Alexithymia measured with the TAS-20 questionnaire: Determining the validity of the factor structure and its relation to life satisfaction and the Big Five personality traits

Alexithymia is the inability of an individual to recognize their own or someone else's feelings and to communicate their own emotional states. On the cognitive level, we can observe a decreased ability for imagination and a practical style of thinking, while on the affective level, we can notice a diminished ability of getting in touch with emotions. The most commonly used instrument for measuring alexithymia is the TAS-20 scale that consists of three subscales: Factor 1-the identification of feelings, Factor 2- difficulties describing feelings, Factor 3-externally oriented thinking. The aim of this paper is to determine the factor structure of the TAS-20 questionnaire and its relations to personality traits and life satisfaction. The sample consisted of 601 'nonclinical' and 65 'clinical' participants. The 'clinical' participants have reported in the survey that they had a diagnosed psychiatric disorder. 75% of the 'nonclinical' and 76.9% of the 'clinical' sample participants were female. The average age of the 'nonclinical' sample was 29.47 (SD=7.12), and the average age of the 'clinical' sample was 31.18 (SD=8.44). Confirmatory factor analysis has shown an adequate model fit, but only after the removal of item 20 from the model. The summary score and factor scores showed an expected relationship with the Big Five in the 'nonclinical' sample, except a somewhat weaker correlation with the Openness trait. The summary score and factor scores also had expected relations with life satisfaction, while no significant correlation was detected in the 'clinical' sample. The regression model has shown that personality traits explain 37.6% of the summary score variance. The expected gender differences were not detected