A Causal Model of Physical Appearance Perfectionism and Women's Body Image Concern: The Mediating Role of Appearance-Based Comparisons on Instagram

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between physical appearance perfectionism and body image concern with the mediation role of appearance-based comparisons on Instagram. This study was a type of basic research that was done by correlation method. In this research, the statistical population was women aged 18 and over who used Instagram, and the sample size included 324 people who were selected in a convenience sampling method. The questionnaires used in this research were: Physical Appearance Perfectionism Questionnaire by Young and Stuber (2012), Body Image Concern Questionnaire by Littleton et al. (2005) and Sadeghzadeh et al. In order to analyze the research data, the results obtained from the Pearson correlation coefficients showed a positive and significant relationship between the research variables. Also, the results of the path analysis method showed that after correcting and removing the non-significant path of the hope to perfection component to body image concern in the initial model, the final model was confirmed with a very good fit (χ2/df=3.23, 08 RSMEA= 0.1, GFI= 0.95, AGFI= 1, CFI= 1.) Overall, it can be concluded that appearance-based comparisons on Instagram have played a significant mediating role in the relationship between physical appearance perfectionism and body image concern.