
collection PubMed
description Extant research has consistently demonstrated that negative perfectionism is an important driver of procrastination. However, existing studies suffer from several salient limitations, such as an inadequacy in understanding its mediating mechanism, and the lack of an overarching theoretical framework. Accordingly, the present study adopts the ego depletion theory to investigate how and under what conditions negative perfectionism leads to procrastination. Specifically, we propose that fear of failure and ego depletion serially mediate the effect of negative perfectionism on procrastination, and that cognitive flexibility moderates this chain mediating effect. A three-wave survey consisting of 490 participants, in which negative perfectionism was measured in the first survey, fear of failure and ego depletion were measured in the second, and procrastination was measured in the last survey, lends support to all of our hypotheses. Specifically, our results indicate that (a) negative perfectionism influences procrastination through the chain mediating effect of fear of failure and ego depletion; (b) cognitive flexibility moderates the effect of fear of failure on ego depletion in that the effect is weaker when cognitive flexibility is high rather than low; and (c) cognitive flexibility moderates the chain mediating effect of negative perfectionism on procrastination, such that this chain mediation is weaker when cognitive flexibility is high rather than low. Our findings are discussed in terms of the theoretical contribution to reveal the mechanism by which negative perfectionism results in negative effects from the novel perspective of ego depletion.
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spelling pubmed-93684002022-08-12 The Chain Mediating Effect of Negative Perfectionism on Procrastination: An Ego Depletion Perspective Zhang, Yan Bai, Xinwen Yang, Wanyi Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Extant research has consistently demonstrated that negative perfectionism is an important driver of procrastination. However, existing studies suffer from several salient limitations, such as an inadequacy in understanding its mediating mechanism, and the lack of an overarching theoretical framework. Accordingly, the present study adopts the ego depletion theory to investigate how and under what conditions negative perfectionism leads to procrastination. Specifically, we propose that fear of failure and ego depletion serially mediate the effect of negative perfectionism on procrastination, and that cognitive flexibility moderates this chain mediating effect. A three-wave survey consisting of 490 participants, in which negative perfectionism was measured in the first survey, fear of failure and ego depletion were measured in the second, and procrastination was measured in the last survey, lends support to all of our hypotheses. Specifically, our results indicate that (a) negative perfectionism influences procrastination through the chain mediating effect of fear of failure and ego depletion; (b) cognitive flexibility moderates the effect of fear of failure on ego depletion in that the effect is weaker when cognitive flexibility is high rather than low; and (c) cognitive flexibility moderates the chain mediating effect of negative perfectionism on procrastination, such that this chain mediation is weaker when cognitive flexibility is high rather than low. Our findings are discussed in terms of the theoretical contribution to reveal the mechanism by which negative perfectionism results in negative effects from the novel perspective of ego depletion. MDPI 2022-07-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9368400/ /pubmed/35954719 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159355 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Zhang, Yan
Bai, Xinwen
Yang, Wanyi
The Chain Mediating Effect of Negative Perfectionism on Procrastination: An Ego Depletion Perspective
title The Chain Mediating Effect of Negative Perfectionism on Procrastination: An Ego Depletion Perspective
title_full The Chain Mediating Effect of Negative Perfectionism on Procrastination: An Ego Depletion Perspective
title_fullStr The Chain Mediating Effect of Negative Perfectionism on Procrastination: An Ego Depletion Perspective
title_full_unstemmed The Chain Mediating Effect of Negative Perfectionism on Procrastination: An Ego Depletion Perspective
title_short The Chain Mediating Effect of Negative Perfectionism on Procrastination: An Ego Depletion Perspective
title_sort chain mediating effect of negative perfectionism on procrastination: an ego depletion perspective
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9368400/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35954719
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159355
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