Perfectionism vs Social Media Awareness of One’s Own Appearance among a Group of Emerging Adults

The article attempts to analyze the relationship between three perfectionism scales, such as rigid perfectionism, self-critical perfectionism and narcissistic perfectionism, and one’s own appearance on social media among a group of emerging adults. The final sample size for the analysis was 174 participants aged 18 to 24 years. Methods used were the Big Three Perfectionism Scale (BTPS) and the Appearance-Related Social Media Consciousness Scale (ASMC) translated into Polish. The conducted reliability analyses showed a satisfactory level of internal consistency. Hypotheses were confirmed using linear regression analysis. The gender of the subjects and time spent on social media were also taken into account. Self-critical perfectionism was shown to explain variation in the social media self-awareness dimension to a greater extent than rigid perfectionism. Lower severity of the narcissistic perfectionism dimension was shown to explain variability in the social media self-awareness dimension to a lesser extent than self-critical perfectionism. Differences were observed between the perfectionism styles manifested in the context of social media appearance awareness among men and women. The presumed mechanisms explaining the results: comparison bias with dissimilar models, satisfaction of the need for self-validation, and differences in goals and motivations for social media usage.