When Perfect Isn't Good Enough by Martin M. Antony

This confirms the importance of studying how individual difference variables such as physical appearance perfectionism can explain why social media has a significant influence on how people perceive their physical bodies. While there were gender differences in the levels of the variables, analysis showed that physical appearance perfectionism (worry about imperfection) significantly mediates the relationship between Instagram addiction and body esteem even after controlling for the effects of sex. To test the hypothesis that physical appearance perfectionism mediates the relationship between Instagram addiction and body esteem, data were collected from 902 undergraduate students from the Philippines. Physical appearance perfectionism is a domain-specific type of perfectionism that has a potential role to play in how addiction to popular social media platforms such as Instagram can negatively impact a person's body esteem.

Physical appearance is an important domain wherein people tend to have perfectionistic tendencies. This work provides a tool for studying social avoidance through an interactive set-up and contributes to the understanding of this behavior in mental health. The study sample was restricted to university students and included mostly women. The higher the depression and social anxiety symptoms, the more that participants avoided the high-category partners, the lower the number of points earned and the higher the negative emotions (guilt, nervousness, shame) reported about having to play with a co-player, with this effect becoming more accentuated as the rank of the co-player increased.

Participants with varied levels of depression and social anxiety symptoms performed this task. However, this maximizes chances for being the worst player in the team, which relates to upward social comparison and guilt. In material terms, it is always better to choose the high-category option. In each round, participants choose between two categories of co-players, with which kind of partner they would like to make a team. We developed an interactive task that allows measuring social avoidance. The need for studying social functioning using interactive tasks that immerse the subject in a social context has been highlighted. A key feature in both disorders is social avoidance, which leads to the loss of opportunities and precludes from improving social abilities. Social difficulties are inherent to social anxiety and are critical in depression.

When Perfect Isn't Good Enough by Martin M. Antony