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Abstract
Levels of alexithymia were measured with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) in families of women with borderline personality disorder (BPD), restricting anorexia nervosa (AN) and a nonclinical (NC) group. Measures were correlated with sociodemographic information, empathy (as measured by the Interpersonal Reactivity Index [IRI]), emotional distress (using the Symptom Checklist-90-R [SCL-90-R]), and experiences of abuse. We have found that male gender, age, and low socioeconomic status are correlated with factor 3 of the TAS-20; that women with BPD and AN are more alexithymic than control subjects; that women with AN are more alexithymic than their parents; and that alexithymia is inversely related to the capacity for empathy. Family members of women with BPD have the highest levels of alexithymia and in these families there seems to be a complementary association between alexithymia in one parent and low levels of empathy in the other. There may be an association between the general emotional distress, history of abuse, and high levels of alexithymia that occur in women with BPD.
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... A total of 2051 records were excluded due to illegibility in fulfilling the inclusion criteria. Seventy-two articles were assessed for eligibility, leading to the inclusion of 20 peer-reviewed articles after rigorous screening and eligibility assessments [13,[24][25][26][27][28][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51] (Fig. 1). ...
... The samples of four studies (20%) were composed of inpatients [26,40,49,51], and one study utilized a mixed sample of inpatients and outpatients [25]. Considering treatment modalities, the samples of three studies (15%) involved pharmacological treatment [40,47,49], especially antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers. ...
... Bøen et al. [50] highlighted how alexithymia relates to relationship problems and mood swings in BPD and bipolar II disorder patients, demonstrating distinct patterns of interpersonal issues associated with alexithymia across these groups. Guttman and Laporte [51] reported that BPD patients were significantly more alexithymic than were those diagnosed with anorexia nervosa or healthy controls, particularly in identifying and expressing feelings. Ritz et al. [26] compared alexithymia in patients with various Cluster B disorders and discovered that psychopathology severity was a more [49] investigated the relationship between nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and alexithymia in BPD patients, with 71.3% of participants identified as alexithymic and significant associations found between the TAS-20 score and current NSSI incidents. ...
Background
Alexithymia, characterized by difficulty identifying and expressing emotions, is often associated with various psychiatric disorders, including personality disorders (PDs). This study aimed to explore the relationship between alexithymia and PD, focusing on their common origins and implications for treatment.
Methods
A systematic review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines using databases such as MEDLINE (PubMed), Scopus, and Web of Science. The inclusion criteria were studies assessing adults with DSM-5-diagnosed personality disorders using validated alexithymia scales. The Newcastle‒Ottawa Scale was used to assess the quality of the included studies.
Results
From an initial yield of 2434 citations, 20 peer-reviewed articles met the inclusion criteria. The findings indicate a significant association between alexithymia and personality disorders, particularly within Clusters B and C. Patients with these disorders exhibited higher levels of alexithymia, which correlated with increased emotional dysregulation and interpersonal difficulties. The review also highlighted the comorbidity burden of conditions such as psychosomatic disorders, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, suicidal behavior, and substance use disorders.
Conclusions
These findings underscore the need for integrating alexithymia-focused assessments into clinical practice to enhance therapeutic approaches, allowing for more personalized and effective interventions. Addressing the emotional processing challenges in patients with personality disorders could significantly improve patient outcomes. Future research should prioritize establishing clinical guidelines and conducting longitudinal studies to explore the relationship between alexithymia and specific personality disorder subtypes, ensuring the practical translation of these findings into clinical practice.
... This hypothesis finds support from numerous studies demonstrating a negative relationship between alexithymia and both affective and cognitive empathy (Gleichgerrcht et al., 2015;Grynberg et al., 2010;Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Moriguchi et al., 2007;Patil & Silani, 2014;Williams & Wood, 2010). It is this relationship, coupled with an increased risk of aggression (Hemming et al., 2019) that has placed alexithymia more and more in the context of psychopathy research . ...
... Therefore, the less a person understands their own emotions, the less they will be able to empathize with others. This view is supported by a plethora of studies indicating a negative relationship between alexithymia and affective as well as cognitive empathy (Gleichgerrcht et al., 2015;Grynberg et al., 2010;Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Moriguchi et al., 2007;Patil & Silani, 2014;Williams & Wood, 2010). ...
Psychopathy is a personality construct that has witnessed a surge in research interest since its initial conceptualization more than eight decades ago. Throughout this period, a prominent area of focus has been on socio-emotional deficits. Yet, the current body of research exhibits considerable heterogeneity, leaving conflicting results and multiple unanswered questions. In an effort to reconcile contradictory findings, explore socio-emotional deficits more holistically, and advance the conceptualization of psychopathy, this dissertation was conducted along with three studies.
The first study (Chapter 2: Study I) within this doctoral thesis is a comprehensive meta-analysis that synthesized the bulk of evidence concerning the relationship between psychopathy and both empathy and alexithymia. A total of 72 articles comprising more than 15,000 participants from 19 different countries were included in the analyses. The results suggest deficits not only in affective and cognitive empathy, but also in the understanding of one’s own emotions, i.e., alexithymia. Notably, the pooled correlations varied across psychopathy factors in terms of magnitude and direction, underscoring the importance of recognizing psychopathy as a multidimensional construct.
The second study (Chapter 3: Study II) explored whether alexithymia serves as a mediator in the relationship between psychopathy and empathy deficits, as well as between psychopathy and emotion dysregulation. This was tested across two diverse samples, one drawn from the general population and the other from a German forensic hospital. The results of our path analyses suggest that alexithymia contributes to the lack of empathy and emotion dysregulation in psychopathic individuals. However, these findings were again specific to certain psychopathy factors (i.e., meanness and disinhibition), with boldness indicating adaptive features by being linked to lower levels of alexithymia and fewer socio-emotional deficits overall.
In a final study (Chapter 4: Study III), we investigated the potential for overcoming psychopathy-related empathy deficits through explicit instructions to engage in affective perspective taking. To this end, we tested 87 participants from the community, using an experimental paradigm while simultaneously recording their physiological arousal. Although we observed a disconnect between behavioral and physiological measures of empathic concern, our results imply that empathy is not an automatic response in individuals with pronounced levels of meanness, leading to diminished empathic concern. Yet, this can be overcome when individuals are instructed to engage in affective perspective taking. Consequently, psychopathy does not appear to indicate a fundamental inability to empathize, but rather reflects a reduced propensity to do so automatically.
Taken together, the findings presented in this dissertation advance our comprehension of the various socio-emotional impairments in psychopathy. Specifically, four key conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, affective deficits in psychopathy are substantial, including not only impairments in sharing the emotions of others, but also in understanding one’s own feelings. Secondly, these deficits extend to cognitive empathy. Thirdly, empathic concern does not appear to be absent in individuals with psychopathy per se, but instead does not occur automatically, which may be due to a lack of motivation. Lastly, psychopathy is a multidimensional personality construct that must be viewed as a constellation of distinct traits in order to truly capture all its intricacies. As such, this dissertation offers significant implications for future research and clinical practice.
... In a person with typical alexithymic characteristics, tension and anxiety are manifested and manifested by symptoms in the body instead of verbal expressions [42]. Another information is that alexithymic individuals cannot empathise [43]. Although it is assumed that alexithymic individuals have an emotionally limited life, the main reason is not that they do not have emotions but that their emotions are not differentiated [43]. ...
... Another information is that alexithymic individuals cannot empathise [43]. Although it is assumed that alexithymic individuals have an emotionally limited life, the main reason is not that they do not have emotions but that their emotions are not differentiated [43]. Alexithymic people exhibit lower levels of physical functioning, more limitations due to physical and emotional reasons, poorer emotional well-being, less energy, less social functioning and more pain symptoms than people who do not show alexithymic characteristics [15]. ...
The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between childhood traumas, alexithymia, and difficulty in emotion regulation among university students. A relational screening approach was used in the research. A relational screening model was used in the research. The study sample group consists of 351 university students. 83.5% of the participants were women (n = 293) and 16.5% were men (n = 63). Informed Voluntary Consent Form, Sociodemographic Information Form, Childhood Trauma Scale, Toronto Alexithymia Scale and Emotion Regulation Scale Short Form were administered to the participants. Data collection was carried out online (Google Forms) through convenient sampling, examining the relationship and effect between nonparametric tests and sociodemographic characteristics, childhood traumas, alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties by looking at normality curves in data analysis. As a result of the research findings, a significant and positive relationship was found between childhood traumas, alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties of university students. In addition, it was determined that male individuals are more alexithymia than females, females are exposed to sexual abuse more than males, the 24–25 age group has more emotional dysregulation, and the rates of emotional dysregulation and alexithymia are low in the presence of a romantic relationship. It is thought that this study can contribute to the relevant literature.
... Indeed, empirical studies have shown that individuals high in alexithymia display a lower ability to recognize and identify emotions in the facial expressions of others (Lane et al., 1996;Lockwood et al., 2013;Parker et al., 1993) and a lower ability to show affection and empathy (Grynberg et al., 2010;Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Krystal, 1979;Moriguchi et al., 2006Moriguchi et al., , 2007, and a reduced ability to think about and use emotions to cope with stressful situations (Parker et al., 1998). They experience both lower affective empathy such as lower distress for others' suffering and altruistic motivation (Feldmanhall et al., 2013), and empathic concern, as well as cognitive empathy such as perspective taking (Bird & Cook, 2013;Grynberg et al., 2010;Guttman & Laporte, 2002). ...
... Indeed, empirical studies have shown that individuals high in alexithymia display a lower ability to recognize and identify emotions in the facial expressions of others (Lane et al., 1996;Lockwood et al., 2013;Parker et al., 1993) and a lower ability to show affection and empathy (Grynberg et al., 2010;Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Krystal, 1979;Moriguchi et al., 2006Moriguchi et al., , 2007, and a reduced ability to think about and use emotions to cope with stressful situations (Parker et al., 1998). They experience both lower affective empathy such as lower distress for others' suffering and altruistic motivation (Feldmanhall et al., 2013), and empathic concern, as well as cognitive empathy such as perspective taking (Bird & Cook, 2013;Grynberg et al., 2010;Guttman & Laporte, 2002). Patil and Silani (2014) showed that alexithymia was associated with increased utilitarian moral judgments (i.e., endorsing to harm other people for the greater good) in 331 Italian participants, mediated by reduced EC (but not PT) for the victim in a personal moral dilemma. ...
Alexithymia, that is, difficulties in recognizing, communicating, and processing one's own emotions, is associated with poorer interpersonal relations. Emotional processes are key drivers and mechanisms of prejudice and its reduction, and alexithymia is thought to influence individuals' empathic responses. This research examined the relationship between alexithymia and prejudice, and the role of empathy in this relationship. Three studies were conducted in three intergroup contexts to test whether alexithymia is also associated with poorer intergroup relations with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender+ individuals (Study 1, N = 126 heterosexual late adolescents) and Asian British people (Study 3, N = 300 White adults) in the United Kingdom, and immigrants in Italy (Study 2, N = 381 Italian adults). Participants completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS‐20), measures on dispositional and intergroup empathic concern (EC) and perspective taking (PT) as well as measures of prejudice (anti‐outgroup hostility, anti‐outgroup attitudes, and anti‐outgroup behavioral intentions). Lower dispositional EC (Studies 1, marginal effect in Study 2) and intergroup EC and PT (Study 3) mediated the relationship between the Externally Oriented Thinking subscale of the TAS‐20 (i.e., avoiding emotions and affective thinking) and greater prejudice. The findings are important for understanding the challenges of late adolescents and adults with alexithymia in intergroup relations, highlighting the role of dispositional and intergroup empathy for individual differences such as alexithymia in endorsing prejudice.
... People with alexithymia (the inability to define and describe one's own emotions), for example, exhibit a limited ability to distinguish between their own personal thoughts, bodily sensations, and feelings (Grynberg et al., 2012;. As expected, individuals with alexithymia have great difficulty not only recognizing and understanding the thoughts or feelings of others, but also in empathizing with them (Bagby et al., 1994;Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Luminet et al., 2021;Lyvers et al., 2017;Prkachin et al., 2009). ...
... Cognitive styles of mental imagery were linked to the ability to fantasize, to empathize, and to be emotionally self-aware, which can have important clinical implications. For example, imagery was associated with the strength of contextualized emotional responses (Böcker et al., 2000;Holmes & Mathews, 2010;Schwarz et al., 2020) and with impairments in autism and alexithymia (Bagby et al., 1994;Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Prkachin et al., 2009). The findings in this exploratory study propose that the links between mental imagery, prosociality, and emotional self-awareness play an important role in simulations of inner narratives essential to human exchanges and aesthetic experiences at the core of our culture. ...
