Arab Educational Information Network

This study aimed to determine the variation of the factorial structure of Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS – 20), Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT), and the relationship between TAS -20 and SSEIT, and the differences between males and females, and to determine the degree of incidence of alexithymia among the sample according to the cutoff score into the scale of this study. The sample of the study consisting of (n=994) students at the University of Kuwait (518 males and 476 females), aged between (18-56) year, with an average of (22.76) and an SD (5.26), answered TAS - 20 and SSEIT. The results of the factor analysis revealed that there were independent dimensions that express alexithymia, these factors are: Difficulty Describing Feelings and Difficulty Identifying Feelings, and independent dimensions express the emotional intelligence, and Externally-Oriented Thinking subscale correlate with it, the correlation between two measures were weak negative correlation, the prevalence of alexithymia was higher among females, the study found that the incidence of alexithymia In the total sample (30.2%). Moreover, it found significant differences between both sexes in favor of the female in the dimensions of DDF, DIF and the total score. Also there were no differences in dimension of EOT between sexes. And the results also showed that there were no differences of EI attributed to sex. It was concluded that alexithymia is an independent trait that indicates a defect in the emotional component, but is different from emotional intelligence. (Published abstract)