The Role of Concern over Mistakes in the Association Between Social Anxiety and Disordered Eating Behaviours: A Structural Equation Modelling Study

Social anxiety and disordered eating frequently co-occur, but the psychological processes underlying this association remain unclear. This study examined concern over mistakes, a core dimension of maladaptive perfectionism, as a candidate shared transdiagnostic correlate of both domains. A cross-sectional sample of 890 participants aged 18–25 years (M = 20.02, SD = 1.94), including 338 women (38.0%), 546 men (61.3%), and 6 participants (0.7%) who did not report their sex, from vocational training and university settings in Spain, completed measures of social anxiety, disordered eating behaviours, and concern over mistakes. Structural equation modelling was used to examine two alternative structural specifications differing in the direction of the association between social anxiety symptoms and disordered eating behaviours. Both models showed acceptable and very similar descriptive fit (Model A: CFI = 0.947, TLI = 0.947, RMSEA = 0.044, SRMR = 0.064; Model B: CFI = 0.946, TLI = 0.947, RMSEA = 0.044, SRMR = 0.064). Across both alternative structural specifications, the associations among social anxiety symptoms, disordered eating behaviours, and concern over mistakes were statistically significant, including the indirect associations involving concern over mistakes. These findings suggest that concern over mistakes may represent a shared transdiagnostic cognitive correlate associated with both social anxiety symptoms and disordered eating, without supporting a specific causal direction.