The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale: correlations with depression in college students with learning disabilities

Interpretations of depression in children and adolescents with learning disabilities have tended to be neuropsychological or motivational. Some research has related various cognitive-behavioral constructs with depression and other problematic outcomes for this population. Research with nonlearning-disabled college students has provided correlations for scores on the Self-oriented and the two social scales of the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale with those on depression. No such work has been done with college students having learning disabilities. Measures for multidimensional perfectionism, anxiety, and depression were administered to 110 learning-disabled undergraduate men and women. Analysis showed that scores on only one of the social scales of perfectionism were positively correlated with depression scores, and this relation was weaker than previously found for nonlearning-disabled students. Findings are discussed in terms of previous research and a motivational interpretation of depression in learning-disabled collage students.