Mia Reyna

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Cottrell, Catherine

Area of Concentration

Psychology with Art

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to highlight gender differences in the experience of alexithymia that may contribute to our understanding of the different autism phenotypes. Alexithymia is a neuropsychological phenomenon characterized by difficulty recognizing and describing one’s emotions. Alexithymia is present in about 10% of the general population (Linden et al. 1995; Salminen et al. 1999), but about 50-65% of the autistic population (Berthoz and Hill 2005; Hill et al. 2004; Samson et al. 2012). In the current study, I investigated gender differences in the facets of alexithymia experienced by adults with autistic traits by analyzing responses to an alexithymia self-report survey that looked at difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking. This is an important topic to explore because understanding gender differences in the experience of alexithymia can help us understand differences in resulting behaviors. A total of 55 participants consented to participate in this study, all of which began the survey and completed at least one of the survey measures. I found no gender differences in alexithymia severity, or in the facets of difficulty identifying feelings, or difficulty describing feelings. I found that men with high levels of autistic traits reported greater externally oriented thinking than women with high levels of autistic traits. Due to the gender distribution in this sample, exploratory analyses were conducted. I found a significant effect of gender on externally oriented thinking, with men with high levels of autistic traits reporting greater externally oriented thinking than non-binary individuals with high autistic traits. This research is important because alexithymia can have negative impacts on one’s life and understanding how it is experienced in different groups serves to further the development of our understanding of differences in presentation for different autism phenotypes.

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