The psychometrics of the Persian version of the perfectionistic self‐presentation scale–junior form

Abstract Introduction The perfectionistic self‐presentation scale (PSPS)–junior form is a self‐report questionnaire used to measure perfectionistic self‐presentation in children and adolescents. It consists of 18 items and 3 subscales, including perfectionistic self‐promotion, non‐display of imperfection, and nondisclosure of imperfection. Methods The present study aimed to determine the psychometrics of the Persian version of the PSPS. A descriptive study was conducted on 345 samples (269 girls) who responded to the questionnaire. Results The findings confirmed the internal consistency and composite reliability (CR) of this scale (CR = 0.744). Further, the Persian PSPS has acceptable face and content validities. Construct and convergent validities were also measured and confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. The correlational analysis of the research variables showed that the PSPS is positively correlated with the Child‐Adolescent Perfectionism Scale (0.566) and the children's and adolescents’ dysfunctional attitudes scale (0.420). Conclusion Overall, the results indicated that the Persian version of the PSPS has acceptable psychometrics and can yield accurate results in Iranian samples.

encompasses cognitive processes that reflect information processing based on perfectionistic cognitive structures and automatic perfectionistic thoughts. All these components are associated with different psychopathologies, accomplishments, and relationship problems (Hewitt et al., 2008).
According to the perfectionism social disconnection model (Hewitt et al., 2017), perfectionism develops as a result of a lack of fit or asynchronous parent-child relationship where the child's needs for security, nurturance, and support have been either inadequately or inconsistently met or completely neglected. As such, the PSDM proposes that the child engages in perfectionistic behaviors (i.e., needing to be or appear perfect) to secure acceptance and to repair a sense of defectiveness or "inner badness," as being perfect and/or appearing to be perfect is believed to gain approval and acceptance from people around them. From this perspective, early attachment insecurities and feelings of defectiveness/shame and the negative self-models they represent are at the core of perfectionism and perfectionistic behaviors.
The present study focuses on perfectionistic self-presentation based on the new criteria developed for children and adolescents.
Perfectionistic self-presentation is a concept stemming from the observations that some perfectionists need to outwardly appear perfect, whereas, in fact, these individuals often view themselves to be far from perfection. Therefore, they hide behind a mask of excellence and perfection . Hewitt et al. (2003) introduced perfectionistic self-presentation as a form of interpersonal expression. The construct of perfectionistic self-presentation is related to one's interpersonal goals and desires. That is, the way in which people interact with others typically represents an attempt to portray the self favorably (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Furthermore, perfectionistic self-presentation is a form of self-presentation, in which the desire to present that self as favorably becomes maladaptive.
Recently, Hewitt et al. (2011) created a version of this measure that is suitable for use with children and adolescents. The development of this scale accords with descriptions of some children being high in public self-consciousness and displaying a "false front" to compensate for vulnerable self-esteem. Hewitt et al. (2011), to initial research conducted with multiple samples on the development of a multidimensional measure of perfectionistic self-presentation for children and adolescents, developed an 18-item version of the perfectionistic self-presentation scale (PSPS). Analyses conducted on data from two clinical samples and one nonclinical sample of children and adolescents found that the PSPS-junior form (PSPS-JR) reflected a multidimensional model of perfectionistic self-presentation with three subscales: perfectionistic self-promotion, non-display of imperfection, and nondisclosure of imperfection. The subscale scores were found to demonstrate internal consistency, and there was good evidence supporting the validity of the interpretation of subscale scores based on this new measure. The psychometric properties of the scale were further assessed by the authors in a follow-up study with a younger sample of children in grades seven and eight (Fellet et al., 2012).
The study assessed the psychometric characteristics and correlates of the PSPS-JR. The findings support the continued use of the PSPS-JR and the assessment of individual differences in perfectionistic self-presentation among early adolescents.
In summary, there are too few studies to be able to recommend this measure for a younger sample. Confirmation of its factor structure and examination of its test-retest reliability is required by independent researchers. The PSPS-JR was designed for use with children and adolescents, but its psychometric properties and applications among Iranian adolescents have not been investigated. Research with the PSPS-JR is still in its early phases, and several psychometric and substantive issues remain to be examined.
