1. Introduction
In the modern world, people are praised for taking on challenges and persisting through difficulties to achieve the goals set for them or set by themselves. Described trait is called persistence, and is regularly regarded as a necessary element for success [
1,
2,
3,
4]. The construct of persistence has yielded a great number of investigations, followed by many conceptualisations and terms or keywords such as the need to achieve the goals and strive for the goal, commitment, self-control, courage, drive, diligence or conscientiousness [
3,
4,
5]. Some studies attempt to conceptualise persistence as a multidimensional construct. The dimension of persistence, for example, can be conceptualised as a construct consisting of persistence in spite of difficulties, persistence in spite of fear and inadequate persistence [
6]. Moreover, in some constructs, such as Grit, there is a belief that the difficulty of maintaining effort over a prolonged time is a primary factor influencing persistence [
7]. Additionally, the Grit scale is a complex construct composed of two factors, persistence and passion, hence this research points to the relationship of these combined traits collectively referred to as Grit rather than persistence only [
8,
9]. Persistence is often approached from a motivational perspective, but research also identifies individuals for whom persistence appears to be habitual and is applied to achieve all broad spectrum goals. This concept has led to the notion of a persistent person in whom persistence may manifest as a distinct trait [
1,
6].
So is persistence an ideal trait? Or does it have a negative side? It seems important to distinguish traits that seemingly could appear to be persistence and nevertheless are not. As Serpell writes in her work, it should be assumed that persistence is voluntary and largely under conscious control. In contrast, acting out of control would be the tendency to continue a particular behaviour or activity beyond the point where it is no longer appropriate or satisfying. Such a tendency to continue an action is not subject to conscious control and is called perseveration [
10]. The repertoire of behaviours observed for both persistence and perseveration may be similar, but what makes them different are the cognitive components. A person washing his or her hands for 5 min may be persistent in his or her action or may be perseverative i.e., continuing the action, as he or she tends to continue once started action rather than to discontinue it. These factors have different levels of adaptability and different association patterns with psychopathology [
10,
11,
12]. Recent studies indicate that engagement in maladaptive perseverative behaviour, may be triggered not only by changes in the brain but also by stressors, and can make a healthy brain to be temporarily impaired [
12].
The perfectionism cognition theory, proposed in 2016, focused on the cognitive functions of perfectionism, pointing to its relationship with cognitive perseveration [
13]. In this model, comparable forms of cognitive perseveration, ruminations and worries play an important role in the perfectionism–distress relationship. The authors noted that perfectionists who are at risk of mental health problems tend to ruminate and worry. Early studies on perfectionism defined as the pursuit of excessively high personal standards and an overly critical evaluation of oneself. The main dimension of this construct is an excessive fear of making mistakes [
14]. This original form focused on the maladaptive dimension of perfectionism was also adopted in various eating disorder-related inventories. From this perspective, we can interpret perfectionism as a component related to perseveration [
13]. Further studies have extended this theory by proposing multidimensional conceptualisations suggesting that different dimensions of perfectionism affect positive and negative outcomes. Thus, the concepts of Positive and Negative Perfectionism, Maladaptive Perfectionism (MP) and Adaptive Perfectionism (AP), Self-Oriented Perfectionism (SOP), Socially Prescribed Perfectionism (SPP) and Other-Oriented Perfectionism (OOP) were developed [
15,
16]. Despite these many concepts, perfectionism is strongly associated with eating disorders. Research indicates that maladaptive perfectionism is the one associated with eating disorders, although patients with anorexia nervosa also showed higher levels of adaptive perfectionism [
17].
The findings support the hypothesis that perseveration is a risk factor for a wide range of psychiatric disorders, potentially manifesting as compulsive and safety-seeking behaviours. In turn, perfectionism depending on the concept, can be seen as a positive trait, but also as a negative, psychopathological comparable forms of cognitive perseveration [
12,
13]. It should be noted that perseverative actions, as well as those directed through maladaptive perfectionism can be perceived by other individuals as perseverative, even though they have completely different backgrounds and effects on the person. They also support the hypothesis that persistence is a protective factor, indicating the reward value for effort and potentially explaining the resistance of some individuals in the face of high levels of life stressors [
18,
19]. Recent studies also indicate that higher grit-perseverance, not grit-passion may be a protective factor in preventing internet addiction [
20].
The goal of our work was to build a persistence scale that fits to the concept of persistence as a resource of positive factor related to an individual’s adaptive behaviour, mental resilience and proper self-regulation. We decided to build a new scale because the scales that are currently in use were created for a different purpose and their properties may not fully meet the goal of our study. In addition, recent research on the Grit scale, which is most commonly used in persistence studies, has raised questions about its predictive properties [
8,
21]. Additional goals of our work were associated with translation and validation of the scale in the English version.
