Preliminary Study On Alexithymia Of College Students: Questionnaire And Actuality

Alexithymia is actually not one kind of mental disorders but a negative personality trait. This concept originated from the discovery of clinical symptoms of psychomatic disorder patients.After being introduced in 1972, this term "alexithymia" got attentions from the researchers of clinical medicine and psychology. Sifneos even considered alexithymia as the personality of our times. Alexithymia was introduced to China in 1990, then it also got attentions from psychologist. As a negative personality trait, alexithymia was related to individual's health It was thought that alexithymia was an important danger factor of mental disorders and psychosomatic diseases. In addition, alexithymia was also found in general population, it affected individual's mental health. After all, researching alexithymia was valuable. Among all facets of reseach domain, alexithymia assessment was always a hot point. Based on literature review and open questionnaire, the research proposed the preliminary dimension concept of alexithymia. Alexithymia had four dimensions, namely(a) difficulty identifying feelings:had difficulty differentiating emotional feelings; (b)difficulty describing feelings:had difficulty verbalizing emotions; (3)difficulty analysising feelings:an absence of tendencies to think about one's emotions; (4)difficulty expreience feelings:a reduction or incapacity to experience emotions.The study designed an alexithymia questionnaire through open questionaire, preliminary survey and a second survey, based on the preliminary dimension concept of alexithymia. The preliminary survey had 328 subjects. The exploratory factor analysis verified the dimensional structure of alexithymia, tested the appropriateness of the questionnaire items and developed a scale consist of 23 items. The second survey obtained 885 valid questionnaires. The internal consistency Cronbach coefficiency was 0.804, which indicated that the questionnaire was reliable. The correlation matrix and confirnatory factor analysis demonstrated the construct validity of the questionnaire reach statistical indicators. The questionnaire could be a credible measurement for alexithymia. The study investigated the overall features of alexithymia. The results showed that there were significant differences in sex, major and grade individuals'alexithymia. There were significant differences in difficulty describing feelings and difficulty analysising feelings for different nationality. However, there was no significant difference in growth background of individuals' alexithymia.The following conclusions were drawn from this study:(1) Alexithymia is multi-facets and multi-dimension personality construct, which was refered to four dimensions:difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, difficulty analysising feelings and difficulty expreience feelings.(2) Alexithymia questionnaire of college students had preferable reability and validity, which chould be used as a good measure to assess alexithymia.(3) The results showed that there were significant differences in sex, major and grade in individuals'alexithymia. There were significant differences in difficulty describing feelings in han nationality and minority nationality. However, there was no significant difference in growth background of individuals' alexithymia.