Study On Attentional Bais To Imperfect Pictures In College Students Of Different Types Of Perfectionism

Purposes: To discuss the characteristics and intrinsic mechanism of attentional bias ofdifferent perfectionists when they paying attention to imperfect pictures, from the pointof view of cognitive processing to explain the relationship of perfectionism and mentalhealth. Methods:(1) This research adopted the methods of questionnaire survey andbehavioral experiment. First, using cluster sampling by random to choose700full-timeundergraduates from Harbin as study objects, they all needed to complete The ChineseFrost’s Multidirectional Perfectionism Scale (CFMPS) which revised by ZiF in2006toinvestigate their degree of perfectionism, while they were asked to leave their realcontact information for convenient to recall them doing the following experiments. Atlast,663valid questionnaires were received.(2) Then, referencing to the clusteringstandard for perfect socialists in the past studies and combing the subjects’ scores in thescale’s positive dimension and negative dimension and each of their standard deviation,we distinguished subjects. Finally, according to the principle of voluntariness, therewere64people selected to take part in the experiment, including20positiveperfectionists who had high positive points and low negative points;23negativeperfectionists who had both high positive and negative points; and21non perfectionistswho had both low positive and negative points.(3) The study1used3(groups: positive,negative and non perfectionist)×2(picture natures: perfect and imperfect) mixedexperimental design to explore if three groups had different characteristics of attentionalbias when experimental materials presented by dot-probe task; the study2used3(groups: positive, negative and non perfectionist)×2(picture natures: perfect andimperfect)×2(cue types: valid and invalid) mixed experimental design to furtherresearch the components of the attentional bias (attentional vigilance or difficultydisengagement) by the way of cue-target paradigm. Results:(1) In experiment1, groupand picture nature had a significant interaction effect. This result showed that positivegroup paid longer attention to imperfect pictures than perfect pictures; negative grouptook shorter reaction to imperfect pictures than perfect pictures; and imperfect grouphad no significant difference on average reaction time with two kinds of pictures, that isto say, when the perfect and imperfect stimulus pairs were presented, positiveperfectionist showed avoidance to the imperfect picture, however, negative perfectionist showed attentional preference to the imperfect picture, while non perfectionist didn’tshow any significant attentional bias.(2) In experiment2, group, picture nature and cuetype had a significant interaction effect. This result revealed that negative group tooklonger time to response to a target when the picture cue was “imperfect” relative to“perfect” on invalid trials, while positive group and imperfect group didn’t showsignificant difference; on the other hand, on valid trials, there was no significantdifference on reaction time for3groups either. So these findings suggested thatattentional bias in negative perfectionist may reflect a difficulty in disengaging fromimperfect picture. Conclusions: Two kinds of perfectionists both had attentional bias toimperfect stimulus, but there were different components. Positive perfectionist showedattentional avoidance, yet negative perfectionist showed attentional difficulty indisengaging. Meanwhile the two different attention models may lead to differentpsychological heath level.