Mental imagery refers to the ability to generate images in the “mind's eye” in the absence of external stimulation (i.e., quasi-percepts), which allows us to conflate past and current events with imaginary futures in the ongoing narratives of ourselves. As such, mental imagery is likely to be associated with prosociality, emotional self-awareness, and aesthetic experiences, but empirical evidence is still limited. Experiment 1 examined if differences in styles of mental imagery were associated with social cognition and emotional self-awareness, while Experiment 2 examined if those imagery styles were associated with the aesthetic appreciation of visual forms of art. The findings showed that object-oriented imagery was associated with prosocial traits (empathy and the ability to be transported into fictional worlds), but not with perspective taking. Spatial-oriented imagery was associated with an increased difficulty describing one's own feelings, while verbal-oriented imagery was associated with a better understanding of one's own feelings. Visual styles of imagery (object, spatial) predicted some of the variation in the aesthetic appreciation of photographs (but not paintings), and such relationship was moderated by the vividness of the imagery (but not by art experience). Conversely, art experience (but not vividness) was a moderator of the appreciation of paintings, but only in individuals with a weak object-oriented imagery. The results point to reliable associations of mental imagery with prosociality and emotional self-awareness and support a role for imagery in fine-tuning the aesthetic appreciation of visual art, and in inner simulations underpinning an adaptive imagination.
... In the psychological literature, the investigation of the relationship between psychoses and empathy has received considerable attention, remaining a challenging research objective which is routinely explored (e.g., McCormick et al. (2012), Ladisich and Feil (1988)). In general, specific empathic profiles are also associated with depression (Cusi et al. (2011), Schreiter, Pijnenborg andAan Het Rot (2013)), obsessive compulsive disorders (Fontenelle et al. (2009)), anxiety (Perrone-McGovern et al. (2014)) and hostility (Guttman and Laporte (2002)). For example, a frequent symptom of depression is the inability to perceive our own feelings, which is also realistically associated with the inability to comprehend other individuals' emotions (e.g., Cusi et al. (2011)). ...
... For example, a frequent symptom of depression is the inability to perceive our own feelings, which is also realistically associated with the inability to comprehend other individuals' emotions (e.g., Cusi et al. (2011)). Similar examples involve different empathic conditions, such as personal distress and severe hostility, which are likely to be associated with acute anxiety (Guttman and Laporte (2002)). ...
Psychiatric studies of suicide provide fundamental insights on the evolution of severe psychopathologies, and contribute to the development of early treatment interventions. Our focus is on modelling different traits of psychosis and their interconnections, focusing on a case study on suicide attempt survivors. Such aspects are recorded via multivariate categorical data, involving a large numbers of items for multiple subjects. Current methods for multivariate categorical data-such as penalized log-linear models and latent structure analysis-are either limited to low-dimensional settings or include parameters with difficult interpretation. Motivated by this application, this article proposes a new class of approaches, which we refer to as Mixture of Log Linear models (mills). Combining latent class analysis and log-linear models, mills defines a novel Bayesian approach to model complex multivariate categorical data with flexibility and interpretability, providing interesting insights on the relationship between psychotic diseases and psychological aspects in suicide attempt survivors.
... Santiesteban et al.'s (2021) study also controlled for alexithymia, a trait which is increasingly thought to have an important relationship with empathy (Grynberg et al., 2010). Alexithymia, which is defined as problems in identifying and describing one's own emotions (Sifneos, 1973), commonly co-occurs with ASD (Hill et al., 2004), and is independently linked to deficits in empathy (Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Prkachin et al., 2009). Research investigating the neural correlates of AE found that differences between people with versus without ASD in anterior insula activity when witnessing a friend experiencing pain were rendered non-significant when alexithymia was accounted for (Bird et al., 2010). ...
... Furthermore, contrary to our hypothesis and previous research showing an association between alexithymia and impaired empathy [using facial emotion recognition tasks (Prkachin et al., 2009) and empathic brain responses (Bird et al., 2010)], we actually found a positive (albeit weak) relationship between alexithymia and some aspects of empathy in the ASD Group (Personal Distress on the IRI and CE for anger). The positive association between alexithymia and personal distress has also been found in previous research (Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Moriguchi et al., 2007). It is possible that people with high levels of alexithymia find it difficult to process how another person's distress is impacting them emotionally, leading them to feel overwhelmed. ...
This study investigated whether young adults with ASD (n = 29) had impairments in Cognitive Empathy (CE), Affective Empathy (AE) or Empathic Accuracy (EA; the ability to track changes in others’ thoughts and feelings) compared to typically-developing individuals (n = 31) using the Empathic Accuracy Task (EAT), which involves watching narrators recollecting emotionally-charged autobiographical events. Participants provided continuous ratings of the narrators’ emotional intensity (indexing EA), labelled the emotions displayed (CE) and reported whether they shared the depicted emotions (AE). The ASD group showed deficits in EA for anger but did not differ from typically-developing participants in CE or AE on the EAT. The ASD group also reported lower CE (Perspective Taking) and AE (Empathic Concern) on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a self-report questionnaire.
... 17 Bunlara ek olarak 1963 tarihinde Fransız psikanalistlerden Marty ve M'Uzan, psikosomatik şikâyetleri olan insanlarda; fantezi kısıtlılığı, duygusal yaşamda kısıtlık, işe vuruk, pratik, faydacı düşünme eğilimi, hayal kurma ve sözel ifade güçlüğü gibi bugün aleksitimik özellikler olarak tanımladığımız belirgin belirtileri tespit etmişlerdir. 18 Kavramın bugünkü adıyla anılmasını sağlayan kişi olan Sifneos, tıbbi olarak hasta olmayan, ancak bedensel yakınmaları olan bazı kişilerin; duygularını, ifade güçlüklerini vurgulamak amacıyla aleksitimi kavramını kullanmaya başlamıştır. 19 Bu noktada aleksitimi kavramı, psikosomatik hastalıklardan ayrı bir kavram olarak düşünülmeye başlanmıştır. ...
... 53 Ölçekte katılımcılardan var olan veya geçmişte yaşadıkları romantik ilişkilerindeki duygu ve düşüncelerini ne derece yansıttığını 7 aralıklı ölçek üzerinden değerlendirmeleri istenmiştir. 1=hiç katılmıyorum, 4=kararsızım/fikrim yok, 7=tamamen katılıyorum şeklinde isimlendirilmiş olup ara puanlar isimlendirilmemiştir. 4,8,16,17,18,20,21,22,24,26,30,32,34,36 numaralı maddeler ters kodlanmıştır. Tek sayılı maddeler kaygı puanı için, çift sayılı maddeler kaçınma puanı için kullanılacaktır. ...
... Around 30 studies have examined associaNons between alexithymia and personality categories (e.g., Bach et al., 1994;De Panfilis et al., 2015;Guaman and Laporte, 2002;Honkalampi et al., 2010;Joyce et al., 2013;Kılıç et al., 2020;Loas et al., 2015;Meaney et al., 2016;New et al., 2012;Nicolò et al., 2011;Ritzl et al., 2018). ...
Alexithymia is an important transdiagnostic risk factor for many psychopathologies. To explore its relevance for personality disorders, we examined the association between alexithymia and maladaptive personality traits, as conceptualized within the DSM-5-TR alternative model of personality disorders (i.e., negative affect, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, psychoticism). Participants (N = 651) completed a battery of psychometric questionnaires. Regressions revealed that alexithymia facets accounted for a significant 15% of the variance in negative affect, 22% in detachment, 11% in antagonism, 18% in disinhibition, and 25% in psychoticism. Latent profile analysis showed that profiles with more severe personality pathology were generally characterised by more severe levels of alexithymia. Overall, our data highlight that alexithymia is important in understanding personality dysfunction. All facets of alexithymia, across both positive and negative emotions, are linked to each maladaptive personality trait. The assessment and targeting of alexithymia may therefore be of high relevance for the treatment of personality pathology.
... Emotional self-awareness appears to be a critical component of recognizing and understanding the emotional experiences of others. People with alexithymia, a condition marked by difficulty identifying and describing one's internal emotional experiences, also have difficulty mentalizing about others' feelings (Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Jonason & Krause, 2013;Moriguchi et al., 2006;Swart et al., 2009). If a person's personal experiences are not a good model for others or they are unaware of their own emotional experiences, then their internal source of information about emotion dynamics will be inaccurate, leading to inaccurate emotion predictions. ...
The social world requires people to predict others’ thoughts, feelings, and actions. People who successfully predict others’ emotions experience significant social advantages. What makes a person good at predicting emotions? To predict others’ future emotional states, a person must know how one emotion transitions to the next. People learn how emotions transition from at least two sources: (a) internal information, or one’s own emotion experiences, and (b) external information, such as the social cues detected in a person’s face. Across five studies collected between 2018 and 2020, we find evidence that both sources of information are related to accurate emotion prediction: individuals with atypical personal emotion transitions, difficulty understanding their own emotional experiences, and impaired emotion perception displayed impaired emotion prediction. This ability to predict others’ emotions has real-world social implications. Individuals who make accurate emotion predictions have better relationships with their friends and communities and experience less loneliness. In contrast, disruptions in both internal and external information sources explain prediction inaccuracy in individuals with social difficulties, specifically with social communication difficulties common in autism spectrum disorder. These findings provide evidence that successful emotion prediction, which relies on the perception of accurate internal and external data about how emotions transition, may be key to social success.
... Therefore, the less a person understands their own emotions, the less they will be able to empathize with others. This view is supported by a plethora of studies indicating a negative relationship between alexithymia and affective as well as cognitive empathy [32, [57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64]. ...
Psychopathy is a severe personality disorder marked by a wide range of emotional deficits, including a lack of empathy, emotion dysregulation, and alexithymia. Previous research has largely examined these emotional impairments in isolation, ignoring their influence on each other. Thus, we examined the concurrent interrelationship between emotional impairments in psychopathy, with a particular focus on the mediating role of alexithymia. Using path analyses with cross-sectional data from a community sample (N = 315) and a forensic sample (N = 50), our results yielded a statistically significant mediating effect of alexithymia on the relationship between psychopathy and empathy (community and forensic) and between psychopathy and emotion dysregulation (community). Moreover, replacing psychopathy with its three dimensions (i.e., meanness, disinhibition, and boldness) in the community sample revealed that boldness may function as an adaptive trait, with lower levels of alexithymia counteracting deficits in empathy and emotion dysregulation. Overall, our findings indicate that psychopathic individuals’ limited understanding of their own emotions contributes to their lack of empathy and emotion dysregulation. This underscores the potential benefits of improving emotional awareness in the treatment of individuals with psychopathy.
... In particular, one study suggested how positive family relationships and patients' interactive behaviour might correlate with lower RED severity [38]. Despite the significant link, literature focused more on individual alexithymia, rather than deeply exploring the relationship between families and patients, presenting fewer studies on alexithymia in parents of adolescent patients affected by REDs [39][40][41]. One previous study added that there may be a significant relationship between the young RED patients' risk for alexithymia and the presence of a specific pattern of family interactive dysfunction [42]. ...
Background
Alexithymia is the inability to identify and describe one’s own emotions. Adolescents who suffer from Restrictive Eating Disorders (REDs) show a higher prevalence of alexithymia than the general population.
Methods
The study explored the correlation between levels of alexithymia in mothers, fathers, and adolescents affected by REDs and patients’ ability to recognize their emotions. The study also aimed to evaluate if patients’ emotional distress can significantly impact the severity of their disorder and functioning measured by the Clinical Global Impression Scale - Severity (CGI-S) and the Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS). We enrolled 67 families of adolescents affected by REDs. Parents and patients’ levels of alexithymia were assessed through the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Spearman’s correlation shows a statistically significant correlation between mothers and patients’ levels of alexithymia.
Results
Our findings also suggest that fathers and mothers’ TAS scores correlate with each other. However, there is no statistically significant relationship between the influence of the TAS scores of fathers and sons/daughters.
Conclusions
In conclusion, mothers’ level of alexithymia could influence both fathers and patients’ difficulty in identifying and describing their own emotions. This relationship can be investigated further when considering externally oriented thinking. However, the severity of the disease and overall functioning do not appear to be affected by patients’ levels of alexithymia.
... The few studies that have examined similar concepts such as alexithymia or ToM among parents of patients with EDs provided conflicting results. While some studies demonstrated an increased prevalence of alexithymia in parents of patients with AN in comparison to parents in a non-clinical sample [38,39], other studies did not find such differences [40][41][42]. Regarding ToM, to the best of our knowledge, only one study compared emotion recognition in mother-daughter dyads in samples of patients with binge/purge type EDs and healthy controls (HCs). In this study, no between-group differences were found in overall maternal emotion recognition, but mothers of patients with EDs revealed an increased tendency to ignore negative emotions compared to mothers of HCs [42]. ...
Background
A large theoretical body of knowledge exists emphasizing the importance of parental mentalizing in the context of anorexia-nervosa (AN). However, the empirical support to these assumptions is still scarce. The aim of the present study was to examine whether parents of patients with AN are characterized by a lower mentalizing ability, and whether it is associated with impaired mentalizing, AN symptomatology and eating disorder (ED) related psychological traits in the daughters.
Methods
Thirty-two family triads (fathers, mothers, and daughters) of female adolescent and young adult inpatients with AN were compared with thirty-three non-clinical family triads (N = 195). The mentalizing ability of all the participants was assessed using semi-structured interviews and coded using the Reflective Functioning Scale (RFS). Self-report questionnaires were administered to the daughters to evaluate ED symptomatology and ED related psychological traits (e.g., low self-esteem, interpersonal insecurity, emotional dysregulation).
