A person-oriented examination of perfectionism and slump-related coping in female intercollegiate volleyball players

摘要

The purpose of this study was to determine if athletes with different perfectionist profiles (i.e., healthy and unhealthy perfectionism) differed with respect to how they coped with a performance slump. Female intercollegiate volleyball players (N = 137; M age = 19.94 years) completed domain-specific measures of perfectionism and coping in sport. Cluster analyses produced three clusters of athletes that directly corresponded to a tripartite conceptualization of perfectionism that differentiates between healthy-, unhealthy-, and non-perfectionists. A MANOVA revealed that healthy perfectionists reported the use of increased effort and active coping more frequently than unhealthy perfectionists, whereas unhealthy perfectionists reported the use of behavioral disengagement more frequently than healthy perfectionists (all ps < .05). Results support the important role that perfectionism may play in the coping process and reinforce the need to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy profiles of perfectionism in sport.