Autonomy support vs. psychological control, perfectionism, and Taiwanese adolescents’ achievement goals

Abstract

The author attempted to explore potential antecedents of achievement goals and relations of teacher and parental autonomy support versus psychological control to Taiwanese adolescents’ perfectionistic tendencies. A total of 512 eighth-grade students completed self-reported questionnaires assessing variables of interest. Results indicated that perceived autonomy support versus psychological control together with perfectionistic tendencies play a role in predicting Taiwanese adolescents’ achievement goal orientations. In addition, the present findings replicated effects of autonomy-supportive versus controlling social environment consistently found in Western cultures. The author also documented profiles of adolescents with different perfectionistic tendencies. Adaptive perfectionists reported higher levels of teachers’ autonomy support and lower levels of parental psychological control than did maladaptive perfectionists. Also, adaptive perfectionists were more likely to adopt approach-oriented goals.