Genetic and Environmental Factors in Alexithymia: A Population-Based Study of 8,785 Danish Twin Pairs

Jørgensen, Malene Munk; Zachariae, Robert; Skytthe, Axel; Kyvik, Kirsten Ohm

doi:10.1159/000107565

Cited by 143 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The TAS-20 yields a total score and scores on three subscales (difficulties describing feelings, difficulties identifying feeling, and externally-oriented thinking). In the present study, alexithymia was investigated as an overall personality trait [24], and only the total score was used.…”

Section: Psychological Moderatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clinical and psychological moderators of the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on persistent pain in women treated for primary breast cancer – explorative analyses from a randomized controlled trial

et al. 2017

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Section: Psychological Moderatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clinical and psychological moderators of the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on persistent pain in women treated for primary breast cancer – explorative analyses from a randomized controlled trial

et al. 2017

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“…About half of the variation in personality measures arises from genetic differences and almost all of the rest from environmental sources that are not shared within the family (Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001). Likewise, genetic variations account for about half of the variation in the startle reflex (Anokhin, Golosheykin, & Heath, 2007) and a third of the variation in alexythymia (Jørgensen, Zachariae, Skytthe, & Kyvik, 2007). How can natural selection have left so much genetic variation?…”

Section: Individual Variations In Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution, emotions, and emotional disorders.

Nesse

Ellsworth

2009

American Psychologist

305

267

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(Gingerich, Raza, Arif, Anwar, & Zhou, 1994). While such events are rarely predictable, they can be reliably explained by Charles Darwin's and Alfred Russel Wallace's great idea, natural selection. Four-legged whale ancestors that could swim better underwater had more offspring; over thousands of generations, their descendants gradually became superb aquatic athletes.Happenstance occurs in intellectual evolution as well. After finishing The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (Darwin, 1871), Darwin realized that materials he had long collected on emotions could be organized to refute Charles Bell's earlier claim that the elaborate musculature of the human face was evidence of Divine design. He quickly wrote The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (Darwin, 1872(Darwin, /1965, emphasizing the phylogenetic consistency of emotional expressions from animals to humans. The book is, as advertised, about expression, and it says little about the selective forces that produced emotions, leaving a persisting anti-Darwinian legacy for emotions research (Fridlund, 1992).However, Darwin clearly recognized that evolution shaped not only the physical characteristics of an organism but also its mental processes and behavioral repertoires. The knowledge that natural selection shaped the brain mechanisms that mediate motivation and emotions offers a solid foundation on which a modern theory of emotions is being built.Although current psychological theories of emotion differ widely in many particulars, almost all now agree that emotions are adaptive responses that arise from mechanisms shaped by selection (Plutchik, 2003). It is now hard to imagine that just four decades ago emotions were generally seen as products of learning unrelated to natural selection. It took Ekman's, Izard's and Eibl-Eibesfeldt's studies of cross-cultural consistency in emotional expression to overthrow that view (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1983;Ekman & Davidson, 1994;Izard, 1991). In retrospect, it is obvious that learning cannot be the whole story and that emotions would not exist unless they were useful. Evolution is not an alternative to other theories of emotions; it is the common foundation for all. Many of its contributions are so simple that they are not always recognized. To highlight the continuing importance of Darwin's theory of natural selection for emotions, we consider its implications for several classic questions. What Emotions AreDefinitions of emotions typically describe proximate aspects such as physiology, subjective experience, or facial expression, often emphasizing one or another component (Ekman & Davidson, 1994;Izard, 2007). An evolutionary approach defines what emotions are in terms of how they came to exist. Emotions are modes of functioning, shaped by natural selection, that coordinate physiological, cognitive, motivational, behavioral, and subjective responses in patterns that increase the ability to meet the adaptive challenges of situations that have recurred over evolutionary time (Nesse, 1990). They are adapta...

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“…The TAS-20 is a 20-item questionnaire with responses rated on a 5-point Likert scale and scores ranging from 20 to 100. The presence of alexithymia can be investigated using a continuous approach that includes both the total score and the scores of the three subscales, namely, difficulties identifying feelings (DIF), difficulties describing feelings (DDF) and externally oriented thinking (EOT), corresponding to the original factor structure [30,38]. Moderate to good internal consistency has been reported for the Danish translation of TAS-20 for both the total scale (Cronbach's a = 0.81) and the three subscales (DIF, Cronbach's a = 0.82; DDF, Cronbach's a = 0.77; EOT, Cronbach's a = 0.66) [30].…”

Section: Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The alexithymia construct was originally developed to specify a set of personality characteristics often observed in patients with somatoform disorders [28][29][30]. Alexithymic individuals are believed to exhibit difficulties in identifying emotions and distinguishing them from bodily sensations of emotional arousal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The theory of alexithymia suggests that cognitive deficits in distinguishing emotions from their physiological correlates may lead the individual to become preoccupied with physiological sensations and misinterpret them as symptoms of disease [31]. The alexithymia construct has found support in recent evidence suggesting a contribution of genetic factors in the development of this trait [30].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Repressive coping and alexithymia in idiopathic environmental intolerance

Skovbjerg

Zachariae

Rasmussen

et al. 2010

Environ Health Prev Med

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Objective To examine if the non-expression of negative emotions (i.e., repressive coping) and differences in the ability to process and regulate emotions (i.e., alexithymia) is associated with idiopathic environmental intolerance (IEI). Methods The study included participants who had previously participated in a general population-based study and reported symptoms of environmental intolerance (n = 787) and patients with IEI (n = 237). The participants completed questionnaires assessing IEI, namely, a measure of repressive coping combining scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS) and the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and a negative affectivity scale (NAS). Multiple, hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted using IEI variables as the dependent variables. Results The TMAS and MCSDS scores were independently associated with the IEI variables, but there was no evidence of a role of the repressive coping construct. While the total alexithymia score was unrelated to IEI, the TAS-20 subscale of difficulties identifying feelings (DIF) was independently associated with symptoms attributed to IEI. Negative affectivity was a strong independent predictor of the IEI variables and a mediator of the association between DIF and IEI. Conclusion Our results provide no evidence for a role of repressive coping in IEI, and our hypothesis of an association with alexithymia was only partly supported. In contrast, strong associations between IEI and negative emotional reactions, defensiveness and difficulties identifying feelings were found, suggesting a need for exploring the influence of these emotional reactions in IEI.

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Genetic and Environmental Factors in Alexithymia: A Population-Based Study of 8,785 Danish Twin Pairs

Cited by 143 publications

References 41 publications

Clinical and psychological moderators of the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on persistent pain in women treated for primary breast cancer – explorative analyses from a randomized controlled trial

Clinical and psychological moderators of the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on persistent pain in women treated for primary breast cancer – explorative analyses from a randomized controlled trial

Evolution, emotions, and emotional disorders.

Repressive coping and alexithymia in idiopathic environmental intolerance

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