Results
Decreased reflective functioning (RF) levels were found among mothers and fathers of patients with AN compared to their control peers. Examining the entire sample, clinical and non-clinical groups together, showed that both paternal and maternal RF were associated with the daughters' RF and each were found to have a significant and distinct contribution to the daughters' RF. Significant associations were found between lower levels of maternal and paternal RF and increased ED symptoms and ED related psychological traits. The use of a mediation model suggested a serial relationship in which low maternal and paternal RF contributes to the daughters' low RF, which in turn is associated with higher levels of psychological maladjustment, and ultimately contributes to the increased severity of ED symptoms.
Conclusions
The present results provide strong empirical support for theoretical models that suggest that deficits in parental mentalizing may represent important correlates of the presence and severity of ED symptoms in AN. Furthermore, the results highlight the relevance of fathers' mentalizing ability in the context of AN. Finally, clinical and research implications are discussed.
... In fact, Vanheule et al. (2007) found patterns of cold and distant social functioning and detachment from others among high alexithymia scorers. Their decreased capacity for empathy (Bird et al., 2010;Bird & Viding, 2014;Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Moriguchi et al., 2007;Valdespino et al., 2017) results in them experiencing less distress at seeing others in pain and thus behaving less altruistically (Feldmanhall et al., 2013). Additionally, individuals with high alexithymia tend to avoid close social relationships, and if they do relate to others, the relationship tends to remain superficial. ...
Alexithymia refers to difficulties identifying and describing one's emotions. Growing evidence suggests that alexithymia is a key transdiagnostic risk factor. Despite its clinical importance, the etiology of alexithymia is largely unknown. The present study employs meta-analytic methods to summarize findings on the role of one hypothesized antecedent of adult alexithymia, namely child maltreatment. We obtained effect size estimates from 99 independent samples reported in 78 unique sources that reported both child maltreatment history and adult levels of alexithymia. These studies involved a total of 36,141 participants. Using correlation coefficients as our effect size index, we found that child maltreatment was positively related to overall adult alexithymia (r = .23 [.19, .27]). Notably, emotional abuse (r = .18 [.13, .23]), emotional neglect (r = .21 [.16, .26]), and physical neglect (r = .18 [.15, .22]) were the strongest predictors. Effects were moderated by gender, affiliation with clinical versus nonclinical samples, and publication status. Overall results were robust to publication bias and the presence of outliers. These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the complex connection between different types of child maltreatment and alexithymia, providing greater insight into the early environmental influences on alexithymia. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
... Another study showed that men with TBI were more impaired in empathy than women [91]. An inverse relationship between alexithymia and empathy in clinical and nonclinical populations has been shown [94][95][96]. ...
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is defined as an altered brain structure or function produced by an external force. Adults surviving moderate and severe TBI often experience long-lasting neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric disorders (NPS). NPS can occur as primary psychiatric complications or could be an exacerbation of pre-existing compensated conditions. It has been shown that changes in behavior following moderate to severe TBI have a prevalence rate of 25–88%, depending on the methodology used by the different studies. Most of current literature has found that cognitive behavioral and emotional deficit following TBI occurs within the first six months whereas after 1–2 years the condition becomes stable. Identifying the risk factors for poor outcome is the first step to reduce the sequelae. Patients with TBI have an adjusted relative risk of developing any NPS several-fold higher than in the general population after six months of moderate–severe TBI. All NPS features of an individual’s life, including social, working, and familiar relationships, may be affected by the injury, with negative consequences on quality of life. This overview aims to investigate the most frequent psychiatric, behavioral, and emotional symptoms in patients suffering from TBI as to improve the clinical practice and tailor a more specific rehabilitation training.
... The self-oriented process that has been most consistently related to alexithymia is the tendency to experience increased levels of personal distress and discomfort in response to distress in others (e.g., Guttman and Laporte, 2002;Moriguchi et al., 2007;Beadle et al., 2013;Patil and Silani, 2014;Banzhaf et al., 2018;Brewer et al., 2019;Di Tella et al., 2020). This heightened response may arise from atypicalities in emotional contagion, problems with emotion regulation, and/or difficulties creating the self-other separation required to reduce personal distress during empathy Brewer et al., 2019). ...
Introduction
Empathy—the ability to identify and share another person’s emotional state—is an important socio-emotional process arising, in part, from emotional contagion. In the current study, we assessed unique variance in emotional contagion and other empathy-related constructs accounted for by two personality traits, alexithymia and sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), when controlling for childhood emotional abuse and current depressed mood.
Methods
A sample of 305 adults (Mage = 20.1 years) watched brief film clips chosen to induce various emotional states. After each film, the participants rated how strongly they experienced each of nine different emotions. They then completed self-report measures of alexithymia, SPS, empathy-related constructs, childhood emotional abuse, and current mood.
Results
Those scoring high (vs. low) on SPS reported stronger primary emotions and a larger range of emotions when watching the films and were more apt to believe that their emotions matched those of the individuals featured in the films. They also scored higher on both self-oriented processes (such as the tendency to feel personal distress in tense situations) and other-oriented processes (such as perspective taking and empathic concern) related to empathy. Individuals scoring high (vs. low) on alexithymia reported feeling a larger range of emotions while watching the films but scored lower on other-oriented processes related to empathy. After controlling for SPS and alexithymia, current depressed mood predicted experiencing less varied reactions to mixed valence films that elicited strong feelings of embarrassment/humiliation, and less amusement when watching positive films. Childhood emotional abuse did not emerge as a predictor of emotional contagion or empathy.
Discussion
We propose that the strong and nuanced feelings elicited in those scoring high on SPS by observing others support their personal view that they are highly empathic. In contrast, by failing to closely examine their own mixed reactions to others, individuals with alexithymia may find it difficult to connect with, understand, and respond to others’ feelings.
... The Interpersonal Reactivity Index, IRI (Davis, 1983; French translation by; Guttman & Laporte, 2002), is a multidimensional empathy questionnaire. It includes four subscales: PT evaluates attempts to take into consideration the point of view of others (e.g., 'When I am upset at someone, I usually try to put myself in his shoes for a while'); Fantasy (F) measures the propensity to identify with fictional characters (e.g., 'When I watch a good movie, I can very easily put myself in the place of the leading character'); PD assesses the tendency to feel anxious when confronted with negative situations (e.g., 'Being in a tense emotional situation scares me'), and EC assesses feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate others (e.g., 'I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me'). ...
Socio-emotional features are crucial in the development and maintenance of anorexia nervosa (AN). The present study investigates the patterns of altered and preserved empathic abilities in AN. Empathy is an umbrella term that comprises the ability to recognise another's emotional state, take another's perspective, and fantasise (cognitive empathy), as well as the ability to experience vicarious emotions and signal them (affective empathy). These empathic abilities were measured in 43 AN patients and 33 healthy women through a multi-method approach comprising self-report measures, behavioural tasks and bodily correlates. Further, we assessed self-reported approach-avoidance attitudes towards suffering others. Results showed that, within the domain of cognitive empathy, AN patients reported impairment in recognising emotional expressions of anger and fantasising. Concerning affective empathy, they manifested lower sharing of others' positive emotions, higher self-reported distress, and higher facial expressiveness during a video depicting a suffering person. Finally, AN patients reported lower motivation to approach suffering others. Our results draw a complex picture of preserved and altered empathic abilities in AN and capture which are the deficits mediated by the higher levels of anxiety and depression reported by the AN population and those that seem to persist independently from these co-morbid conditions.
... BF10 > 2.942e +7 ). This correlational pattern replicated recent findings on the relationship between empathy and alexithymia (Grynberg et al., 2020;Guttman et al., 2002), and demonstrated the importance of correlating constructs on their more informative facet level (Luminet et al., 2021). ...
In the present paper, we explored personality and environmental effects on individuals’ emotion perception in music listening. In a large experimental study, 503 participants listened to music pieces displaying different emotions with blurred or normal sound quality and indicated what emotions they perceived. Two personality traits were then assessed, empathy and alexithymia, which have been shown to be related to emotion processing. We found that the sound quality was detrimental to individuals’ perception of different emotions in music, especially so for the two most active excerpts (energy and happiness). Results also showed that specific subfacets of empathy and alexithymia affected participants’ perception of several different emotions in the music pieces. The empathy facet of Fantasy enhanced respondents’ perception of three emotions displayed in music (happiness, calmness, sadness). Empathic concern, another empathy facet promoted individuals’ emotion recognition in the nostalgic music, while individuals’ Difficulty to verbalize emotions as an alexithymia facet impaired emotion perception accuracy for energetic music. We found no interaction effects on emotion recognition between the manipulated environmental factor and the assessed personality traits. That is, the individuals’ level of empathy and alexithymia played no role for how malleable their emotion perception was to the music pieces’s sound quality.
... Según Becker-Stoll y Gerlinghoff (2004) la falta de regulación emocional y por lo tanto, la alexitimia no es solamente un rasgo de personalidad, sino el resultado de la historia individual de aprendizaje en el manejo de las emociones, especialmente con estados insoportables y negativos de excitación emocional, en el contexto de las interacciones con las figuras vinculares (Cole-Detke & Kobak, 1996). En una exploración, las mujeres con trastorno borderline de personalidad y anorexia nerviosa fueron más alexitímicas que las controles, las anorécticas fueron más alexitímicas que sus padres y la alexitimia se relacionó inversamente con la capacidad de empatía (Guttman & Laporte, 2002). ...
There is a great conclusive amount of information about the deficit of psychosocial functioning in eating disordered patients. Objective: To describe the evidence on the influence of social anxiety, alexithymia and lack of assertiveness as predisposing, triggering and perpetuating factors of eating disorders (ED) symptomatology and the impairment of social behaviors and/or attitudes in patients suffering from anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia nervosa. Method: An exhaustive review of the national and international specialized literature was made. Results: Social anxiety that may become a social phobia (avoidance of interpersonal contact), alexithymia (difficulty to identify and/or express feelings and sensations) that may be associated to depression and lack of assertiveness (discapacity in social competence to confront communicational events) reach significatively higher prevalence rates in eating disordered patients compared to control subjects. Conclusions: The evidence supports the significant interference in social skills, in the therapeutic management and in the outcome of eating disordered patients related to these comorbidities. It is imperative its early identification and clinical approach in order to prevent the emergence of ED. Key words: Eating disorders, Psychosocial functioning, Social anxiety, Alexithymia, Assertiveness. Resumen Existe una gran cantidad de información concluyente sobre el déficit del funcionamiento psicosocial en las pacientes con trastornos de la conducta alimentaria (TCA). Objetivo: Describir la evidencia acerca de la influencia de la ansiedad social, la alexitimia y la falta de asertividad como factores predisponentes, desencadenantes y perpetuantes de la sintomatología de los TCA y el deterioro de las conductas y/o actitudes sociales de pacientes portadoras de anorexia nerviosa y/o bulimia nerviosa. Método: Revisión exhaustiva de la literatura especializada nacional e internacional. Resultados: La ansiedad social que puede manifestarse como fobia social (evitación del contacto interpersonal), la alexitimia (dificultad para identificar y/o expresar sentimientos y sensaciones) que puede asociarse principalmente a la depresión y la falta de asertividad (discapacidad en la competencia social para confrontar los eventos comunicacionales) alcanzan cifras de prevalencia significativamente más altas en las pacientes alimentarias comparadas con sujetos controles. Conclusiones: La evidencia apoya la interferencia significativa en las habilidades sociales, en el manejo terapéutico y en el desenlace de las pacientes con TCA relacionada con estas comorbilidades. Es imperativo su identificación y abordaje clínico precoz para prevenir la aparición de los TCA. Palabras claves: Trastornos de la conducta alimentaria, funcionamiento psicosocial, ansiedad social, alexitimia, asertividad.
... In fact, Vanheule et al. (2007) found patterns of cold and distant social functioning and detachment from others among high alexithymia scorers. Their decreased capacity for empathy (Bird et al., 2010;Bird & Viding, 2014;Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Moriguchi et al., 2007;Valdespino et al., 2017) results in them experiencing less distress at seeing others in pain and thus behaving less altruistically (Feldmanhall et al., 2013). Additionally, individuals with high alexithymia tend to avoid close social relationships, and if they do relate to others, the relationship tends to remain superficial. ...
... Die Beziehung zwischen dem Verstehen eigener und fremder Emotionen gewinnt zunehmend an Bedeutung. Die Alexithymie-Hypothese oder die Simulations-Hypothese implizieren, dass die Fähigkeit, unsere eigenen geistigen Zustände zu begreifen, eine Voraussetzung für das Begreifen der Zustände anderer Personen ist [13,21,22,57,[172][173][174][175][176][177][178][179][180][181][182][183][184] und dass eine individuelle empathische Reaktion auf der eigenen emotionalen Erfahrung basiert [185]. Trotz der Unterschiedlichkeit dieser Konstrukte besteht genereller Konsens darüber, dass Alexithymie hinter den Defiziten in sozialer Kognition stecken könnte, wobei niedrige sozial-kognitive Fähigkeiten bei Patienten mit Alexithymie [21, 22, 178] genauso wie abnorme Muster zerebraler Aktivierung während sozial-kognitiver Verarbeitung [90] vorhanden sind. ...
