Abstract

ZUANAZZI, Ana Carolina; RICCI, Diana Santos  and  MIGUEL, Fabiano Koich. Alexithymia and emotional perception assessment: comparison between self-report and performance. Temas psicol. [online]. 2015, vol.23, n.4, pp. 831-842. ISSN 1413-389X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.9788/TP2015.4-03.

Alexithymia is a condition in which the individual has impaired ability to fantasize and impaired ability to identify their own emotions and others'. Part of the discrepant results in this field may be due to the assessment format. This study aimed to compare two types of alexithymia assessment instruments. The participants were 405 people responding to an alexithymia scale (self-report) and a test of emotional perception (performance). The scale was developed for this research based on the literature, and it presented a five factors structure: description of feelings, emotional expression, abstraction, emotional perception and planning. The test showed videos of people's faces, and the participant should identify the emotions present. Although the psychometric characteristics of the scale were adequate, no significant correlations were found between the instruments, even with the emotional perception factor. The results suggest that self-report is a different construct from performance. The implications for psychological assessment and alexithymia are discussed.

Keywords : Alexithymia; psychological assessment; facial expressions.

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