Perfectionism and Social Anxiety Among College Students

The relationship between social anxiety and perfectionism was explored among college students. Although a good deal of research has demonstrated a strong interaction between perfectionism and several forms of psychopathology, extending this research to social anxiety has received less attention. The few studies that have studied this relationship have demonstrated some inconsistent results, specifically finding only correlations between social anxiety and two or three of the six dimensions of perfectionism put forth by Frost et al.'s (1994) Multidimensional Perfectionism Questionnaire. Likewise, previous work has involved only adults in anxiety treatment center locations. This study sought to extend these findings to a non-clinical college student population. In investigating a possible relationship, math and physics majors were compared to communication and music majors on social anxiety and perfectionism measures. The study predicted that high social anxiety traits would predict higher perfectionist traits, and that math and physics majors will experience social anxiety more than music and communication majors.