Beyond the HEXACO model: The fear of being laughed at as a predictor of body image

This research examined the associations between the fear of being laughed at (i.e., gelotophobia) and several body image dimensions in a sample of 240 young adults from Spain (126 women and 114 men). Moreover, using regression analyses, we investigated the robustness of these associations, controlling for the influence of the HEXACO traits and adding an alternative variable to the predicting model: trait social anxiety, which is strongly associated with gelotophobia. Our results showed that gelotophobia correlated with greater scores on body surveillance, body shame, appearance orientation, and overweight preoccupation (rs ≥ .26). This laughter-related disposition also correlated with lower scores on appearance control beliefs, appearance evaluation, and body areas satisfaction (rs ≤ −.30). Self-classified weight was found to exist independently from gelotophobia. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed gelotophobia adds incremental variance (3–13%) in the prediction of these appearance-related dimensions beyond the HEXACO traits (3–20%; predominantly emotionality, extraversion, and honesty-humility traits). Furthermore, gelotophobia yielded stronger incremental values than trait social anxiety in the prediction of body image-related indicators, after controlling for the influence of broad personality traits. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the earlier literature on gelotophobia, appearance-related teasing, and body image disturbances.