Social appearance anxiety of university students and examination of relationship between shyness levels and obsessive compulsive symptoms

The aim of study is to investigate the relationship between social appearance anxiety and shyness levels with obsessive-compulsive symptoms among university students. The sample of study consisted with 364 (273 women, 91 men) volunteer university students from Haliç University. Each participants fulfilled Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS), Shyness Scale (SS), Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Question List (MOCL) and sociodemographic scale. It is determined that SS score of female participants are higher than male. There is a positive relationship between SAAS scores and MOCL scores subdimension which is control-cleaning, suspicion, and rumination. There is a also positive relationship between SS scores and MOCL scores subdimension which is control-cleaning, suspicion and rumination. There is a positive relationship between SAAS and SS scores. There is a positive and meaningful relationship between SAAS scores with SS and MOCL subdimension. Consequently, high level of social appearance anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms predict shyness level in a positive way.