The effect of perfectionism on school burnout among adolescence: The mediator of self-esteem and coping style

• Maladaptive and adaptive perfectionisms have discrepant effect on school burnout.
• Self-esteem plays a partially mediating role in the relationship between perfectionism and school burnout.
• Different perfectionisms have influence on school burnout through the mediation of coping style.
• Different perfectionisms have effect on school burnout through chain-mediator of self-esteem to emotion-oriented coping.

Perfectionism is a powerful factor for school burnout, but the underlying mediating mechanism of this relationship remains unclear. To investigate the potential mediating roles of self-esteem and coping style in the association between perfectionism and school burnout among Chinese adolescents, a sample of 1222 middle school students was recruited. Path analysis showed that self-esteem and coping style partially mediated the relationship between perfectionism and school burnout. Specifically, maladaptive perfectionism exerted a positive indirect influence on school burnout through the mediators of self-esteem and task- and emotion-oriented coping styles. In contrast, adaptive perfectionism had a negative indirect effect on school burnout via these same mediators. Notably, self-esteem and emotion-oriented coping style had sequential mediating effects on the relations between the two dimensions of perfectionism and school burnout.