The persistence can also have a psychopathological aspect related to perseverative task performance and psychopathological perfectionism. In order to describe the multi-trait of persistence, we adapted the Persistence, Perfectionism and Perseveration Questionnaire (PPPQ) developed by Lucy Serpell. This questionnaire was constructed as a clinical scale and was designed to detect pathological traits. The scale has mainly been used in studies involving patients with eating disorders [
10,
11]. We decided to use this scale in our study, because it describes the trait of persistence itself and in addition it describes the pathological dimensions associated with persistence. Despite being a typically clinical scale, it was also validated on healthy individuals. The final goal of our study was to examine the properties of the described scales, by comparing the results with constructs associated with persistence such as personality or conscientiousness.
6. Discussion
The main goal of this work was to build a persistence scale that fits the concept of persistence as a resource, a positive factor associated with an individual’s adaptive behaviours, psychological resilience and proper self-regulation. The constructed scale, after performing the necessary statistical analyses, has emerged a construct with single-factor, which is measured by a 20-item inventory.
For a complete study of the analysed construct, we also decided to adapt the PPPQ scale. The adaptation was needed to examine the psychopathological aspect of persistence associated with perseverative task performance and psychopathological perfectionism and to test the accuracy of the PS scale. The adopted scale contained, similarly to the original version, three factors. However, due to weak factor loadings of original items, only 10 items were finally included in the PPPQ-10 scale.
The components of perfectionism are associated with various negative psychological, interpersonal and physical consequences in people of all age ranges [
30]. Birch and colleagues, based on their research, found that self-oriented perfectionism is an adaptive form of perfectionism that promotes flourishing, while socially prescribed perfectionism is a maladaptive form that weakens it. Perfectionism oriented to other individuals is an adaptive form and can enhance well-being [
31]. Osenk, on the other hand, found that subscales relating to standards that focus on the pursuit of excellence were positively related to academic performance. The perfectionist concerns were maladaptive to successful learning [
32]. In turn, Xie found that both self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism were positively correlated with worry and ruminations, which contribute to susceptibility to emotional distress and physical disease [
33].
Perseveration has been described by Magnin et al. as an abnormal repetition of a motor, behavioural or cognitive process, while Ottaviani characterises it as a cognitive inflexibility that is reflected in both the body and brain [
34,
35]. Makovac 2020 focuses on perseverative cognition, which is described as intrusive, uncontrolled, repetitive thoughts accompanied by physiological stimulation. Guenther 2020 discusses perseveration of beliefs, which refers to the tendency to maintain beliefs held even when the evidence supporting those beliefs is completely invalidated [
36,
37]. This work suggests that perseveration includes the persistent repetition of thought, behaviour or belief and may be related to cognitive inflexibility.
As the above works indicate, capturing the dimension of perfectionism and perseverance, despite the fact that it has been functional for many years, is not simple and one-dimensional. The adopted scale describes perfectionist and perseverative tendencies with only three items for each of these variables. It is clear that it is impossible to capture the entire spectrum with these few items. However, we must not forget that the original PPPQ-22 scale was a strictly clinical scale aimed to assess psychopathology. The abbreviated PPPQ-10 scale, in order to fully confirm its properties, should be subjected in the next steps to a study on the relevance of the extracted items and a study on clinical groups. Once its accuracy is confirmed, it could be used as a screening tool to detect psychopathological symptoms associated with, for example, eating disorders, such as the primary scale. So far, the results obtained with this scale should be interpreted with caution.
Regardless of the variables analysed above, it is worth pointing out that in both persistence and self-control there is a conflict of two competing tendencies. One based on the pursuit of a specific goal, the other based on a counter-directed drive pulling us away from it [
38]. Goal-oriented behaviour would not be realised without the suppression of competing desires or impulses, an important suppression that often requires great effort [
39]. Self-control as studied for many years has often been used as a synonym for other concepts from self-regulation to delayed gratification or self-control strategies such as control of emotions, impulses and desires [
38,
40,
41]. On the basis of action control theory, the term ‘habitual self-control’ is defined as a relatively stable tendency to persistently pursue a goal [
42]. The results of our study indicate an association of persistence with various variables describing self-control. Interestingly, depending on the questionnaire, these associations varied in intensity. One of the self-control traits ‘Goal Maintenance’ did not correlate with the persistence dimensions. This trait only correlated negatively with Perseverance and positively with Perfectionism. Goal Maintenance is a variable related to the timeliness of distant plans and meeting deadlines. Perseverance will certainly interfere with meeting deadlines, while perfectionism will be focused not only on the goal but also on the deadline.
Among the Big Five traits, persistence is the most analogous to conscientiousness. Conscientious people are described as accurate, careful, reliable, organised, orderly, efficient, vigilant, but also self-controlled [
22]. Conscientious individuals are also dutiful and strive for achievement, these traits differ in that dutifulness is focused on others, while striving for achievement is focused on the self [
15]. Consequently, individuals with a high drive for achievement and a low sense of duty may behave in qualitatively different ways from those who are more obedient than achievement-oriented. These subtle but important differences help to separate conscientiousness from persistence. As a trait, persistence should be context agnostic. One who is highly persistent should exhibit this trait regardless of the task, as persistence is only meant to describe a specific behavioural tendency in the pursuit of a goal [
6].
