The purpose of this study was to determine whether perfectionism and self-confidence has any influence on depression among primary school students.
The subjects of this study were 300 primary school students selected by purposeful sampling; males 185,...
The purpose of this study was to determine whether perfectionism and self-confidence has any influence on depression among primary school students.
The subjects of this study were 300 primary school students selected by purposeful sampling; males 185, females 115. The method used for perfectionism, Child and Adolescent Perfection Scale(CAPS), was developed by Flett, Hewitt, Boucher, Davison & Munro(200) and translated by Lee, jae yeon(2004). The method used for self-efficacy was developed by Jung, tack hee(1987), and redeveloped by Kim, jong myung(1991). The method used for depression, Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), was developed by Kovacs and translated by Han, you jin(1993).
The data was statistically processed using tools of t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression.
Major findings of this study are as follows.
1. Findings show that gender has no effect regarding perfectionism, self-efficacy and depression in primary school students.
2. There was a significant positive correlation between perfectionism and depression. It was suggested that the higher perfectionism was, the higher depression was. But there was nonsignificant negative correlation between self-oriented perfectionism and depression. It may be supposed that self-oriented perfectionism is a healthy aspect. There was significant negative correlation between factors of self-efficacy and depression. It means that the higher self-efficacy is, the lower depression is.
3. There was significant negative correlation between self-efficacy and depression. This means that the higher self-efficacy is, the lower depression is.
4. There was significant interaction between perfectionism, especially social perfectionism, and self-efficacy on depression. These findings suggest that the students with high perfectionism and low self-efficacy feel the strongest depression while the students with low perfectionism and high self-efficacy feel the weakest depression.
5. Self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of depression.
Through the results of this study, we find that according to the dynamic relations between perfectionism and self-efficacy, the level of depression varies. We also find that perfectionism is a multidimensional concept that has a positive aspect along with its negative aspects. Also, for primary school students who suffer from depression due to a high level of perfectionism, the study suggests that there is a possibility of lowering their depression by increasing their self-efficacy.