Investigating the role of interpersonal sensitivity, Anger, and Perfectionism in social anxiety

Abstract

Background:The investigation of personality characteristics and emotional experiences of the people suffering from anxiety disorders is one of the most important issues which are considered by researchers and clinicians. Perfectionism, sensitivity to interpersonal rejection, and anger are personality traits related to social anxiety. In social anxiety disorder, it has also been focused on anger as a personality characteristic and as an emotional condition. The main purpose of this work is to investigate the role of these variables in predicting social anxiety among a nonclinical group of Iranian students.Methods:In this cross-sectional study, 131 students completed the self-report version of Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale Self-Report version (LSAS-SR), Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS), Interpersonal Sensitivity Measure (IPSM), and State and Trait Anger Expression Inventory. Multiple linear regressions were conducted to examine the concurrent associations between perfectionism, interpersonal sensitivity and quality of emotional experience, and expression of anger with severity of self-report social anxiety.Results:Greater levels of FMPS total were significantly associated with a greater level of LSAS total, fear, and avoidance of social and functional situations (P = 0.022, P = 0.024, and P = 0.006). Moreover, a significant positive correlation between IPSM total (P = 0.015) with fear and also between anger expression index (P = 0.009) with avoidance subscale were found.Conclusions:In accordance to the previous researches, we found that perfectionism, interpersonal sensitivity, anger experience, and anger expression skills are related to social anxiety. How these personality traits are related to fear and avoidance of social situations and their concurrent effects on predicting social anxiety were discussed.

The effect of perfectionism on relative deprivation among nursing students: The role of interpersonal sensitivity and resilience

“…Specifically, maladaptive perfectionists have high maladaptive self‐standards and pursue high standards for self‐image in social interaction, but they are not confident that they can perfectly complete the performance expected by themselves and others. In the process of interpersonal communication, nursing students pay attention to their own negative performance and mistakes and are afraid of receiving negative feedback from others (Mohammadian et al, 2018), showing a high level of interpersonal pressure and interpersonal problems (Abdollahi et al, 2022; Wang et al, 2022) and a high level of interpersonal sensitivity. On the other hand, nursing students with high interpersonal sensitivity tend to have high neuroticism, and neurotic individuals are susceptible to feeling high relative deprivation because of their sensitive and suspicious characteristics (Xuan et al, 2021).…”

Psychometric properties of the Big Three Perfectionism Scale‐Short Form (BTPS‐SF) among Iranian University students

“…Another harm associated with perfectionism is an increase in interpersonal sensitivity (Mohammadian et al., 2018 ). Therefore, to examine the convergent validity, the correlation between perfectionism and interpersonal sensitivity was examined, and self‐critical perfectionism had the most positive and significant correlation with interpersonal sensitivity because perfectionists with self‐criticism emphasize the negative aspects of events and consider ordinary events as threatening (Hewitt & Flett, 1993 ) and perceive their own effectiveness in these situations as low and expect criticism from others in dealing with makes them adopt an avoidance approach (Carver, 1998 ).…”

“…One of the variables related to perfectionism is self‐compassion (Shahidi Delshad et al., 2023; Tan, 2023) and another variable is interpersonal sensitivity (Mohammadian et al., 2018). Regarding perfectionism dimensions, the self‐related dimension in perfectionists can be related to self‐compassion because self‐critical individuals may view self‐compassion as exaggeration, selfishness, or even weakness (Gilbert, 2009).…”

Perfectionism and social anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

“…Correlational research has also offered some support for a relationship between social anxiety and the dimensions of parental criticism PERFECTIONISM AND SOCIAL ANXIETY and expectations (Iancu et al, 2014;Juster et al, 1996;Mohammadian et al, 2018). For other dimensions of perfectionism such as otheroriented perfectionism and organization, there appears to be little to no support for a relationship with social anxiety (Saboonchi & Lundh, 1997).…”