Investigation of the relationship between body perception, social appearance anxiety and self compassion in adolescents

The aim of this study is to examine the relationships between body perception, social appearance anxiety, and self-compassion levels of adolescents and to determine whether these variables show significant differences according to demographic variables such as gender, age, body mass index, parental education level, and duration of social media usage. The research was conducted with 406 adolescents (238 girls, 168 boys) and the relational screening model was used. Data were collected using the Sociodemographic Data Form, Body Image Scale, Social Appearance Anxiety Scale, and Self-Compassion Scale. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS 22.0 package program, and Unrelated Samples T Test, Single Factor Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), simple linear correlation, and simple linear regression analyzes were applied. As a result of the analyzes, it was determined that there were significant differences in body perception, social appearance anxiety, and self-compassion levels in adolescents according to the variables of age, gender, body mass index, and duration of social media usage. On the other hand, no significant difference was found on these variables according to the education level of mother and father. Correlation analyses showed that there were positive relationships between body image and social appearance anxiety, and negative relationships between body image and self-compassion and social appearance anxiety and self-compassion. Regression analyses revealed that body image significantly predicted both social appearance anxiety and self-compassion.