Maladaptive perfectionism, daily hassles, and depressive symptoms among first-year college students in China

Abstract

Objective: Attending college involves a stressful period of adaptation for many first-year college students. The aim of the current study was to better understand the relationship among maladaptive perfectionism, daily hassles, and depressive symptoms. Participants: The sample comprised 454 Chinese first-year college students. Methods: All participants completed a battery of questionnaires including the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised, the Chinese College Student Psychological Stress Scale, and the Beck Depression Inventory. Results: Conflicts with roommates, forming the bad habits, and difficulties in learning were the top three stressful daily hassles. Maladaptive perfectionism predicts daily hassles, which in turn predicts depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Maladaptive perfectionism asserts its effects on depressive symptoms of first-year college students experiencing minor events on a daily basis. Implications for school educators and counselors and directions of future research are also discussed.

Keywords:

• daily hassles
• depressive symptoms
• first-year college students
• maladaptive perfectionism

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of China and received approval from Tianjin University.

Funding

Our work was funded by Grant XLZX-G201901 from School Mental Health Education Research Project of Tianjin City.

Notes

1 We found that all the 454 participants rated 0 in two items of the daily hassles subscale. They were preparation for studying abroad (No. 40) and preparation for the TOEFL or IELTS (No. 69). It might be that all the participants were freshmen, so it wasn’t the time for them to consider studying abroad or foreign language test. Thus, there were finally 31 daily hassles analyzed in the present study.