From Negative Body Image to Social Appearance Anxiety The Indirect Role of Psychological Flexibility

Negative body image is closely associated with anxiety about how one’s appearance is evaluated in social contexts, yet the psychological correlates underlying this association remain insufficiently understood. Using a cross-sectional online survey, this study examined whether higher negative body image (NBI) was indirectly connected to higher social appearance anxiety (SAA) through lower psychological flexibility (PF). Participants were 394 adults aged between 18-40 (M = 25.46, SD = 5.12). The hypothesized associations were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM), which was followed by measurement invariance and multigroup SEM analyses across female and male participants. In the full sample, NBI was negatively associated with PF and positively associated with SAA, whereas PF was negatively associated with SAA. The indirect association between NBI and SAA through PF was statistically significant (β = .185, 95% CI [.104, .281]), while the direct association remained significant (β = .496, 95% CI [.363, .621]). The indirect association represented approximately 27% of the total NBI-SAA association. The indirect association was also statistically significant among female participants (β = .202, 95% CI [.116, .289]), but not among male participants (β = .051, 95% CI [−.255, .356]). Overall, the results show that PF emerged as a relevant psychological correlate of the connection between NBI and SAA and provide a foundation for further investigation of this relationship.