The predictive role of childhood trauma, fear of negative evaluation and inferiority feeling on perfectionism among university students

The aim of this study is to examine the predictive power of university students' childhood trauma, inferiority feeling and fear of negative evaluation on perfectionism. 345 university students studying in Turkey participated in the research. Personal information form prepared by the researcher, Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ-33), Inferiority Feeling Scale (IFS), Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (BFNE), and Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (F-MPS) were used to collect data. In the study, an independent group t-test was conducted to determine whether the perfectionism levels of university students differ according to gender. Pearson Correlation was applied to determine the relationships between the dependent variable and independent variables. Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to determine how perfectionism levels were predicted by childhood trauma, inferiority feeling, and fear of negative evaluation. The results showed that the sub-dimensions of childhood trauma- overprotection/ control, inferiority feeling, and fear of negative evaluation significantly predicted perfectionism. There was no significant difference between the perfectionism levels of university students and the gender variable. The findings of the study were discussed according to the relevant literature. Finally, the limitations of the research are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented.