The Relationship Between Perfectionism, Narcissism, And Somatic Dysmorphic Symptoms

Body dysmorphic disorder is a mental disorder in which you can't stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance,minor or unobservable flaw that causes psychological distress.The studies have shown that the incidence of body dysmorphic.disorder in the general population about 0.7%?1.9%,and there has been a trend of growth in recent years.Individuals with body dysmorphic disorder have social functioning impairments,which affects many aspects of life such as relationships,birthday parties,social events,work or academic work.The body dysmorphic disorder is related to individuals' biological factors and also closely related to the psychosocial factors.Extant studies suggested that personality factors such as perfectionism and narcissism may be related to body dysmorphic disorder.However,it remains unknown that whether perfectionism and narcissism are closely related to the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder symptoms and whether body image(BI)and narcissism play a mediating role in the relationship between perfectionism and body dysmorphic disorder among the general population.In the present study,the Chinese version of Body Dysmorphic Disorder Scale(BDDS),Chinese version of Frost's Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale(CFMPS)]Chinese version of Narcissistic Personality Inverttory-16(NPI-16),and Chinese version of Body Image Scale(BIS)were administered to 270 university students(196 females,74 males)to explore the association among adaptive perfectionism,maladaptive perfectionism,narcissism,the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder,and body image.Results suggested that:(1)Maladaptive perfectionism and body image were significantly positively correlated with the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder,but the correlation between adaptive perfectionism,narcissism and the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder were not significant.There is significant gender differences in narcissism and maladaptive perfectionism and body mass index(BMI),while gender differences were not significant in body image,the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder,and adaptive perfectionism.In addition,this study has shown that the overweight university students,having the lower symptom levels of body dysmorphic disorder.(2)The multiple regression analysis and mediating effect analysis further showed that maladaptive perfectionism directly affected both body image and the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder,as well as indirectly affected the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder through body image.Therefore,maladaptive perfectionism and body image were the key factors that affected the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder,and body image played a partially intermediary role in the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder.Altogether,the present study suggested that both maladaptive perfectionism and body image closely correlated the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder.Furthermore,maladaptive perfectionism indirectly affected the symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder through body image.