Emotion Regulation Mediates the Relationship between Perfectionism and Self-handicapping among Dancers

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effect of emotion regulation in the relationship between perfectionism and self-handicapping. After 503 college dancers (414 females, 89 males) completed the battery of questionnaires, the data were analyzed for descriptive statistics and analyzed by frequency analysis, correlation analysis. The bootstrapping method was used to verify the statistical significance of the indirect effect. The results showed that the reappraisal of emotion-regulation significantly mediated the relationship between self-oriented perfectionism and behavioral self-handicapping. Also determined that the suppression of emotion regulation significantly mediated the relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism and claimed self-handicapping. This study demonstrates that perfectionism and self-handicapping will have a different relationship depending on dancers’ types of emotion regulation. These findings provide valuable information on the psychological coping strategies used to control the negative emotion that are related to perfectionism among dancers.