The Relationship between Regulatory Focus, Perfectionism, and School Burnout

The current study investigated the relationship between regulatory focus, perfectionism, and school burnout. Regulatory focus theory posits two self-regulatory styles: promotion focus and prevention focus. Similarly, perfectionism also consists of two components: perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns. Taken together, promotion focus and perfectionistic strivings commonly show an approach orientation, while prevention focus and perfectionistic concerns demonstrate an avoidance orientation. In school settings, a plethora of research has investigated the relationship between perfectionism and school burnout, while little research on the relationship between regulatory focus and school burnout has been conducted. Given that regulatory focus and perfectionism share a commonality, both concepts need to be examined together to predict school burnout. As such, the purpose of this paper was to extend current research by examining school burnout from both perspectives. The current study investigated the relationship between regulatory focus, perfectionism and school burnout (as measured by inadequacy, exhaustion, and cynicism). In this study, 200 undergraduate students answered a questionnaire. Then, correlation, hierarchical regression and moderation analyses were conducted. The results indicated that promotion focus negatively predicted inadequacy, while prevention focus positively predicted all three subscales of school burnout. Moreover, perfectionistic strivings positively predicted exhaustion and perfectionistic concerns positively predicted exhaustion, cynicism, and inadequacy. Limitations and future directions are discussed.