Zusammenfassung
Alexithymie ist ein multidimensionales Konstrukt der Persönlichkeit, welches durch ein nach außen hin orientiertes Denken sowie Schwierigkeiten bei der Gefühlsbeschreibung und -identifizierung einer anderen Person gekennzeichnet ist. Obwohl sie bei psychiatrischen Patienten gut beschrieben ist, wurde ihr Vorkommen und die Pathophysiologie im Zusammenhang mit der Multiplen Sklerose (MS) erst neuerdings untersucht. In dieser narrativen Übersichtsarbeit sollen Prävalenzen, Ursachen, neurobiologische und klinische Befunde dargestellt werden. Die Prävalenz der Alexithymie in MS reicht von 10 bis 53%. Es scheint Assoziationen mit Angststörungen, Depressionen, Fatigue und einigen kognitiven Aspekten zu geben. Die Beziehung zu klinischen und klassischen kognitiven Variablen/Kriterien ist bislang wenig untersucht. Schlussendlich stellt eine Arbeit einen pathophysiologischen Bezug dar und diskutiert eine aberrante interhemisphärische Übertragung. Zusammenfassend zeigt die Alexithymie bei MS eine negative Auswirkung auf die Lebensqualität, deshalb stellt das Screening nach ihr einen wichtigen Punkt im Krankheitsmanagement dar. Ihre Beziehung zu klinischen, emotionalen und kognitiven Kofaktoren bedarf weiterer Untersuchungen. Größer angelegte Studien inklusive bildgebender Verfahren sind dringend notwendig, um ein besseres Verständnis für die neuronalen Mechanismen der Alexithymie bei MS zu gewinnen.
... 2223). Previous empirical research has confirmed that alexithymia is inversely related to empathy (Aslan et al., 2021;Guttman and Laporte, 2002). Empathy, including empathic concern and perspective taking, determines interpersonal relationships and good empathy skills make it possible to identify and understand other people's needs and preferences (Aslan et al., 2021). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of adverse personality traits (alexithymia, social inhibition, negative affectivity) and supervisor knowledge hiding on individual knowledge hiding. This study also explores the moderating role of positive affectivity.
Design/methodology/approach
Partial least squares path modeling and data collected from 518 Polish employees with higher education and extensive professional experience recruited via an Ariadna survey panel were used to test the research hypotheses.
Findings
Two dimensions of alexithymia were considered: difficulty identifying feelings (DIF) and difficulty describing feelings (DDF). DIF has a direct impact on individual hiding, whereas DDF has an indirect impact, via social inhibition. Negative affectivity is a predictor of social inhibition, which enhances knowledge hiding. Positive affectivity slightly weakens the positive and strong effect of supervisor knowledge hiding on subordinate knowledge hiding.
Practical implications
Because alexithymia, social inhibition and negative affectivity may predispose employees to knowledge hiding, managers should identify these personality traits among job applicants and hired employees to make appropriate employment decisions. Moreover, managers should be aware that hiding knowledge by a supervisor may be imitated by subordinates.
Originality/value
Based on conservation of resources theory, this study investigates previously unexplored relationships among alexithymia, social inhibition, affectivity and knowledge hiding.
... While PD showed a negative relationship with DIF (Difficulty Identifying Feeling) and DDF (Difficulty Describing Feelings). The relationship between empathy and alexithymia has already been reported in the study by Guttman and Laporte (2002) who showed that (1) the IRI PD and PT scores were associated with DIF scores, (2) the IRI PD and EC scores were associated with DDF scores, (3) the IRI PT, F and EC scores were associated with EOT scores. More recently Grynberg et al. (2010) also conducted a study on the relationship between empathy and alexithymia, where EOT showed the same associations with the components of IRI reported by us. ...
The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is a widely used multidimensional measure to assess empathy across four main dimensions: perspective taking (PT) empathic concern (EC) personal distress (PD) fantasy (F). This study aimed to replicate the Italian validation process of the shortened IRI (Interpersonal Reactivity Index) scale in order to confirm its psychometric properties with a sample of young adults. The Gender Measurement Invariance of empathy in this age group was also an objective of the work in order to increase the data on this aspect. A total of 683 Italian university students participated in a non-probabilistic sampling. The 16-item version was confirmed in its four-factor structure but with changes to some items. The model showed good fits with both the CFA and the gender Measurement Invariance. The internal consistency measures were found to be fully satisfactory. Convergent validity was tested by the correlations with the Prosocialness Scale for Adults and The Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20. As hypothesized the measure proved good convergent validity with Prosocialness, i.e., the willingness to assist, help, share, care and empathy with others, and a relevant inverse association with the External Oriented Thinking, characterizing individuals with emotionally poor thinking. This research provided additional evidence for a link between alexithymia and poor empathic abilities in young adults.
... For explaining the mediating role of mother's alexithymia in a correlation between mother's personality and internalizing ad externalizing behaviors, the results of the present study are consistent with findings described in studies of Panishia et al. and Guttman and Laport. In Guttman and Laport's study, lack of direct emotional expression in mothers was not correlated with development of problems in daughters, but instead, it led to emotional distress and impulsive behaviors (51). In the same way, Panishia et al. indicated maternal alexithymia as a risk factor for development of deficit in emotional processing and therefore development of generalized anxiety in children and adolescents (52). ...
Objective: Although many studies have investigated the effect of maternal personality on internalizing and externalizing behaviors of a child, the role of both mother and child’s emotional mechanisms in these behaviors is little explored. The present study was focused on the relationship between the mother’s personality, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors of children with the mediating role of children’s alexithymia, mother’s alexithymia, and children’s emotion regulation (ER).
Method: 162 mothers and elementary school-aged children were recruited regarding their demographics and completed the NEO personality inventory, Child behavior checklist, Toronto alexithymia scale, Children’s alexithymia measure, and Children’s emotion regulation checklist. Data were analyzed using SPSS (ver.23), and AMOS (ver.23).
Results: Structural equations modeling demonstrated an acceptable model fit to data (CMIN/DF = 1.233, RSME = 0.038, GFI = 0.962). Mother’s alexithymia predicted internalizing problems whereas it didn’t predict externalizing problems in children. Also, the bootstrap results indicated that the mother and children’s alexithymia and children’s ER had mediating roles between mother’s personality and externalizing and internalizing problems.
Conclusion: The present results demonstrated that mother’s personality can indirectly, through mother and children’s alexithymia and children’s ER act as an important factor in development of mental problems. In other words, findings indicated that children’s emotional development is not a one-way road, but it is a mutual process that involves both the mother and the child.
... continuous scores in a sample of individuals with and without a diagnosis of autism,Bird et al., (2010) observed a negative relationship between alexithymia and perspective taking. This was found also byVan Randenborgh et al., (2012) in a sample of individuals with chronic and episodic depression, byGuttman & Laporte, (2002) in a sample of individuals with anorexia and with personality disorders, byKang, Namkoong, Yoo, Jhung, & Kim, (2012) in a large sample (N=237) of people with obsessive-compulsive disorders and typical individuals, and byChau, Zhong, Gordon, Krueger, & Grafman, (2018) in a sample of patients with various brain lesions. Similar results were also reported byBanzhaf et al., (2018) who divided their clinical sample of patients with depression into high (>53-52) and low (<52-53) alexithymics. ...
Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to represent the mental states of oneself and others, is an essential social skill disrupted across many psychiatric conditions. The transdiagnostic nature of ToM impairment means it is plausible that ToM impairment is related to alexithymia (difficulties identifying and describing one’s own emotions), as alexithymia is seen across psychiatric conditions. Whilst many studies have examined links between alexithymia and ToM, results are mixed. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review is to provide a taxonomy of ToM tests and assess their relationship with alexithymia. Tests are grouped according to whether they assess propensity to engage spontaneously in ToM or accuracy of ToM inferences, with tests further subdivided into those that do, and do not, require emotion recognition. A review of 63 suitable studies suggests that alexithymia is often associated with reduced ToM, and inaccurate ToM when tasks require emotion recognition. This latter finding appears due to impaired emotion recognition, rather than ToM impairment per se. Further directions and considerations for future research are discussed.
... In order to expand on these ideas, Greenfield, Rentflow, and Cohen (2014) proposed that certain types of music could help individuals with ASD as well as the general population increase their empathy. Although this study does not directly address alexithymia, it is still relevant due to the suggestion that deficits in empathy traditionally associated with ASD may actually be correlated with alexithymia (Guttman & Laporte, 2002). ...
... Interestingly, personal distress (a marker of emotion contagion) is often increased in clinical conditions, while other facets of empathy (e.g., empathic concern) are often decreased in these groups. Self-reported personal distress has been found to be atypically high, for example, in those with eating disorders (Beadle, Paradiso, Salerno, & McCormick, 2013;Duchesne et al., 2012;Guttman & Laporte, 2002), schizophrenia (Bonfils et al., 2017), Tourette syndrome (Eddy, Macerollo, Martino, & Cavanna, 2015), OCD (Kang, Namkoong, Yoo, Jhung, & Kim, 2012), and depression (Banzhaf et al., 2018). ...
The inadequacy of a categorial approach to mental health diagnosis is now well-recognised, with many authors, diagnostic manuals and funding bodies advocating a dimensional, trans-diagnostic approach to mental health research. Variance in interoception, the ability to perceive one’s internal bodily state, is reported across diagnostic boundaries, and is associated with atypical functioning across symptom categories. Drawing on behavioural and neuroscientific evidence, we outline current research on the contribution of interoception to numerous cognitive and affective abilities (in both typical and clinical populations), and describe the interoceptive atypicalities seen in a range of psychiatric conditions. We discuss the role that interoception may play in the development and maintenance of psychopathology, as well as the ways in which interoception may differ across clinical presentations. A number of important areas for further research on the role of interoception in psychopathology are highlighted.
... Specifically, primary psychopathy was associated with a lack of empathy, as was Machiavellianism, which is in line with previous findings (Karpman, 1941;Szabó and Bereczkei, 2017;Monaghan et al., 2018). Secondary psychopathy did not correlate with empathy, which contradicts a previous report by Guttman and Laporte (2002), but is supported by findings of Szabó and Bereczkei (2017). ...
This study set out to elucidate the complex suite of associations between the Dark Triad personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy), emotional intelligence, empathy, and cyberbullying, as the respective findings regarding this topic have been inconsistent. Studies preponderantly have relied on abbreviated Dark Triad measures that do not differentiate between its lower-order facets. Further, most extant studies have exclusively been based on female psychology undergraduates and have not accounted for known sex differences on the Dark Triad traits and cyberbullying, or for negative associations between cyberbullying and age. Therefore, this nexus of interrelations was investigated in a diverse community sample (N = 749). A structural equation-modeling approached was used to examine predictors of cyberbullying and to test for mediating relationships between lower-order Dark Triad facets and emotional intelligence and empathy. Multigroup models were applied to test for sex-specific patterns. Empathy did not predict cyberbullying, whereas emotional intelligence partly mediated the Dark Triad associations with cyberbullying among both sexes. Sex-specific patterns in the associations between Dark Triad traits and cyberbullying were particularly observed for the grandiose and vulnerable narcissism facets. Emotional intelligence appeared to buffer effects of grandiose narcissism on cyberbullying. Future research could fruitfully explore cyberbullies’ profiles regarding primary and secondary psychopathy, sex differences in narcissism, and buffering effects of emotional intelligence. Further improvements regarding the measurement of dark personality traits are indicated as well.
... In clinical studies, impairment of empathy has been observed in most psychiatric conditions, including autism [1], psychopathy [2], schizophrenia [3], bipolar disorder [3], depression [4], alexithymia [5], anxiety disorder [6], attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [7], posttraumatic stress disorder [8], and obsessive compulsive disorder [9]. Many neurological diseases are known to cause a lack of empathy, including Alzheimer's disease and related dementia [10], Parkinson's disease [11], and epilepsy [12]. ...
Empathy is an essential function for humans as social animals. Emotional contagion, the basic form of afffective empathy, comprises the cognitive process of perceiving and sharing the affective state of others. The observational fear assay, an animal model of emotional contagion, has enabled researchers to undertake molecular, cellular, and circuit mechanism of this behavior. Such studies have revealed that observational fear is mediated through neural circuits involved in processing the affective dimension of direct pain experiences. A mouse can also respond to milder social stimuli induced by either positive or negative emotional changes in another mouse, which seems not dependent on the affective pain circuits. Further studies should explore how different neural circuits contribute to integrating different dimensions of affective empathy.