Perfectionism studies have expanded considerably over the past two decades, investigating several factors concerning this component, particularly in terms of its essence, correlations, and consequences in children and adolescents. Tendency to distress and incompetence are, to an extent, due to perfectionistic adolescents' willingness to strive for absolute perfection instead of self-critical evaluation based on specific standards (Flett et al., 2012). For instance, Bruch (1974) noted that his adolescent patients felt the need to portray perfection and often described the difference between the perfect self-image they show others, as well as their inner experience of themselves. Other researchers pointed out the self-image or the mask that is portrayed by particular adolescents who massively invest in creating and maintaining an ideal public self-image (Bruch, 1974). Peterson (2002) described a concept known as the "façade of invulnerability," which is a common phenomenon among intellectually capable, yet troubled, youth (Peterson, 2002). He noted that "It is not easy for them to reveal doubts, embarrassments, shame, and feelings of awkwardness," and therefore, they display a false and idealistic sense of self (Knopf, 2021). Likely, adolescents who portray a false sense of self that is designated to seem flawless are exceptionally self-aware given their great concerns about social acceptance, social integration, and the avoidance of public failures that are specific to adolescence (Flett et al., 2012).
Growing evidence suggests that perfectionism in children and adolescents is accompanied by numerous adjustment issues and problems, such as depression and anxiety (Wright et al., 2021), obsessivecompulsive disorder (Miegel et al., 2020), bulimic tendencies (Bento et al., 2020), fear/sadness , suicidal ideation (Pia et al., 2020), and eating disorder symptoms (Vacca et al., 2021). According to the literature, maladaptive forms of perfectionism are prevalent in approximately 30% of adolescents and are demonstrated by 3 out of every 10 adolescents (Vatterott, 2019). Huang et al. (2020) believed that perfectionistic presentation leads to negative thoughts, threatening the mental health of adolescents (Huang et al., 2020). Moreover, Lin et al. (2019) demonstrated that adolescents who pretend to be perfect frequently experience sleep disorders due to negative attitudes (Lin et al., 2019). Friedman (2006 also reported that a considerable number of adolescents have extremely covert behaviors to hide their psychological problems (e.g., suicide attempts) from their parents (Friedman, 2006). Similarly, Sorotzkin (1998) observed that astute children and adolescents are often good at displaying behaviors that are similar to perfectionistic self-presentation to divert others' attention to their accomplishments, thereby avoiding feelings of inadequacy and self-destructive tendencies (Sorotzkin, 1998). Hewitt et al. (2011) stated that perfectionistic self-presentation corresponds to the accounts given by adolescents who have a generally high level of self-awareness and are often inclined toward "pretension" as compensation for their vulnerable self-esteem. Along with hiding one's inadequacies, this tendency may lead to severe consequences in anxious adolescents.
Perfectionistic self-presentation is, in fact, a contributing factor to suicide without an evident warning .
The inclusion criteria to respond to the questionnaire were having basic literacy and consent to participate in the research (self-report).

Perfectionistic self-presentation scale-junior form (PSPS-JR)
It is an 18-item self-report scale used to assess perfectionistic selfpresentation in children and adolescents. The items are scored based on a five-point Likert scale ranging from Not at All (1) to Very Much (5).
Original evidence suggests that the three subscales of perfectionistic self-promotion (e.g., I'd like to appear perfect to others), non-display of imperfection (e.g., my mistakes get worse when others notice them), and nondisclosure of imperfection (e.g., I must always hide my problems) have acceptable internal consistency and validity. In the study by Hewitt et al. (2011), Cronbach's alpha coefficients of these subscales were reported to be .93, .81, and .76, respectively

Child-Adolescent Perfectionism Scale (CAPS)
It is a 22-item questionnaire, with 11 items focusing on self-oriented perfectionism (e.g., I try to be perfect in everything I do) and 11 items focusing on socially prescribed perfectionism (e.g., others expect me to be perfect). The items of the CAPS are scored based on a five-point Likert scale ranging from Completely Disagree (1) to Completely Agree (5) (Flett et al., 2000). The CAPS has been employed in several studies, such as those conducted by Flett et al. (2000) and Hewitt et al. (2002) ( Badri et al., 2015;Hewitt et al., 2002). Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .84 indicates the high reliability of the scale (Flett et al., 2000). In an Iranian study, Badri et al. (2014) reported Cronbach's alpha coefficients for self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism as .67 and .74, respectively. In the present study, Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the CAPS was estimated at .80.

