The Role of Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies and General Health in Alexithymia

the aim of the present study was to investigate the prediction of alexithymia based on cognitive emotion regulation strategies and general health. Forty hundred and thirty one students (193 males, 238 females) were selected by stratified random sampling method from Urmia university. The participants were assessed using the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies Questionnaire (CERQ, Garnefski, Kraaij, & Spinhoven, 2002), the General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg & Hiller,1979) and Farsi version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Bagby,Parker, & Taylor,1994). Data were analyzed by Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression analysis. The findings indicated that there were significant positive relationships between alexithymia and all subscales of general health. There were also significant positive relationships between alexithymia and other-blame, self-blame and catastrophizing tendncies. Alexithymia had negative relationships with positive refocusing and acceptance. It was found that dysfunctional in social function, anxiety, acceptance, self-blame and catastrophizing tendencies, and other-blame accounted for 25% of the variance of alexithymia. The higher alexithymia, the lower will be the general health,
and the more inefficient the cognitive emotion regulation strategies. The findings emphasize the need to recognize the role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies and general health in predicting student's alexitymia.