Concerning people who have anxieties about their faces, their breasts, or hips, etc., as well as of body or limbs being wrinkled, misshaped, too large, or too small, or of having unpleasant odors coming from body sweat or from one's breath, etc.: Dysmorphophobic individuals tend to believe that others will comment adversely about their appearance, and so such victims try to avoid the company of possible critics, either real or imaginary.

Some dysmorphophic persons may be unable to look others in the eyes and try to hide that part of their physical structure of which they are most self-conscious by growing their hair or wearing a hat to conceal imagined baldness or oddly shaped ears, by wearing dark glasses to hide the shapes of their eyes, or avoiding swimming so others will not see their figures.

There are also other dysmorphophic individuals who will not even look in mirrors because their own reflections upset them considerably, and they want to wash zealously to make sure that they are very clean and smell acceptable to others, although they are already very clean.