... Both experiential avoidance and alexithymia have been understood to perpetuate and are linked to many of the presenting problems characteristic to BPD, such as affective symptomology (e.g. depression, anxiety) and self-harm behaviours (Chapman et al., 2011;Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Hulbert & Thomas, 2010;Iverson, Follette, Pistorello, & Fruzzetti, 2012;Jacob, Ower, & Buchholz, 2013;New et al., 2012;Rogers, Widiger, & Krupp, 1995). Evidence-based therapies for BPD, like Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and Mentalization-Based Therapy, assume that experiential avoidance and alexithymia are underlying factors in borderline pathology, as they share the common focus in helping individuals with BPD to become more aware of their own emotions and to tolerate difficult internal experiences such as their emotional states (Bateman & Fonagy, 2010;Goldman & Gregory, 2010;Linehan, 1993). ...
Previous research identifies people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) place high levels of importance on values across a variety of life domains but have significantly lower levels of values commitment, desire to improve and success at living in line with what is valued. The current study aims to identify the factors impeding people’s ability to engage more successfully with what is valued so that they can be more effectively targeted in treatment. In this study, participants were 106 consumers attending an outpatient clinic for BPD treatment. Participants completed a comprehensive assessment of values (Personal Values Questionnaire) as well as selfreport measures of experiential avoidance (Acceptance and Avoidance Questionnaire- 2), alexithymia (Toronto Alexithymia Scale) and symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21). Correlations demonstrated that depression, stress, difficulty identifying feelings and describing feelings and experiential avoidance were negatively associated with values engagement. However, regression analysis revealed that only depression and experiential avoidance significantly predicted values engagement after controlling for the other predictor variables in the model. Experiential avoidance and depressive symptomology are likely to be particularly important targets to improve successful values pursuit in individuals seeking treatment for BPD.
... In line with such findings, a large body of research has provided evidence that empathic abilities are impaired in individuals with alexithymic profiles (Berthoz et al., 2008;Grynberg et al., 2010;Guttman & Laporte, 2002;Lane & Schwartz, 1987;2007;Vanheule et al., 2007). Research has also shown that alexithymic individuals have difficulty discerning the emotional states of others from facial expressions (Aust et al., 2014;Berenbaum & Prince, 1994;Grynberg et al., 2012;Parker et al., 1993), and describing the emotional experiences of others in hypothetical situations (Bydlowski et al., 2005). ...
Empathy refers to the capacity to experience emotions similar to those observed or imagined in another person, with the full knowledge that the other person is the source of these emotions. Awareness of one's own emotional states is a prerequisite for self-other differentiation to develop. This study investigated gender differences in empathy during adolescence and tested whether emotional self-awareness explained these differences. Two-hundred-eleven adolescents (108 girls and 103 boys) between 14 and 19 years completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) to assess empathy and emotional self-awareness, respectively. Overall, girls obtained higher scores than boys on IRI subscales like emotional concern, personal distress, and fantasy. Regarding emotional self-awareness, we found gender differences in TAS-20 scores, with girls reporting greater difficulty identifying feelings and less externally oriented thinking than boys. Difficulty identifying feelings explained the greatest personal distress experienced by girls. Lower externally oriented thinking accounted for girls' greater emotional concern and fantasy. These findings offer an insight into the role of emotional self-awareness-which is essential for self-other differentiation-as an account for gender differences in empathic abilities during adolescence. In girls, difficulty identifying feelings can impair the ability to differentiate between ones' and others' emotions, leading them to experience self-focused and aversive responses when confronted with others' suffering. Conversely, in boys, externally oriented thinking can mitigate personal distress when faced with others' discomfort.
... Differences in amygdala activation in subjects with BPD compared to control subjects were also found in a study revealing difficulty in understanding neutral facial expressions, often interpreting them as threatening (Donegan et al., 2003). Regarding the analysis of the different components of empathy involved in BPD, using a self-report measure of empathy, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1983), a study showed that women diagnosed with BPD showed higher average levels of affective empathy and lower average levels of cognitive empathy, compared to a control sample of women with anorexia nervosa and an undiagnosed control group (Guttman and Laporte, 2002). These results were confirmed by another research that demonstrated a "double dissociation" of cognitive and affective empathy in BPD, suggesting that the behavioral difficulties manifested in BPD can be explained by a dysfunctional model of empathic capacity (Harari et al., 2010). ...
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) shares with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) difficulties related to social and relational sphere. This work highlights the different perspectives, literature based, aimed to understand the roots of this common symptomatology. Some authors observe a considerable overlap of symptoms between Asperger's syndrome and some personality disorders; among the various related aspects, the lack of empathy, of Theory of Mind and of Mentalisation seem to be of relevance. Lack of mentalisation and empathy is one of the relevant aspects of BPD, so among the possible personality disorders it seems of particular interest to analyse the relationship between ASD and BPD with regard to the dimensions of empathy, theory of mind and mentalisation. The reported opinions show how studies in the scientific literature have demonstrated an overlap between BPD and ASD in terms of lack of empathy, theory of mind and mentalisation. However, it is necessary to investigate this link, especially with regard to the different components of empathy and different diagnostic tools.
... Alexithymia has been found in some traumatized individuals and in association with somatic and other mental illnesses (Frewen et al., 2008). Evidence suggests a correlation between empathy (e.g., perspec tive taking, empathic concern) and the ability to identify and describe personal emotions as well as a negative association between empathy and externally oriented thinking (i.e., when empathy is higher, exter nally oriented thinking is lower) (Grynberg et al., 2010;Guttman & Laporte, 2002). Youth who perpetrate social cruelty (e.g., relational or overtly aggressive bullying) tend to lack empathy, compassion, and per spective taking . ...
... Indeed, there have been reports on the strong evidence of coupling between alexithymia and greater emotion distress (85)(86)(87), which is correlated with high emotionality (56). Beadle and colleagues (85) noted that observing others' sufferings may lead to high levels of negative arousal in those who try to control their emotions in the absence of proper emotion regulation ability. ...
Despite decades of speculation, many causal aspects that contribute to the heterogeneity of alexithymia still must be clarified. This study examined the extent of the alexithymia phenotype and its contribution to social function in the general population. In total, 200 participants (females = 111) completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20), multiple self-reporting questionnaires measuring emotion intelligence, empathy, hostility and impulsivity, and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). In the multivariate analysis, highly alexithymic individuals appeared to report subjective deficits in emotion recognition and regulation as well as increased impulsivity; however, their empathy skills were intact, and even the proneness to experiencing empathic distress with others’ suffering was increased among alexithymic individuals. We also compared the clinical and behavioral manifestations of highly alexithymic male and female subjects to those of each gender control group. As a result, in contrast to their subjective self-reports of emotion processing impairment, the RMET performance appeared to be preserved in alexithymic females; however, highly alexithymic males showed actual deficits in the emotion identification task. Future research needs to further refine the constructs of alexithymia to incorporate the phenotypic changes in affected individuals in relation to measuring instruments, the extent of empathic distress, and gender.
Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the relationships between alexithymia, humor styles and anxiety levels and the nature of these relationships.
Method: The sample of the study consisted of 254 students from Beykent University. In the context of the research, “Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-26)” was used to measure alexithymia levels, “Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ)” was used to measure humor styles, “State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)” was used to measure anxiety levels. In addition, the Sociodemographic Data Form, prepared by the researchers included various sociodemographic variables, was used.
Results: Research findings indicate that different dimensions of alexithymia are associated with both state and trait anxiety. Alexithymic features are negatively associated with the positive use of humor and positively associated with negative use. On the other hand, positive use of humor is negatively correlated with anxiety levels. In addition, alexithymia, humor styles and anxiety levels seem to be related to sociodemographic variables such as age, gender, education levels of parents, parental working status, psychiatric diagnosis in the participant and his/her caregiver, and history of physical illness in the participant. Alexithymia, different dimensions of alexithymia and anxiety levels predict humor.
Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that the variables of alexithymia, anxiety levels and humor styles are correlated with each other and with various sociodemographic variables in different dimensions. Since the sample of the study consists of students from a private university, it is not possible to generalize the results to the student population representing this age group.
Keywords: Alexithymia, Anxiety Levels, Humor Styles
The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between public administration students' level of alexitymia and communication skills.The data of the study were collected with the 'Toronto Alexithymia Scale' and 'communication skills scale'. The normality controls for continuous measurements in data analysis were tested by Shapiro Wilk test. As a result of the research, it was determined that communication skills of Public Administration students were "good level" and "intermediate" levels of alexithymia. When the relationships between alexithymia levels and communication skills are examined; It was determined that there was only an increase in extrovert thought as the communication principles and basic skills scores increased, only an increase in extrovert thought as the self-expression increased. As acitve listening and non-verbal communication increased, there was an increase in extrovert thought and total alexithymia levels. As the willingness to communicate increased, it was concluded that there was only an increase in extrovert thought, while the increase in total communication skills, and the increase in extrovert thought.
Bu araştırmada psikolojik danışman adaylarının aleksitimik özellikleri, iletişim becerileri ve empati düzeyleri arasındaki ilişki ve aleksitimik özelliklerin demografik değişkenlere göre farklılaşıp farklılaşmadığı araştırılmıştır. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu 2020-2021 ve 2021-2022 öğretim yılında farklı üniversitelerin Rehberlik ve Psikolojik Danışmanlık bölümlerinde okuyan 201 öğrenci oluşturmaktadır. Çalışma grubunda yer alan öğrencilerin 154’ü kadın 47’si erkektir. Araştırmada veri toplama araçları olarak İletişim Becerileri Ölçeği, Temel Empati Ölçeği ve Toronto Aleksitimi Ölçeği Türkçe Formu’ndan yararlanılmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda iletişim becerileri ve empati düzeyleri yüksek olan psikolojik danışman adaylarının aleksitimi puanlarının daha düşük olduğu saptanmıştır. İletişim becerileri ve empati becerisi arttıkça aleksitimik özellikler zayıflamaktadır. Ayrıca psikolojik danışman adaylarının aleksitimik özelliklerinin cinsiyete ve psikolojik yardım alma durumuna göre farklılaşmadığı; iletişim dersi alma durumuna göre farklılaştığı saptanmıştır. Etkili bir psikolojik danışma hizmeti verilmesi bakımından psikolojik danışmanların hem kendi duygularını tanıması, ifade edebilmesi hem de bireylerin duygularını tanıması gerekmektedir. Psikolojik danışman adaylarının eğitiminde duyguları tanıma, ifade etme, iletişim becerileri ve empati gibi becerilerin geliştirilmesi bu bakımdan önem arz etmektedir.
p> Relevance . Intrapersonal emotional competence - the ability to recognize, understand and regulate one's own emotional states - is traditionally considered as a factor in both the ontogenetic development of empathy and its situational manifestation. However, there is a question of different levels and nature of the sources of emotional competence and empathy deficits and, accordingly, different ways to compensate for them, which is of particular importance for the practice of developing empathy, including the professional context of psychological counseling and psychotherapy. Goal. The purpose of this study was to analyze the diversity of connections between empathy, alexithymia as an indicator of the deficit of emotional competence in relation to one's own feelings and psychological mindedness as an indicator of intentionality in relation to feelings and experiences. Materials and methods. On a combined sample of 1,123 people, including representatives of three cultures - Russia, Belarus, Armenia - data from the IRI questionnaire (empathy), TAS–20 (alexithymia) and «The psychological mindedness scale» were collected and analyzed. Results. The absence of significant negative connections of empathy with difficulties of awareness and identification of feelings, a stable significant positive connection with them of empathic personal distress, as well as externally oriented thinking with low empathy were found. 5 clusters have been identified, reflecting different variants of the connection between emotional competence and empathy. Conclusions. The conclusion is made about the relative independence of the influence of intentionality and competence/lack of emotional competence on empathy, as well as the need for further analysis of intentionality in the field of experiences and emotions.</p
Alexithymia is referred to as 'emotional deafness', a condition in which individuals do not have the ability to understand their own feelings and those of others. Alexithymia is reinforced by technological developments, alexithymia is associated with excessive use of social media. The social media usage can lead to reduced ability to manage affective experiences when individuals tend to be more individualistic and have low socialization. When individuals do not have the ability to manage affective experiences well, it can cause alexithymia. This study aims to examine the mediating effect of social media use on alexithymia through affective experiences. This research is a quantitative research with mediation analysis. The research sample was 204 people (109 women) and 95 people (men) with an age range of 18 to 33 years. using the Quota Sampling sampling technique. The research data were taken using the affective experience scale, the social media use scale and the alexithymia scale. The results showed that affective experience can partially mediate the use of social media on alexithymia (partial mediation) with Value = 0.556 and p = 0.000. Abstrak. Alexithymia disebut sebagai ‘tuli emosional’, kondisi dimana individu tidak memiliki kemampuan untuk memahami perasaan diri sendiri dan perasaan orang lain. Alexithymia diperkuat dengan adanya perkembangan teknologi, alexithymia berhubungan dengan penggunaan media sosial secara berlebihan. Penggunaan media sosial dapat menyebabkan berkurangnya kemampuan mengelola pengalaman afektif ketika individu cenderung lebih individualis dan sosialisasi yang rendah. Ketika individu tidak memiliki kemampuan mengelola pengalaman afektif dengan baik dapat menyebabkan alexithymia. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melihat pengaruh mediasi penggunaan media sosial terhadap alexithymia melalui pengalaman afektif. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kuantitatif dengan analisis mediasi. Sampel penelitian berjumlah 204 orang (perempuan 109 orang) dan (laki-laki 95orang) dengan rentang usia 18 sampai dengan 33 tahun menggunakan teknik pengambilan sampel Quota Sampling. Data penelitian diambil menggunakan skala pengalaman afektif, skala penggunaan media sosial dan skala alexithymia. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pengalaman afektif dapat memediasi penggunaan media sosial terhadap alexithymia secara partial (partial mediation) dengan Value= 0.556 dan p=0.000.
