Too strict or too loose? Perfectionism and impulsivity: The relation with eating disorder symptoms using a person-centered approach Liesbet Boone a, ⁎ ,1 , Laurence Claes b , Patrick Luyten b,c a Ghent University, Belgium b Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Leuven, Belgium c Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, UK abstract article info Article history: Received 16 July 2013 Received in revised form 3 September 2013 Accepted 9 October 2013 Available online 22 October 2013 Keywords: Cluster-analysis Multidimensional perfectionism Impulsivity Eating disorder symptoms Although both perfectionism (i.e. personal standards perfectionism and evaluative concerns perfectionism) and impulsivity have been shown to be implicated in eating disorders, no previous studies have examined the interplay between both personality dimensions in their association with eating disorder symptoms. This is the first study to investigate the relationship between empirically derived personality subtypes based on perfectionism and impulsivity and eating disorder symptoms (i.e., dietary restraint, and concerns over eating, weight and shape). Cluster analysis was used to establish naturally occurring combinations of perfectionism and impulsivity in adolescent boys and girls (N = 460; M age = 14.2 years, SD = .90). Evidence was obtained for four personality profiles: (1) a resilient subtype (low on perfectionism and impulsivity), (2) pure impulsivity subtype (high on impulsivity only), (3) pure perfectionism subtype (high on perfectionism only), and (4) combined perfectionism/impulsivity subtype (high on both perfectionism and impulsivity). Participants in these four clusters showed differences in terms of eating disorder symptoms in that participants with a combination of high perfectionism and high impulsivity (rather than the presence of one of these two characteristics alone) had the highest levels of ED symptoms. These findings shed new light on extant theories concerning ED. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Research suggests, paradoxically, that both overcontrolled personality features, such as perfectionism, and undercontrolled personality characteristics, such as impulsivity, are implicated in eating disorder symptomatology (e.g., Bardone-Cone et al., 2007; Dawe & Loxton, 2004). To gain more insight into this rather counterintuitive finding, this study aimed to examine the interplay between perfectionism and impulsivity in relation to eating disorder symptoms (i.e., dietary restraint, and concerns over eating, weight and shape) from a person-centered approach. Specifically, we aimed to investigate the relationship between naturally occurring combinations of perfectionism and impulsivity within persons. Perfectionism has been conceptualized as a multidimensional personality feature. Many studies have found that perfectionism consists of two components, that is personal standards (PS) perfectionism (i.e., the setting of and striving for high personal standards and goals), and evaluative concerns (EC) perfectionism (i.e., negative reactions to failures, concerns over others' criticism and expectations, and doubts about performance abilities) (Bieling, Israeli, & Antony, 2004; Frost, Heimberg, Holt, Mattia, & Neubauer, 1993). Several case control studies found that both PS and EC perfectionism are elevated in patients with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa compared to healthy controls or other psychiatric groups (e.g., Bastiani, Rao, Weltzin, & Kaye, 1995; Soenens et al., 2008). Furthermore, research on perfectionism has consistently found that levels of EC perfectionism, and to a lesser extent PS perfectionism, are strongly related to body image concerns in a clinical sample (Boone, Braet, Vandereycken, & Claes, 2013) and to the severity (Sherry, Hewitt, Besser, McGee, & Flett, 2004) and the presence (DiBartolo, Li, & Frost, 2008) of a wide range of eating disorder symptoms (e.g., dieting, bulimic symptoms, and preoccupation with food, weight and shape) in non-clinical samples (see Bardone-Cone et al. (2007) for an overview). More recently, longitudinal (Boone, Soenens, & Braet, 2011; Mackinnon et al., 2011) and experimental research (Boone, Soenens, Vansteenkiste, & Braet, 2012; Shafran, Lee, Payne, & Fairburn, 2006) found evidence for the role of PS and EC perfectionism in the onset and course of ED symptoms, such as restraint eating, binge eating, and weight and shape concerns. Importantly, in a recent study — using a person-centered approach — it was found that a combination of high PS perfectionism and high EC perfectionism is associated with the highest level of ED symptoms, such as dietary restraint, and concerns over eating, weight and shape in a sample of Eating Behaviors 15 (2014) 17–23 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Faculty of Psychology, Department of Developmental, Social, and Personality Psychology, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium. Tel.: + 32 92646486; fax: +32 926464 99. E-mail address: Liesbet.Boone@UGent.be (L. Boone). 1 The first author is research assistant at the Special Research Funds (BOF). 1471-0153/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2013.10.013 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Eating Behaviors