Victimization, social anxiety, and body dysmorphic concerns: Appearance-based rejection sensitivity as a mediator

Young Adolescents’ Body Dysmorphic Symptoms: Associations with Same- and Cross-Sex Peer Teasing via Appearance-based Rejection Sensitivity

“…Similar to research on general rejection sensitivity that has shown that it is a mediator linking social adversity to symptoms of mental health problems (London et al 2007;Rudolph and Zimmer-Gembeck 2014;, heightened sensitivity in the form of greater expectations and anxiety about rejection because of physical appearance, recently labeled as appearance-based rejection sensitivity (appearance-RS), may partially explain why adverse social experiences and social anxiety are associated with greater symptoms of BDD (Fang et al 2011;Lavell et al 2014). Like BDD, appearance-RS is thought to develop from a history of victimization (Park 2007).…”

“…It may be that teasing relating to appearance in particular (especially when perpetrated by cross-sex peers), rather than verbal and relational victimization, is the important correlate of early adolescents' BDD symptoms. Previous studies of adults have tended to focus on appearance-related adverse experiences as correlates of BDD (e.g., Lavell et al 2014;Osman et al 2004). However, Buhlmann and colleagues (2007) did report that BDD sufferers retrospectively reported higher rates of both appearance-and competency-related teasing than healthy controls.…”

“…Amongst individuals who report heightened fears of negative evaluation (the key component of social anxiety), experiencing elevated concerns about and expectations of social rejection specific to one's appearance may result in increasing appearance concerns and compulsive behaviors intended to reassure, augment or conceal one's appearance. Accordingly, Lavell et al (2014) found that the association between peer appearance teasing and young adults' BDD symptoms, as well as between social anxiety and BDD symptoms, was partially mediated by appearance-RS.…”

“…In many theories (e.g., rejection sensitivity theory, cognitive models of depression, and attachment theory ;Beck 2008;Bowlby 1988;Downey et al 1997), selected and distorted information processing is argued to follow from early social adversity, such as parental abuse, peer victimization and teasing, or peer exclusion and ostracism. A recent study of university students confirmed these associations between social adversity and BDD symptoms (Lavell et al 2014), whereby appearance-based teasing by peers and fear of negative evaluation were associated with more self-reported BDD symptoms. These associations were partially mediated by appearance-based rejection sensitivity (appearance-RS), defined as the tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and over-react to rejection based on how one looks (Park 2007).…”

Validation of Spanish Language Evaluation Instruments for Body Dysmorphic Disorder and the Dysmorphic Concern Construct

“…Some results have suggested that DC may not be an automatic process related to a personal standard, but rather a partially conscious bias toward stimuli related to appearance (Onden-Lim et al, 2012), conditioned by the need to fit into the social standard of body and appearance, and possibly mediated by sensitivity to rejection by others (Lavell et al, 2014b). It is possible that social anxiety, experiences of victimization and other variables like perfectionism, contribute to developing and maintaining these DC (Bartsch, 2007; Anson et al, 2012; Lavell et al, 2014a,b; Webb et al, 2015; Mastro et al, 2016).…”