The Role of Coping Styles in the Relationship Between Perfectionistic Self-Presentation and Eating Pathology

Perfectionistic self-presentation, a need to appear and strive for an image of flawlessness to others, is an understudied facet of perfectionism within the context of eating disorders. Maintaining a perfectionistic self-presentation style may be experienced as stressful and motivate maladaptive coping strategies to alleviate distress leading to disordered eating. While both perfectionistic self-presentation and coping styles have been examined in relation to disordered eating, little is known about how these three variables relate temporally. Furthermore, a sense of failure may serve as a risk factor that increases the likelihood that perfectionistic self-presentation will be associated with maladaptive coping. Using a longitudinal design, we examined coping styles as mediators of the perfectionistic self-presentation/disordered eating relationship. Furthermore, using the same longitudinal design, body dissatisfaction was used as a moderator to explore moderated mediation in the relationship between perfectionistic self-presentation and coping styles in the broader original model.