ALEXITHYMIA AS A PREDICTOR OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS AMONG YOUNG ADULTS

Abstract

Aim of the current study is to explore the predictive relationship of alexithymia and its components with interpersonal relationships in young adults. Further to investigate the gender differences on these variables. It was hypothesized that different components of alexithymia (Difficulty Identifying Feelings, Difficulty Describing Feelings, and Extremely Oriented Thinking) would have significant relationship with interpersonal relationships in young adults. Further, components of alexithymia would have predictive relationship with the interpersonal relationships in young adults. Further,there would be gender differences in alexithymia and interpersonal relationships in young adults. For conduction of this study a random sample of 300 young adults (with equal gender ratio)  age range between 15-25 was taken from different academic institutes of Sialkot. A self-developed demographic sheet along with Toronto Alexithymia Sale Urdu version (TAS-20; Bagby et al., 2020) and the Interpersonal Relationships Questionnaire-Short form (FIAT-Q-SF; Darrow et al., 2014) were administered. For results, descriptive analysis, pearson product moment correlation, linear regression analysis and t-test were applied.  The findings indicated that components of alexithymia have significant positive relationship with interpersonal relations (p<0.05) and these components have potential to predict interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, results revealed significant mean differences on the study variables in males and females.