Günümüzde en çok kullanılan sosyal ağ platformlarından biri olan Instagram uygulamasında kullanıcılar, çok kısa bir süre içerisinde art arda olumlu ve olumsuz duygu içerikli paylaşımlara maruz kalabilmektedir. Bunun sonucunda, bireylerde bir duygu karmaşası oluşabileceği ve aleksitimi durumuna benzer şekilde duygu tanıma ve ifade etmede zorluklar yaşanabileceği düşünülmektedir. Bu düşünceyi test etmek amacıyla, Toronto Aleksitimi Ölçeği (TAÖ-20)’nden aldıkları puanlara göre düşük (n=16) ve yüksek (n=16) aleksitimik olarak ayrılan 32 üniversite öğrencisine, olumlu-olumsuz fotoğraflardan oluşan ve Instagram formatında hazırlanan bir uyaran sunumu gösterilmiş ve sonrasında katılımcılardan kendilerini nasıl hissettiklerine dair bir duygu değerlendirmesi yapmaları istenmiştir. Uyaran sunumu öncesinde katılımcılara Beck Depresyon Envanteri, Durumluk-Sürekli Kaygı Envanteri, Pozitif ve Negatif Duygu Ölçeği, Gözlerden Zihin Okuma Testi, Empatik Eğilim Ölçeği ve Stroop Testi uygulanmıştır. Elde edilen bulgular, sunum öncesinde düşük aleksitimik özellikler sergileyen katılımcıların, Instagram formatlı sunum sonrasında yüksek aleksitimi grubundaki katılımcılar kadar duygularını değerlendirmede zorlandıklarını, grupların duygu değerlendirmelerinin farklılaşmadığını ve her iki grubun da benzer şekilde duygu karmaşası yaşayarak duygu tanıma ve adlanlandırmada güçlük çektiğini göstermiştir. Ayrıca, literatürle uyumlu olarak yüksek aleksitimi grubu, daha yüksek bir depresyon ve kaygı düzeyi ile daha düşük bir empati düzeyi sergilemiştir. İleride yürütülecek kontrollü deneysel çalışmalarla, Instagram uygulamasında sürekli bir akış halinde olumlu ve olumsuz paylaşımlara maruz kalmaya bağlı olarak ortaya çıkabilecek duygu karmaşası ve aleksitimik özelliklerin, günlük yaşam aktiviteleri ile bilişsel işlevleri nasıl etkilediği incelenmelidir. Uzun süre ya da sık aralıklarla varlık gösteren duygu karmaşası, bireylerin aleksitimik bir duygudurum içerisine girmesine sebep olarak aleksitiminin eşlik ettiği pek çok psikiyatrik veya fiziksel hastalık için risk teşkil ediyor olabilir.
Purpose:
The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between alexithymia, communication skills, and mental well-being of nurses.
Methods:
This descriptive and correlational study was conducted with 272 nurses working in a hospital in Turkey. Data were collected using the "Introductory Information Form", "Health Professionals Communication Skills Scale", "Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale", and "Toronto Alexithymia Scale". Mean and percentage distributions as well as Pearson's correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data. The STROBE checklist was used to report this study.
Results:
It was determined that non-alexithymic nurses had higher mean scores communication skills and in mental well-being compared to alexithymic nurses. The nurses' alexithymia scores were negatively correlated with their communication skills and mental well-being scores. On the other hand, their nurses' mental well-being scores were positively correlated with their communication skills scores. Communication skills and mental well-being of the nurses accounted for 38.5 % of their alexithymia levels.
Conclusions:
It is recommended that awareness-based interventions be carried out since increasing the emotional awareness of nurses will contribute to the development of their professional skills as well as their positive psychological effects.
Bu çalışmanın genel amacı; işletmelerde çalışanlarında var olabilecek duygusal ahrazlık (aleksitimi) ile, örgütsel dedikodu ilişkisi ve etkileşiminin olup olmadığını tespit etmeye yöneliktir. Yöntem: Bu çalışmada duygusal ahrazlık (aleksitimi) ile örgütsel dedikodu değişkenleri arasında ilişki ve etkileşim olup olmadığı tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Duygusal ahrazlık (aleksitimi) ve alt boyutları ile örgütsel dedikodu değişkenleri ve alt boyutları arasındaki ilişki ve etkileşim ayrı ayrı ele alınmıştır. Araştırma çerçevesinde kurgulanan modelde ilişkisel ve etkileşimsel model şeklinde desenlenmiştir. Araştırma kapsamında incelenen örneklem grubu, İzmir Kemalpaşa Organize Sanayi Bölgesinde faaliyet gösteren işletmelerde üst ve alt pozisyonlarda çalışan toplam 411 kişiden oluşturmaktadır. Araştırma çerçevesinde veri elde edebilmek için Bagby vd. (1994) tarafından geliştirilen, Türkçeye ise Güleç vd (2009) tarafından çevrilen ve 20 soru ile üç ayrı alt boyuttan oluşan Toronto alaksitimi ölçeği ile birlikte Han ve Dağlı (2018) tarafından geliştirilen 24 soru önermesinden ve üç alt boyuttan oluşan örgütsel dedikodu ölçeği kullanılmıştır. Elde edilmiş olan verilerin istatistiki analizleri için SPSS 21.0 veri analiz programı kullanılmıştır. Bulgular: Elde edilen bulgulara göre duygusal ahrazlık ve alt boyutları ile örgütsel dedikodu ve alt boyutları arasında (r=,388; ile r=,503 aralığında p<0,00) düşük ve orta düzeyde pozitif yönlü anlamlı bir ilişki olduğunu tespit edilmiştir. Değişkenler arası etkileşim analizi sonucunda ise, duygusal ahrazlık algılamalarının, örgütse dedikodu algılamalarını [(β=,975), (p<0.05)] (R2:,951; p: ,000) pozitif yönde etkilediği sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Tartışma: Örgütlerde çalışanların duygusal ahrazlık sorununun örgütsel dedikodu üzerinde etkisinin olup olmadığının tespit edilmeye çalışıldığı bu çalışmada, duygusal ahrazlık sorunu yaşayan çalışanların, örgütsel dedikodu eğilimindeki algılamaları etkileyebildiği, duygusal ahrazlık ile örgütsel dedikodu olgusu arasında ilişki kurulabileceğini söylemek mümkündür. ABSTRACT The general aim of this study; It is aimed to determine whether there is a relationship and interaction between emotional alexithymia and organizational gossip that may exist in employees in enterprises. Method: In this study, it has been tried to determine whether there is a relationship and interaction between emotional numbness (alexithymia) and organizational gossip variables. The relationship and interaction between emotional numbness (alexithymia) and its sub-dimensions and organizational gossip variables and sub-dimensions were discussed separately. The model, which was constructed within the framework of the research, was designed as a relational and interactional model. The sample group examined within the scope of the research consists of a total of 411 people working in the upper and lower positions in the enterprises operating in the Izmir Kemalpasa Organized Industrial Zone. In order to obtain data within the framework of the research, Bagby et al. (1994) and translated into Turkish by Güleç et al. (2009) and consisting of 20 questions and three separate sub-dimensions, along with the organizational gossip scale consisting of 24 questions and three sub-dimensions developed by Han and Dağlı (2018). SPSS 21.0 data analysis program was used for statistical analysis of the obtained data. Results: According to the findings obtained, it was determined that there was a low and moderate positive significant relationship between emotional resilience and its sub-dimensions and organizational gossip and its sub-dimensions (p<0.00 in the range of r=.388; and r=.503). As a result of the interaction analysis between the variables, it was concluded that the perceptions of emotional infidelity positively affected the perceptions of organizational gossip [(β=,975), (p<0.05)] (R2:,951; p: ,000). Discussion: In this study, in which it is tried to determine whether the emotional numbness problem of the employees in the organizations has an effect on organizational gossip, it is possible to say that the employees who have the emotional numbness problem can affect the perceptions of organizational gossip, and that a relationship can be established between the phenomenon of emotional numbness and organizational gossip.
Amaç: Bu araştırmanın amacı ergenlerdeki aleksitimik özellikler ile bunların kişiler arası ilişki biçimleri ve problem çözme becerileri arasındaki ilişkinin incelenmesidir. Metod: Araştırmaya yaşları 12-15 arasında değişen 103 ergen dahil edilmiştir. Araştırmaya katılan gruba Sosyodemografik Veri Formu, Çocuklar için Aleksitimi Ölçeği, Çocuklar için Problem Çözme Envanteri ve Kişilerarası İlişkiler Ölçeği uygulanmıştır. Bulgular: Ergenlerin aleksitimik özellikleri ile problem çözme becerileri arasında negatif yönde anlamlı ilişki olduğu saptanmıştır. Ayrıca, ergenlerin aleksitimik özellikleri ile kişiler arası ilişki tarzlarından besleyici ilişki tarzı ile negatif yönlü anlamlı düzeyde ilişkiye rastlanırken, ketleyici ilişki tarzı ile istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir ilişki bulunamamıştır. Sonuç: Ergenlerin aleksitimik özellikleri ile problem çözme becerileri ve kişiler arası ilişki tarzları arasında anlamlı ilişkiler saptanmıştır. Aleksitimik ergenlerin ilişki biçimlerini değerlendirebilmek açısından kişiler arası ilişki tarzlarını anlamanın önemli olduğu düşünülmektedir.
Il presente lavoro intende fornire alcuni dati preliminari a supporto della validazione italiana della Scala di Consapevolezza Emotiva – versione bambini (LEAS-C; Bajgar et al., 2005; Lane et al., 1990). Obiettivo della scala e valutare la consapevolezza dei propri e degli altrui stati emotivi in bambini di eta scolastica. La ricerca prevede la somministrazione a 125 soggetti (suddivisi in tre gruppi a seconda della classe scolastica frequentata: terza, quarta e quinta classe della scuola primaria) della LEAS-C (della quale e stata effettuata una valutazione anche relativa alla produttivita verbale), di tre prove di empatia, di tre prove di Teoria della Mente e di due subtest linguistici della scala WISC III. I risultati evidenziano elevate affidabilita e coerenza interna della versione italiana della LEAS- C. Inoltre, la relazione riscontrata tra la performance relativa alla consapevolezza emotiva e quella riguardante una delle prove di empatia fornisce un indicatore di validita convergente, mentre la mancanza di legami tra il costrutto indagato e la Teoria della Mente e considerato un indice di validita divergente. Infine, la ricerca mette in luce un possibile trend evolutivo che vede la consapevolezza emotiva svilupparsi parallelamente all'empatia nei bambini di terza e quarta classe, per poi procedere indipendentemente nella sua evoluzione. La discussione fornisce alcune ipotesi esplicative e futuri sviluppi a questo riguardo.
The present research investigated the relationship between dysfunctional relationship beliefs (DRB) and alexithymia with a particular focus on gender among Turkish college students. Results indicated that different DRB predicts alexithymia in females and males. Intimacy avoidance predicted an increase of alexithymia scores in females, whereas intimacy avoidance and unrealistic relationship expectations predicted an increase of alexithymia scores in males. The results highlighted the association of intimacy avoidance with difficulty identifying and describing feelings in both genders, stronger in males when compared to other two DRB, namely unrealistic relationship expectations and mind reading. The results suggested that alexithymia is related to different forms of DRB in females and males, indicating potential intervention strategies and patterns in females’ and males’ alexithymia.
Background
: Late adolescence is considered a risk stage for psychological health. The objective of this research was evaluating the association among risk eating behaviors (REB), parental practices and assertive behavior in high school students according to sex.
Method
: With a non-experimental design and transversal study participated 200 students (104 men and 96 women) from a public high school with age mean of 16.52 (SD = 1.05 years), who after signing in- formed consent fulfilled the Eating Attitudes Test-26 (EAT), the Scale of Parental Practices for Adolescents (PP-A) which has nine subscales, four towards the father (PPf) and five towards the mother (PPm) and the Assertive Behavior Scale (CABS), all of them validated for Mexican population.
Results
: Differential associations were found according to sex: in women, EAT-26-Total was associated with CABS-Total, parental Communication, maternal Imposition and maternal Psychological Control (rs = -.36, .25, -.28, -.36, respectively); but in men, was only associated with parental Imposition (rs = -.30). The CABS-Total was associated with all PPm subscales in women (range rs = .22 to .36) and in men only with Communication, Psychological and Behavioral Control (rs = .30 .35, -.23).
