Investigating the Relationship Between Perfectionistic Self-Presentation and Social Anxiety Using Daily Diary Methods: A Replication

Worrying about the negative consequences of appearing imperfect to others (i.e., perfectionistic self-presentation) is conceptually related to social anxiety. Mackinnon, Battista, Sherry and Stewart (2014) tested whether perfectionistic self-presentation could predict social anxiety beyond several important covariates using a 21-day daily measurement approach. We sought to replicate Mackinnon et al.’s (2014) findings using the same daily diary methodology. Participants included 263 young adults (79.9% women;M age = 21.4) who completed a series of questionnaires once per day for 21 days. Participants completed measures of perfectionistic self-presentation, perfectionism cognitions, social anxiety, depressed mood and socially prescribed perfectionism. Intraclass correlations suggested measures had both within-subjects and between-subjects variability. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the a-priori factor structures at both levels. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, we showed that perfectionistic self-presentation predicted social anxiety even when controlling for socially prescribed perfectionism, depressed mood and perfectionism cognitions at both levels, replicating Mackinnon et al (2014). Our replication suggests that perfectionistic self-presentation is an important predictor of daily social anxiety. Intervention efforts may wish to target perfectionistic self-presentation in order to better help treat those with social anxiety. Open data/methods: https://osf.io/ty2aj/.