On the social cost of interdependence: Alexithymia is enhanced among socially interdependent people

We examine the link between self-construal and alexithymia, a personality trait related to low emotional regulation abilities. People with independent self-construals think of themselves in terms of their uniqueness from others, while people with interdependent self-construals see themselves as a part of an interconnected social context. In two studies we examined how self-construal is related to one’s ability to identify and label emotions, and externally-oriented thinking (i.e. alexithymia). In both studies, we find that higher alexithymia is associated with lower independence and increased interdependence. In addition, Asian-Americans score higher in alexithymia as compared to Caucasians. We also control for mood, self-esteem, and ethnocultural background, and discuss implications of the current findings.