Conclusion
: The high school students -women to a greater degree- higher REB greater aggressive style (no assertiveness), greater maternal psychological control and less maternal behavioral control.
Purpose
This study aims to identify the relationship between alexithymia and empathy tendency in university students receiving health education.
Design and Methods
This descriptive study was conducted with the volunteer participation of 376 students at a unıversity located in the eastern part of Turkey between September and October 2019. Data were collected through the Sociodemographic Form, the Empathy Tendency Scale, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale.
Findings
The Empathy Tendency Scale was found to be significantly higher in females, in those who lived alone, who did not experience a traumatic event when they were children, whose mother was alive, and who were not subject to violence. As to the Alexithymia Scale, mean scores were significantly higher in males, in those whose mother or father was illiterate, who had a monthly family income of less than 2000₺, who graduated from a Religious Vocational High School, and whose mother was not alive (P < .05). A negative, significant relationship was found between the Empathy Tendency Scale mean score and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (P < .001).
Practice Implications
A negative, significant relationship was found between empathy tendency and alexithymia. It is recommended that similar studies should be conducted in different regions as well.
The association between alexithymia and sociodemographic variables is not well understood. Previous studies using the current 20-item and previous 26-item versions of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) have shown inconsistent associations with age, sex, socioeconomic status, and years of education. We tested 380 subjects from the community stratified equally across sex, five age groups, and three socioeconomic classes. In addition to the TAS-20, we also administered the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), a behavioral measure of the ability to be aware of and represent emotions in words, a core component of alexithymia. The TAS-20 and LEAS were each correlated with age, sex, socioeconomic status (SES), and years of education (P < .01) in the same direction and to approximately the same degree. Alexithymia (or low emotional awareness) is associated with older age, male sex, lower SES, and fewer years of education. The TAS-20 and LEAS are only slightly correlated (r = −.19, n = 380, P < .001), but their correlation is largely accounted for by their shared variance with these demographic variables. The convergence of findings with these two quite different measures and the nature of their overlap support the validity of these associations between alexithymia and sociodemographic variables.
Describes the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and its relationships with measures of social functioning, self-esteem, emotionality, and sensitivity to others. 677 male and 667 female undergraduates served as Ss. Each of the 4 IRI subscales displayed a distinctive and predictable pattern of relationships with these measures, as well as with previous unidimensional empathy measures. Findings provide evidence for a multidimensional approach to empathy. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
During the past decade, the alexithymia construct has undergone theoretical refinement and empirical testing and has evolved into a potential new paradigm for understanding the influence of emotions and personality on physical illness and health. Like the traditional psychosomatic medicine paradigm, the alexithymia construct links susceptibility to disease with prolonged states of emotional arousal. But whereas the traditional paradigm emphasizes intrapsychic conflicts that are presumed to generate such emotional states, the alexithymia construct focuses attention on deficits in the cognitive processing of emotions, which remain undifferentiated and poorly regulated. This paper reviews the development and validation of the construct and discusses its clinical implications for psychosomatic medicine.
A previous paper described the development of the twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and reported preliminary evidence of reliability and factorial validity of the scale. This paper describes a study that further evaluated the construct validity of the TAS-20 by examining its relationship with measures of personality traits theoretically related or unrelated to the alexithymia construct, as well as its relationship with an observer-rated measure of alexithymia. Evidence of convergent and discriminant validity of the TAS-20 was demonstrated in samples of university students by a pattern of correlations with the scales of the NEO Personality Inventory and separate measures of psychological mindedness and need-for-cognition that was consistent with theoretical predictions. The concurrent validity of the scale was demonstrated by positive correlations with observer-ratings of alexithymia in a sample of behavioural medicine out-patients.
Addressing shortcomings of the self-report Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), two studies were conducted to reconstruct the item domain of the scale. The first study resulted in the development of a new twenty-item version of the scale--the TAS-20. The TAS-20 demonstrated good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and a three-factor structure theoretically congruent with the alexithymia construct. The stability and replicability of this three-factor structure were demonstrated in the second study with both clinical and nonclinical populations by the use of confirmatory factor analysis.
This study examines the relationships between alexithymia and psychological characteristics and behaviors that are commonly associated with eating disorders. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) were administered to a group of 48 female patients with anorexia nervosa, a matched comparison group of 30 normal women, and an unmatched comparison group of 116 male and 118 female university students. In the anorexic and male student groups, the TAS-20 correlated significantly and positively with the EDI subscales, Ineffectiveness, Interpersonal Distrust, Interoceptive Awareness, and Maturity Fears. The TAS-20 correlated significantly only with Interpersonal Distrust in the matched comparison group, and only with Ineffectiveness and Interpersonal Distrust in the female student group. The results suggest that alexithymia is related to several psychological traits that are characteristic of patients with eating disorders and thought to play a role in the development of the disorders but is unrelated to attitudes and behaviors concerning abnormal eating and body weight and shape.
We studied the factors associated with alexithymia in 137 depressed outpatients.
Diagnosis of depression was confirmed by means of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R. Alexithymia was screened using the 20-item version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Severity of depression was assessed using the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory, and other psychiatric symptoms with the help of the Symptoms Checklist (SCL-90). Life satisfaction was also assessed with a structured scale.
Almost half of the patients were considered alexithymic. They were significantly more often male, unmarried and had a lower education than the nonalexithymic patients. Alexithymic patients more often showed psychiatric symptoms (SCL-90) and were also more often severely depressed and dissatisfied with their life than were the other patients. Logistic regression analyses revealed that four factors were independently associated with alexithymia: male gender, a low level of education, low life satisfaction and severe depression. Sleep disturbances were independently associated with alexithymia in men and severe depression in women.
Alexithymia is very common among patients with depressive disorder. An awareness of these risk factors would be useful in improving the efficacy of treatment.
This study examines how alexithymia and depression are related to each other in men and women in a sample of Finnish general population (n = 2018).
Alexithymia was screened using the 20-item version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Level of depression was assessed using the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Life satisfaction was estimated with a structured scale.
The prevalence of alexithymia was 12.8% in men and 8.2% in women. However, the prevalence of alexithymia was 32.1% among those having BDI scores of > or = 9, but only 4.3% among the nondepressed subjects (p < 0.001). The BDI scores explained 29.2% of the variation in TAS-20 scores. Alexithymia was associated with several sociodemographic factors if depression was not taken into account. However, after including depression in the logistic regression models, only depression and low life satisfaction were associated with alexithymia, both in men and women.
These results suggest that alexithymia has a close relationship to depression in the general population. The impact of social factors on alexithymia may be primarily explained by depression. Depression must be taken into account as a confounding factor when studying alexithymia in general populations due to the strong association between alexithymia and depression.
To facilitate a multidimensional approach to empathy the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) includes 4 subscales: Perspective-Taking (PT) Fantasy (FS) Empathic Concern (EC) and Personal Distress (PD). The aim of the present study was to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of these 4 subscales. Hypothesized relationships among the IRI subscales between the subscales and measures of other psychological constructs (social functioning self-esteem emotionality and sensitivity to others) and between the subscales and extant empathy measures were examined. Study subjects included 677 male and 667 female students enrolled in undergraduate psychology classes at the University of Texas. The IRI scales not only exhibited the predicted relationships among themselves but also were related in the expected manner to other measures. Higher PT scores were consistently associated with better social functioning and higher self-esteem; in contrast Fantasy scores were unrelated to these 2 characteristics. High EC scores were positively associated with shyness and anxiety but negatively linked to egotism. The most substantial relationships in the study involved the PD scale. PD scores were strongly linked with low self-esteem and poor interpersonal functioning as well as a constellation of vulnerability uncertainty and fearfulness. These findings support a multidimensional approach to empathy by providing evidence that the 4 qualities tapped by the IRI are indeed separate constructs each related in specific ways to other psychological measures.
On the basis of a selected review of some important theoretical discussions and empirical investigations of patients characterized as borderline, a self-report questionnaire, the Borderline Syndrome Index (BSI), was constructed. Its purpose was to provide an assessment of the borderline syndrome that would increase the amount of information rapidly available to the clinician. The items reflect criteria cited in the literature as important characteristics of borderline patients and also incorporate the criteria for the borderline personality organization as listed in the DSM-III draft. The BSI was completed by 50 normal individuals, 36 nonpsychotic depressed outpatients, 35 patients diagnosed as borderline, and 20 inpatients diagnosed as schizophrenic. The internal consistency of the 52-item BSI was .92. It significantly discriminated the borderline patients from the normal individuals, from the depressed outpatients, and from the schizophrenic inpatients, thereby providing a measure of discriminative validity. An item analysis indicated that the most discriminating items were concerned with impaired object relations, impulsivity, emptiness and depression, depersonalization, and lack of self-identity. Cross-validation of the BSI was carried out on independent samples of borderline and nonborderline patients, and it was found to discriminate significantly between the two. Preliminary percentile norms are presented in order to provide clinicians with additional information to assist them in their diagnostic assessments.
The Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines (DIB) was revised to sharpen its ability to discriminate between clinically diagnosed borderline patients and patients with other types of Axis II clinical diagnoses. The discriminant power of both the revised DIB (DIB-R) and the DIB itself was then tested in a sample of 237 inpatients and outpatients given an Axis II diagnosis by their therapists. The DIB-R was administered blind to clinical diagnosis, while a DIB score was independently derived from DIB-R and other data using a predetermined scoring algorithm. At a cutoff of 8, the DIB-R had a sensitivity of .82, a specificity of .80, a positive predictive power of .74, and a negative predictive power of .87. Overall, these conditional probabilities compare favorably to those obtained for the DIB at its standard cutoff of 7: sensitivity = .97, specificity = .27, positive predictive power = .47, and negative predictive power = .93. They also compare favorably with those obtained in studies that used semistructured or self-report instruments based on DSM-III or DSM-III-R criteria for BPD.
This is a study of empathy in the families of 27 women with borderline personality disorder (BPD), 28 women with restricting anorexia nervosa (AN), and 27 women without a clinical diagnosis (NC). The daughters and both parents responded to the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), an instrument for assessing four dimensions of empathy. In addition, they were personally interviewed, with the Family Interview for Protectiveness and Empathy (FIPE), about the extent of empathy expressed by the parents to their daughter during her development. On the IRI, women with BPD scored highest on the immature and lowest on the mature aspects of empathy, whereas scores of AN and NC women were all within normal limits. Parents of BPDs had the lowest IRI scores, while parents of AN and NC groups were similar to each other and to criterion group scores. IRI scores of AN daughters were positively correlated with their parents' scores whereas BPDs' scores were negatively correlated with those of their parents. There were no correlations between the IRI scores of NC subjects and their parents. On the FIPE, borderline daughters and parents agreed about the relative absence of empathic parenting, whereas AN and NC daughters and parents agreed as to the presence of empathic parenting. The theoretical and clinical implications of these contrasting findings are discussed.
The aims of the study were (1) to establish whether alexithymia is present in patients with bulimia nervosa (BN), (2) to compare bulimic patients with restricting anorexics (AN/R), bulimic anorexics (AN/R), and normal controls with regard to alexithymia, (3) to determine whether in BN patients alexithymia is a state or a trait, and (4) to see whether alexithymia predicts short-term treatment outcome in BN. Study 1 included 173 eating disorder patients (BN: n=93, AN/R: n=55, AN/R: n=25) who were compared with 95 controls on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS). Study 2 included 41 BN patients who were assessed prospectively with the TAS before and after a 10-week drug treatment. AN/R patients in study 1 had significantly higher alexithymia scores than BN patients. All three eating disorder groups had significantly higher alexithymia scores than controls. For BN patients in study 2, TAS scores before and after drug treatment were stable, despite significant symptomatic improvement. We conclude the following: (1) eating disorder patients are considerably more alexithymic than normal controls; and (2) in BN, alexithymia may be a trait, unaffected by clinical improvement unless psychological treatment, encouraging the expression of emotions is offered.
The major purpose of this study was to examine alexithymia in relationship to depression and Axis II psychopathology in eating disorder patients.
Fifty-three female inpatients representing three DSM-IV eating disorder diagnostic groups and 14 control subjects completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), the Eating Disorder Inventory-2, and the Beck Depression Inventory within the first week of their hospital admission and shortly before discharge. Structured Clinical Interviews for DSM-III-R (SCID) I and II were also conducted. Multiple regression analyses were used to determine the contribution of mood, diagnostic, and personality variables in predicting the alexithymia score.
After controlling for depression, only the TAS factor, "difficulty expressing feelings," remained significantly different between groups, with the anorexia nervosa-restrictors (AN-R) having significantly higher scores than controls and bulimia nervosa patients. This factor appears to be a relatively stable personality characteristic in AN-R. The level of depression and the presence of avoidant personality disorder were the most predictable variables for the alexithymia total score.
The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) was administered to 417 normal subjects. Total TAS scores and scores of the four TAS factors were correlated with sex, age, and educational level. Age ranged from 21 to 64 years. The sample was subdivided into three groups according to age. TAS scores, both total and on single subfactors, were significantly greater in the higher age groups with respect to lower age groups. Subjects with a lower educational level scored higher on factors 1, 2, and 4 and had higher TAS total scores with respect to subjects with a higher educational level. As for sex, no significant differences in total TAS scores were obtained, but women scored higher at factor 1. Factor analysis of the TAS, performed on both the whole sample and the subgroups according to sex and age, confirmed the fair internal stability of the TAS.
