This study aimed to examine the mediating effects of introjected motivation and self-control on the relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism and job-seeking anxiety. A self-report survey was administered to 320 male and female university...
This study aimed to examine the mediating effects of introjected motivation and self-control on the relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism and job-seeking anxiety. A self-report survey was administered to 320 male and female university students in Seoul, South Korea. After excluding three participants who did not meet the study criteria, data from 317 participants were analyzed. Correlation analyses were conducted using SPSS, and the mediating effects were examined using the PROCESS macro. In addition, bootstrapping procedures were employed to test the significance of the indirect effects.
The results of the study were as follows. First, correlation analyses revealed that socially prescribed perfectionism was positively associated with job-seeking anxiety. In addition, socially prescribed perfectionism was positively correlated with introject ed motivation and negatively correlated with self-control. Introjected motivation showed a significant positive correlation with job-seeking anxiety, whereas self-control was negatively correlated with job-seeking anxiety. Second, the results of the mediation analysis indicated that introjected motivation partially mediated the relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism and job-seeking anxiety. Third, although the indirect effect of self-control was significant, its direction was inconsistent with the simple correlation between self-control and job-seeking anxiety. These findings suggest that introjected motivation and self-control partially explain the relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism and job-seeking anxiety. Based on these findings, the implications, significance, and limitations of the study are presented.