The Association of Rumination and Perfectionism to Social Anxiety

Objective: Evaluative concerns perfectionism is related to both rumination and social anxiety. However, the mediating role of rumination between two types of perfectionism-namely, evaluative concerns perfectionism and personal standards perfectionism-and social anxiety has yet to be studied. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the mediating role of rumination on the association between perfectionism and social anxiety. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 450 Malaysian undergraduate students using self-report questionnaires. Results: Structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that evaluative concerns perfectionism and rumination were significant positive predictors of social anxiety. Multimodel analysis revealed that rumination partially mediated the association between evaluative concerns perfectionism and social anxiety. Conclusions: The results suggested that evaluative concerns perfectionists were more likely to engage in rumination and were consequently more likely to experience social anxiety.