The relationship between depressed mood and alexithymia, measured by the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) was investigated in a group of psychiatric inpatients (n = 81) and outpatients (n = 97). In both cohorts correlations between the TAS and obsessoid personality style were significant when controlled for mood. The obsessoid style, measured by the Hysteroid-Obsessoid Scale was the most powerful predictor of alexithymia in regression models for each cohort. These data suggest that alexithymia is not a function of depression in such psychiatric patients.
The authors used the Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderline Patients to assess 22 clinical features of 120 patients with borderline personality disorder and 103 control subjects with other axis II disorders. Four of the 22 features were common in but nondiscriminating for borderline disorder, 11 were discriminating for but nonspecific to borderline disorder, and seven were more specific to borderline disorder. The authors conclude that many clinical features thought to be indicative of borderline disorder are better viewed as personality disorder traits and that the seven more specific features, alone or in conjunction with one another, may be particularly useful markers for borderline personality disorder.
Conflicting results have been reported in studies examining the relationships between alexithymia and the variables of age, gender, social class, and intelligence. Moreover, these results are of dubious validity and generalizability because many of the studies used psychometrically poor scales to measure the alexithymia construct. The present study reexamined the relationships between alexithymia and sociodemographic variables and intelligence in a sample of normal adults using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), a recently developed self-report measure with evidence of reliability and validity. The results indicate that alexithymia, as measured by the TAS, is not associated with age, gender, educational level, socioeconomic status, and intelligence.
Addressing methodological problems in the development of existing scales for measuring alexithymia, this study reports the development of a new self-report scale. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) was devised with concern for theoretical congruence with the alexithymia construct, independence of social desirability response bias, and internal consistency. Initially, 41 items were administered to 542 college students. Twenty-six items meeting preestablished psychometric guidelines were retained. Factor analysis yielded four interpretable factors, all consistent with the construct. The scale demonstrated adequate split-half and test-retest reliability, and scores were not significantly associated with age, education, and socioeconomic status. These preliminary results suggest that the TAS may be used as a clinical screening device with psychiatric and general medical patient populations.
An attempt is made in this paper to investigate the prevalence among patients who suffer from various psychosomatic diseases, of a relative constriction in emotional functioning, poverty of fantasy life, and inability to find appropriate words to describe their emotions. For lack of a better term, I call these characteristics ‘alexithymic’. Twenty-five psychosomatic patients outnumbered 25 control patients by better than two to one as far as possession of these ‘alexithymic’ characteristics. The question is raised whether these defects are due to biological or developmental factors, and the conclusion is reached that patients with these characteristics may not be good candidates for dynamic psychotherapy.
While borderline personality disorder is a well-established psychiatric diagnosis, less is known about family functioning and interactional patterns in subjects with the disorder. The authors describe interactional patterns in families of borderline children where one parent has a severe personality disorder and the other fails to protect the child adequately against the effects of that psychopathology. Two types of parents are described: the literal-minded parent and the borderline parent. The literal-minded parent resembles an alexithymic patient, lacking the ability to empathically understand and respond to the child's feelings and needs. The borderline parent uses the child as the target of projections and reality distortions. Therapy should mobilize the active protective functions of the healthier parent.
On the basis of a selected review of some important theoretical discussions and empirical investigations of patients characterized as borderline, a self-report questionnaire, the Borderline Syndrome Index (BSI), was constructed. Its purpose was to provide an assessment of the borderline syndrome that would increase the amount of information rapidly available to the clinician. The items reflect criteria cited in the literature as important characteristics of borderline patients and also incorporate the criteria for the borderline personality organization as listed in the DSM-III draft. The BSI was completed by 50 normal individuals, 36 nonpsychotic depressed outpatients, 35 patients diagnosed as borderline, and 20 inpatients diagnosed as schizophrenic. The internal consistency of the 52-item BSI was.92. It significantly discriminated the borderline patients from the normal individuals, from the depressed outpatients, and from the schizophrenic inpatients, thereby providing a measure of discriminative validity. An item analysis indicated that the most discriminating items were concerned with impaired object relations, impulsivity, emptiness and depression, depersonalization, and lack of self-identity. Cross-validation of the BSI was carried out on independent samples of borderline and nonborderline patients, and it was found to discriminate significantly between the two. Preliminary percentile norms are presented in order to provide clinicians with additional information to assist them in their diagnostic assessments.
Two experiments were conducted in order to examine the relationship between alexithymia and: 1) family environment; 2) discomfort and ambivalence experiencing and expressing emotion; and 3) dissociation. Research participants in both experiments were college students. We examined the ability to identify and communicate emotion using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. In Experiment 1, we found that alexithymia was significantly correlated with ambivalence concerning expression of emotion (measured using the Ambivalence over Emotional Expressiveness Questionnaire) and with discomfort concerning negative emotional states (measured using a new instrument called the Emotional Experience Discomfort Scale). Higher levels of alexithymia were associated with retrospective reports of diminished family expressiveness (measured using the Expressiveness subscale of the Family Environment Scale) and with feeling less emotionally safe during childhood (measured using a new instrument called the Childhood Experiences Questionnaire). In Experiment 2, we found that alexithymia was significantly correlated with dissociative experiences (measured using the Dissociative Experiences Scale). However, alexithymia and dissociation differed in the way they were associated with retrospective reports of different aspects of family expressiveness (measured using the Family Expressiveness Questionnaire). High levels of dissociation were associated with increased negative dominant family communication. In contrast, high levels of alexithymia were associated with low levels of positive family communication.
The authors compared scores on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale of 12 rape victims with PTSD, 12 rape victims without PTSD, and 12 nontraumatized comparison subjects. Rape victims were more alexithymic than were nontraumatized comparison subjects, and subjects with a history of more than one episode of rape were more alexithymic than were subjects with a single episode.
There is little empirical research on the familial and parental correlates of alexithymia. A two-part study explored how the affective and cognitive characteristics of alexithymia are related to family dysfunction and maternal alexithymia. In Part I, 127 young adults were evaluated for alexithymia with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20), for impaired imagination with the Scored Archetypal Test with Nine Elements, and for family dysfunction with the McMaster Family Assessment Device. In Part II, 80 of their mothers completed the TAS-20 about themselves, and maternal alexithymia characteristics were correlated with those of their offspring. In Part I, general family pathology was associated with alexithymia. In particular, difficulty identifying feelings was related to dysfunctional family affective involvement, externally oriented thinking was related to deficient family behavior control, and impaired imagination was related to inadequate family problem solving; these relationships were independent of general family pathology and subjects' positive and negative affect. In Part II, maternal alexithymia characteristics were correlated significantly with the offsprings', controlling for both respondents' positive and negative affect. These findings implicate disturbed family functioning and maternal alexithymia in the development of alexithymia characteristics in children.
This study extends an earlier investigation on the link between familial traits and eating disorders (EDs), and examines the extent to which selected eating attitudes and psychopathological traits are (a) familial in nature and (b) specific to anorexia- and bulimia-spectrum disorders.
We measured various ED-relevant dimensions (eating and body image attitudes) and psychopathological traits (e.g., affective instability, narcissism, compulsivity, restricted expression) in the mothers, fathers, and sisters of probands displaying an ED (n = 88), another psychiatric disturbance (n = 42), or neither disturbance (n = 59). Total sample, including relatives, was 553.
A principal components analysis (PCA), used to reduce variables and to characterize main sources of variation, yielded three interpretable factors: eating concerns and symptoms (grouping all eating-related dimensions), dramatic-erratic traits (grouping affective instability, narcissism, and conceptually related dimensions), and obsessive-compulsive traits (grouping compulsivity and restricted expression). Correlations among subjects' factor scores (derived from the PCA) showed two types of transgenerational effects: correspondences between daughters' and parents' psychopathological traits, and between daughters' and mothers' eating concerns. Despite these, relatives of ED probands were not discriminable on any factor score from relatives of controls.
These results imply that transgenerational effects exist on eating attitudes and psychopathological traits, but do not uniquely identify families in which clinical ED syndromes occur.
I examined the relationships among childhood abuse, alexithymia, and personality disorder. Participants were 60 adults who were receiving outpatient psychotherapy. Both the participants and their therapists used the Toronto Alexithymia Scale to provide independently information concerning the client's level of alexithymia. The therapists provided information concerning DSM-III-R personality disorder diagnoses, and participants completed portions of the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-Revised. Information concerning childhood abuse history was obtained from the therapists. As expected, childhood abuse, alexithymia, and personality disorder were all associated with each other. The abilities to identify and communicate emotions were differentially associated with childhood abuse and personality disorder.
The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) was completed at the age of 22 years by individuals who had previously suffered from anorexia nervosa (AN), and also by members of a comparison group. The AN and comparison groups had been recruited from community samples. Overall, the TAS scores did not clearly discriminate between the two groups. However, the AN group was significantly more often represented among subjects with the highest TAS scores. A subgroup with empathy disorder tended to have particularly high scores. It is concluded that alexithymia, as defined using the TAS-20, is found only in a subgroup of individuals with AN, and possibly more often in those who are also clinically diagnosed as suffering from empathy disorder. The TAS-20 is not suitable for screening of AN in the general population.
This study was an investigation of the structure and development of dispositional empathy during middle childhood and its relationship to altruism. A sample of 478 students from 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades completed an altruism questionnaire and a social desirability scale, both created for this study, and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980), adapted for this study. Teachers also rated the students on prosocial behaviors, such as sharing. In addition, as an experimental part of the study, the children could make monetary donations and volunteer time to raise funds. Results of a confirmatory factor analysis on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index supported Davis's (1980) findings that empathy comprises four components: perspective taking, fantasy, empathic concern, and personal distress. Factor intercorrelations, however, were not the same as those reported by Davis. MANOVAs were used to examine gender and age effects on empathy. Girls were more empathic in general than boys, and older children showed more empathic concern than younger children. Only empathic concern and perspective taking were significant predictors of prosocial behavior.
The prevalence of alexithymia and its association with sociodemographic variables were studied in a sample of 1285 subjects representing the general population of Finland. Alexithymia was measured with the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Alexithymia was normally distributed in the population in both genders, confirming that it is a personality dimension. The prevalence of alexithymia was 13%. Men were alexithymic almost twice (17%) as often as women (10%). Multivariate analysis showed that alexithymia was associated with male gender, advanced age, low educational level, and low socioeconomic status. As to the three factors of the TAS-20, men scored higher in factors 2 (difficulty in describing feelings) and 3 (externally oriented thinking). but there was no gender difference in factor 1 (difficulty in identifying feelings). Comparative population studies in other countries are needed to find out whether there are any differences in the prevalence of alexithymia between cultures.
It has been hypothesized that alexithymia is related to an impairment of the right hemisphere or a deficiency in interhemispheric transfer. We used the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) and the tactile finger localization task of Zeitlin et al. to test these relationships on nonclinical samples of college men and women, and also considered the role of short-term memory. Among 47 men, the TAS-20 facets of difficulty identifying feelings or difficulty describing feelings were correlated with poorer performance by the right compared with the left hemisphere in uncrossed trials and poorer interhemispheric transfer of information on crossed trials; short-term memory was not related. Thus, both hemispheric hypotheses were supported for men. However, among 58 women, alexithymia was completely unrelated to either index of hemispheric functioning; instead, poorer short-term memory (specifically digits backwards) strongly predicted poorer interhemispheric transfer. We conclude that deficiencies in right hemisphere function and interhemispheric transfer may contribute to alexithymia in men, but not in women.
This study compares families of women with restricting anorexia nervosa with families of women without any psychiatric history on the following variables: parents' eating problems (Eating Attitudes Test: EAT-26) and psychopathology (Symptom Checklist-90-R: SCL-90-R); family members' perceptions of the parent-daughter relationship (Parental Bonding Instrument: PBI) and the family's overall functioning (Self-Report Family Inventory: SFI). Twenty-eight young women suffering from restricting anorexia nervosa, 27 non-clinical women and their respective parents, completed these questionnaires and also participated in a semi-structured individual interview. Our results demonstrated that parents in the two groups had similar eating attitudes and behaviors. However, parents of women with anorexia nervosa reported more problems with alcohol consumption than non-clinical parents. There were no differences between the two groups on the measure of family functioning (SFI), all scores in the families of anorectics being within normal limits. All the daughters, however, reported less family cohesion and more family conflict than did their parents. On the PBI, all the daughters reported receiving more care from their mothers than their fathers; the anorectic women reported experiencing more maternal control, intrusiveness and overprotection. The relationship between each family member's perception of family functioning and the parent-daughter relationship was examined. Anorectic daughters associate the emotional health of their family with the care received from both parents, whereas control women associate this variable with their father's attitudes and behaviors. However, fathers from both groups do not consider their own care or protection as having contributed to the health of the family.
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