Children's and adolescents' dysfunctional attitudes scale (DAS-CA)
The DAS-CA was developed by D' Alessandro and Burton (2006). Using the adult version of the dysfunctional attitudes scale (Weissman, 1979;Weissman & Beck, 1978)

Procedure of study
As participation in this study was unpaid, obtaining informed consent from the participants was mandatory. All the stages of the research were conducted under appropriate instructions and regulations. We used the PSPS simultaneous with the CAPS and DAS-CA, which were previously translated into Persian, and their reliability and validity were confirmed in different studies. The Brislin method was used to translate the PSPS into Persian (Lonner & Berry, 1986

Face validity
The face validity of the PSPS-JR was evaluated qualitatively. For this purpose, a panel of five elites and professors of the faculty of psychology were asked to assess the difficulty level, disparity, and ambiguity of the statements/wording. Minor modifications were made to the tool based on the provided feedback. Cohen's Kappa statistic is frequently used to test interrater reliability. The importance of rater reliability lies in the fact that it represents the extent to which the data collected in the study are correct representations of the variables measured.
Measurement of the extent to which data collectors (raters) assign the same score to the same variable is called interrater reliability. Cohen's Kappa always ranges between 0 and 1, with 0 indicating no agreement between the two raters and 1 indicating perfect agreement between the two raters. In the present study, the agreement obtained 80%.

Content validity
Content validity determines whether the items of a questionnaire represent all aspects of a construct. It can be measured either qualitatively or quantitatively. For the qualitative assessment of content validity, we asked five professors to suggest corrections (written) after care-fully reading the PSPS items. In their qualitative assessment, they were also asked to consider grammatical accuracy, proper diction, the significance of the questions, the proper arrangement of the questions, and the time needed to respond to the designed tool in their qualitative assessment. After obtaining feedback from the experts, necessary changes were made to the scale.
The next stage involved the quantitative assessment of content validity. Content validity ratio (CVR) was used to ensure the significance and correctness of the selected content, and content validity index (CVI) was used to confirm that the questionnaire items were designed optimally for measuring the content. To measure CVR, 12 experts were asked to score each item based on a 3-point Likert scale, including Unnecessary (1), Useful but unnecessary (2), and Necessary (3).
Based on the Lawshe table and considering the number of experts on the panel, if the index is larger than 62% for an item, the item is necessary and significant at p < .05 (Lawshe, 1975 (2), relevant but need review (3), and completely related (4). The score of each item should be above 0.79 (Waltz & Bausell, 1981). In the present study, the CVI of all the items was within the range of 0.866-1, and it was equal to 0.947 for the entire PSPS, both of which are acceptable.

Data analysis
As the data were gathered online, there were no outliers. Data normality was assessed based on skewness and kurtosis. According to the findings, the skewness of the questionnaire items ranged from −1.002 to −0.031, and kurtosis ranged from −1.14 to 0.688. Considering the acceptable range of skewness and kurtosis (±2) (George, 2011), data normality was confirmed. In the continuation of the evaluation, the values of kurtosis and skewness related to the Mahalanobis distance and checking the box plot diagram and removing outliers finally showed that the distribution of multivariate data was normal.

