Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Anxiety and depression are serious mental health issues with harmful physical consequences. They both tend to affect the lives of women more often than those of men. Two personality traits that play a role in the experience of anxiety and depression are perfectionism and implicit self-esteem. There are two types of perfectionism. Those with maladaptive perfectionism require reassurance from others to diminish their feelings of anxiety and depression, whereas those with adaptive perfectionism do not. Implicit self-esteem refers to automatic associations with the self ranging from positive to negative, or high to low implicit self-esteem. Individuals with low implicit self-esteem tend to experience worse moods after receiving negative feedback from others than those with high implicit self-esteem. Currently, it is unclear how these two traits function together in the experience of anxiety and depression. The present program of research seeks to demonstrate that by considering perfectionism and implicit self-esteem together, we will be better able to understand the causes of anxiety and depression. Undergraduate students who are high in either maladaptive or adaptive perfectionism will participate in the study. All participants will complete a computerized test of implicit self-esteem. They will then receive either positive or negative feedback about their performance on a mock test of scholastic or social competence, followed by measures of anxiety and depression. We predict that participants high in maladaptive perfectionism with low implicit self-esteem and receiving negative feedback will likely feel the most anxiety and depression in both the scholastic and social domains. The findings from this research will help mental health professionals identify people at risk for anxiety and depression while encouraging the development of comprehensive approaches to treatment for these patients, consequently improving their personal mental and physical health.