The Severity of Alexithymia and Difficulties in Extrinsic and Intrinsic Interpersonal Emotion Regulation

Abstract

Alexithymia is understood as a multidimensional personality trait associated with deficits in emotional awareness. Previous research has indicated that dimensions of alexithymia are related to impaired emotional self-regulation. This study intended to verify whether alexithymia dimensions are linked to interpersonal emotion regulation (IER). IER is conceptualized as extrinsic (regulation of other peoples’ emotions) and intrinsic (regulation of one’s own emotions through social interaction). Two hundred seventy-two students of several bachelor’s and master’s programs at the University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw, Poland, took part in the study and completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and two measures of IER: Managing the Emotions of Others Scale (MEOS) and The Interpersonal Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (IERQ). All alexithymia dimensions and their overall level were positively correlated with two nonprosocial extrinsic IER strategies – poor skills and emotion concealing. The overall severity of alexithymia and its two dimensions (externally oriented style of thinking and difficulty describing feelings) were negatively correlated with the extrinsic IER strategy of affect enhancement. The severity of the overall level of alexithymia and its dimensions were negatively related to the use of adaptive strategies to regulate one's own emotions during live social interaction. In addition, the study showed that all three alexithymia factors play a role as predictors of extrinsic and intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation strategies. This study presents a picture of how the severity of alexithymia is linked to the management of other people's emotions and the regulation of one's own emotions in social situations.