alexithymia {PCovR}

Effect of alexithymia on depression and self-esteem

Description

The data contain the scores of 122 Belgian psychology students on the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20; Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994), which measures the inability to recognize and verbalize emotions, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE; Rosenberg, 1989). These data can be used to examine the extent to which the degree of depressive symptomatology (measured by the total CES-D score), and the degree of self-esteem (measured by the total RSE-score), can be predicted by the separate items of the TAS-20. We investigate the individual items because Bankier, Aigner and Bach (2001) emphasize that alexithymia is a multidimensional construct and authors disagree about the number and nature of the dimensions.

Usage

data(alexithymia)

Format

List of 2

$ X:'data.frame': 122 obs. of 20 variables:

confused

I am often confused about what emotion I am feeling

right words

It is difficult for me to find the right words for my feelings

sensations

I have physical sensations that even doctors don't understand

describe

I am able to describe my feelings easily

analyze problems

I prefer to analyze problems rather than just describe them

upset

When I am upset, I don't know if I am sad, frightened, or angry

puzzled

I am often puzzled by sensations in my body

let happen

I prefer to just let things happen rather than to understand why they turned out that way

let happen

I have feelings that I can't quite identify

essential

Being in touch with emotions is essential

feel about people

I find it hard to describe how I feel about people

describe more

People tell me to describe my feelings more

going on

I don't know what's going on inside me

why angry

I often don't know why I am angry

daily activities

I prefer talking to people about their daily activities rather than their feelings

entertainment

I prefer to watch "light" entertainment shows rather than psychological dramas

reveal feelings

It is difficult for me to reveal my innermost feelings, even to close friends

close

I can feel close to someone, even in moments of silence

useful

I find examination of my feelings useful in solving personal problems

hidden meanings

Looking for hidden meanings in movies or plays distracts from their enjoyment

$ Y:'data.frame': 122 obs. of 2 variables:

CES-D

Degree of depressive symptomatology

RSE

Degree of self-esteem

References

Bagby, R. M., Parker, J. D., & Taylor, G. J. (1994). The twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale: Item selection and cross-validation of the factor structure. Journal of Psychosomatic Research , 38 (1), 23-32.

Bankier, B., Aigner, M., & Bach, M. (2001). Alexithymia in DSM-IV Disorder: Comparative Evaluation of Somatoform Disorder, Panic Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Depression. Psychosomatics , 42 (3), 235-240.

Radloff, R. S. (1977). The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied psychological measurement , 1 (3), 385-401.

Rosenberg, M. (1989). Society and the adolescent self-image. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.

Marlies Vervloet, Henk A. Kiers, Wim Van den Noortgate, Eva Ceulemans (2015). PCovR: An R Package for Principal Covariates Regression. Journal of Statistical Software, 65(8), 1-14. URL http://www.jstatsoft.org/v65/i08/.

Examples

data(alexithymia)
str(alexithymia)