The results of our study confirmed that conscientiousness correlated with the persistence dimension. It co-occurred at an average level with both persistence as measured by the PS-20 scale and persistence and perfectionism as measured by the PPPQ-10 scale. Perseverance from the PPPQ-10 scale did not correlate with conscientiousness. As it is a desirable trait that characterises well-functioning individuals [
40]. Perseveration was intended to characterise psychopathological behaviour, which only on the surface can resemble conscientious behaviour; this result seems to confirm this assumption giving grounds for treating the perseveration dimension as an undesirable characteristic of psychopathological behaviour. The openness correlated with persistence (measured by both scales). The relationship of openness was not observed with the perseveration and perfectionism. Open-minded people are characterised by a high motivation to seek novelty and unconventional solutions [
22]. This motivational factor and the ability to see solutions that can be reached seems to fall also into the broad ‘umbrella’ construct of persistence. Thus, persistent people, in addition to the conscientious approach to tasks that is necessary to achieve a goal, are also characterised by a motivation to act and precisely the openness to change and new experience that is obvious when pursuing a set goal.
Persistence is, in a sense, also the ability to retain (maintain) a previously made choice or chosen goal. This ability to overcome immediate temptations and pursue often distant goals is also observed from the perspective of an individual’s self-control. Lack of self-control, defined as impulsivity, is characterised by the inability to suppress the desire for immediate gratification through a disturbed time horizon. Impulsivity results in a focus primarily on the present and shows very little, if any, interest in the future [
43]. These relationships were also confirmed in our study. The negative and strong correlation with the impulsivity subscale—lack of conscientiousness—indicates how impulsivity can decrease the persistence and how it is an important component of this construct.
The ability to postpone immediate gratification depends on many individual and situational factors. Research shows that negative moods and stress lead to poor self-control [
38,
39,
42]. Emotions, especially negative emotions, are one of the factors that influence self-control behaviour [
33,
44]. The idea that emotional distress interferes with long-term goal attainment and increases the likelihood of succumbing to less favourable short-term goals of immediate gratification has been widely supported by research [
45,
46]. Anxiety also appears to play a negative role in persistence. Consequently, emotional disturbances such as anxiety and depression make impulsive behaviour more likely [
47,
48]. In our study, a negative association of both stress and anxiety and depression levels with persistence was confirmed by the PPPQ-10 or PS-20 scales. No association was shown with the perseveration and perfectionism scales. It may indicate that negative effects of these factors on persistence are not related to these variables.
Predicting negative outcomes, in the case of depression or anxiety, can make impulsive behaviour emerge, as individuals become less willing to wait for larger but delayed rewards and choose smaller rewards that are immediately available [
49,
50]. In contrast, research has shown that individuals with high sensitivity to punishment tend to be less self-controlled than individuals who are less sensitive to punishment [
51]. A similar relationship has been shown between neuroticism and sensitivity to punishment [
52]. Our results indicate a weak negative association of punishment sensitivity with persistence (stronger for the PS-20 scale), but positive for the Perseveration and Perfectionism scales. Sensitivity to reward was weakly correlated with perseveration. Neuroticism negatively co-occurred with persistence and perfectionism. This confirms the possible negative association of these variables with perseveration and suggests that perfectionism in itself is not necessarily a pathological trait. Possibly, it can become pathological when it is too strong, as other studies have also pointed out [
11].
According to research on the original PPPQ-22 scale, both low persistence and high perseveration levels are associated with more unhealthy eating behaviours in this clinical group, in strong contrast to the two comparison groups. In some cases, eating disorder treatment may be enhanced by treating low persistence (and high perseveration). Perfectionism was not elevated in the disorder groups [
11]. Our research seems to confirm this trend. Traits that are desirable and indicative of good functioning will be persistence and, to some extent, perfectionism. In contrast, the trait of perseverance will be an undesirable trait. Individuals with low persistence and high perseveration will be characterised by a repertoire of psychopathological behaviours. The findings confirm that perseveration is a risk factor for a wide range of psychiatric disorders, potentially manifesting itself in compulsive behaviours. Persistence is a protective factor, indicating the value of reinforcement for effort and potentially explaining the resistance of some individuals in the face of high levels of life stressors [
10,
11]. Our research also indicates that persistence is constructed by many traits including self-control, conscientiousness or low impulsivity. Persistence can be described as a multi-trait that integrates many other traits forming the persistent person image. In this model, Persistence is a trait and is habitual. It is used in the achievement of all wide range goals. Recent research on persistence and addiction also suggest that persistence may be a protective trait, e.g., in Internet addictions [
20]. These reports indicate how important it is to conduct research on this trait.