Compare social desirability and alexithymia among students with internalized behavioral disorder and normal students

Numerous studies have addressed social acceptance and natural disability among students. But there is a gap in the comparison between social acceptance and natural disability among students with internalized behavioral disorders and normal students.

Therefore, The present study was conducted aiming to compare social desirability and alexithymia among students with internalized behavioral disorder and normal students in the city of Isfahan.

The research method was causal-comparative. The statistical population included all first high school adolescents with internalized behavioral disorder and normal ones in academic year 2017-18 in the city of Isfahan. The sample size in the study included 50 students with internalized behavioral disorder and 50 normal adolescents in the city of Isfahan who were selected through multi-stage clustered random sampling method. The applied instruments included children and adolescents behavioral inventory, alexithymia, social desirability scale and demographic factors questionnaire. The data from the study were analyzed through repeated measurement MANOVA method.

The results showed that there is a significant difference between social desirability, alexithymia among students with internalized behavioral disorder and normal students in the city of Isfahan (p<0/001). Thus, students with internalized behavioral disorder have lower social acceptability and higher alexithymia than normal students.

It can be concluded that internalized behavior disorder is associated with psychological, emotional and social vulnerability, low social acceptability and high natural cognition.