Construct validity
To examine the construct validity of the PSPS, we used maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis in AMOS. As the factor load of items should be higher than 0.4 (Kline, 2015), the questionnaire items were tested to eliminate those with a lower factor load from further analysis. According to the results, the factor load of the items was within the range of 0.445-0.794, and they were all considered significant (p < .01).
Therefore, none of the items were eliminated (see Table 1). a model is fit when the values of the parsimony comparative fit index (PCFI) and parsimony normed fit index (PNFI) are higher than 0.50.
Although X 2 is often the most reliable index to evaluate the goodness of fit, it is correlated with increased sample size and degree of freedom and may not be confirmed in most cases. Instead, researchers usually use the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) and CMIN/DF. Thus, a model is fit when RMSEA is lower than 0.08 and CMIN/DF is less than 3 (Kline, 2015). Meanwhile, the primary indices of the model did not represent good fitness, and covariance was added to the remaining values to enhance the fitness of the model. For this purpose, covariance was created between errors 7 and 8 related to the self-promotion component and errors 10 and 14 and 11 and 12 related to the non-display of imperfection component (see Figure 1).
Finally, the assessment of the fitness indices showed that the

Convergent validity and reliability
To test CV, we used the average variance extracted (AVE) method.
Moreover, composite reliability (CR) and Cronbach's alpha coefficient were used to evaluate the internal consistency reliability of four factors (i.e., perfectionistic self-presentation, perfectionistic selfpromotion, non-display of imperfection, and nondisclosure of imperfection). According to Fornell and Larcker (1981), higher CR values than 0.70 indicate the acceptable internal consistency of a construct.
The overall analysis of the results showed that although the PSPS lacks acceptable CV, its CR is standard. Moreover, Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .866 confirmed the reliability of the PSPS (Table 2).

Concurrent validity
To examine concurrent validity, we evaluated the correlation of the PSPS and its factors with each other, as well as with the CAPS and DAS-CA. The obtained results showed that the PSPS, its factors, the CAPS, and the DAS-CA were correlated positively and significantly; therefore, the concurrent validity of the scale is acceptable (Table 3). In general, it can be concluded that the PSPS has standard psychometrics.
F I G U R E 1 Confirmatory factor analysis of perfectionistic self-presentation scale (PSPS).

Selfpromotion Non-display
Nondisclose PSP CAP DA

DISCUSSION
The present study aimed to measure the psychometrics of the PSPS-JR in an Iranian population. This is the first study to examine the statistical  (2006). Perfectionistic self-presentation leads the individual to set high personal standards, which diminishes his/her self-esteem; as a result, the individual may fear the consequences of success, and fear of success may trigger self-defeating, avoidance behaviors (Wang et al., 2022). These behaviors amplify dysfunctional attitudes as such attitudes involve rigid, perfectionistic standards that the individual uses to judge him/herself, or others. As these attitudes are excessively rigid and resistant to change, they are considered dysfunctional (Huang et al., 2020). Thus, these attitudes may very well be linked to perfectionistic self-presentation. As a personality trait, perfectionistic self-presentation propels the individual to have high expectations, which, in turn, increases his/her dysfunctional attitudes and perfectionism.
Generally, PSPS-JR can be used to identify the essence and the consequences of perfectionistic self-presentation in adolescents. Further, it allows psychologists and counselors to prevent the development of this personality trait. Overall, the PSPS-JR appears to be a useful measure of the expression of perfection among Iranian youths and an important tool in attempting to understand the nature and the consequences of perfectionistic self-presentation in children and adolescents. The current findings have important practical implications.
Inclusion of the PSPS-JR should enhance clinical assessments seeking to establish the nature of dysfunctional perfectionism in children and adolescents.
The results of the present study should be interpreted with caution due to some limitations we faced. First, the reliability of the research was measured based on Cronbach's alpha without a retest. Moreover, as the samples were selected from Tehran only, the results cannot be generalized to all Iranians. Therefore, a retest and further investigation on different samples are suggested to ensure the psychometrics of the PSPS in the Iranian population. Throughout the study, we adhered to ethical principles by guaranteeing privacy and secrecy (the questionnaires were completed anonymously). Moreover, participation was voluntary, and the participants were allowed to withdraw from the study at any given time.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Faezeh Peimanpak and Abbas Abdollahi: Study design; data collection; data analyses; writing draft. Simin Hosseinian: Reviewed the manuscript; edited the manuscript

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The authors have no conflict of interests to disclose.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The data are available by request to the corresponding author.

CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.