Investigating the negative link between perfectionism and emotional divergent thinking.

ABSTRACT: Previous research has shown that perfectionism was negatively associated with the generation of original ideas in Divergent Thinking (DT) tasks, while striving for excellence was positively associated with it. However, the explanatory variables for these effects remain unclear. This study investigated the mediating roles of doubts about actions, concerns over mistakes, openness to experience, empathy, and emotions during DT tasks. Additionally, it examined an emotional DT task (i.e., naming frustrating things and things that affect one's self-esteem). From a sample of n = 282 university students, we replicated the negative association between perfectionism and DT abilities, though the effect size was smaller than in prior studies. Perfectionism correlated with lower empathy and greater pri

SUBMITTER: Goulet-Pelletier JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11850400 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature