Type D Personality and Alexithymia: Common Characteristics of Two Different Constructs. Implications for Research and Clinical Practice

Abstract

In the last few decades, particular attention has been paid to the role of personality specific traits that can affect the loss of health, i.e., Type D personality and Alexithymia. They have been conceptualized in a different period, this means that they are different both for their theoretical positions and their empirical studies. Some authors have speculated that there is a potential conceptual overlap between Type D personality and alexithymia constructs but there is a shortcoming in the literature. The aim of the study was to examine the potential overlap between the constructs of type D personality and alexithymia, replicating previous two studies, to extend these findings to Italian population. The participants were 247 Italian adults (males = 43%), recruited in primary health care practices of Palermo. All participants did not have chronic diseases during tests administration. They ranged in age from 35 to 69 years old (M = 52.34 years, SD = 9.76). Participants were administered Type D Personality Scale (DS-14) and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). A series of confirmatory factor analyses was performed to evaluate the factorial structure underlying the TAS-20 and DS-14 items. Globally results showed that alexithymia and type D personality are distinct constructs, but they are also strictly positively related with each other. Negative affectivity (NA) was highly correlated with Difficulties in identifying feelings and Difficulties in describing feelings, while Social inhibition (SI) was highly correlated with Difficulties in describing feelings. These results are consistent with those of other studies conducted in this area. Future research should consider evaluating the relationship between a deficit of affect regulation and type D personality to improve the effectiveness of interventions of health cure.

Negative Affect, Type D Personality, Quality of Life, and Dysfunctional Outcomes of Total Knee Arthroplasty

“…Denollet [12] depicts TDP as a personality configuration predisposing to reticence, distress, and conscious suppression of emotions. NA is described as depression, dysphoria, anxiety, hostility, anger, or irritability [13, 14]. SI, on the contrary, is understood as a tendency to not express these negative emotions to others [14].…”

“…NA is described as depression, dysphoria, anxiety, hostility, anger, or irritability [13, 14]. SI, on the contrary, is understood as a tendency to not express these negative emotions to others [14]. The synergism between these two personality characteristics is deemed to maximize the experience of chronic stress in those affected [14, 15].…”

“…SI, on the contrary, is understood as a tendency to not express these negative emotions to others [14]. The synergism between these two personality characteristics is deemed to maximize the experience of chronic stress in those affected [14, 15]. Therefore, TDP does not necessarily surprise by its link to chronic stress-mediated medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease [14, 16].…”

“…The synergism between these two personality characteristics is deemed to maximize the experience of chronic stress in those affected [14, 15]. Therefore, TDP does not necessarily surprise by its link to chronic stress-mediated medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease [14, 16]. Lambertus et al [17] have recently shown that there is a marked comorbidity of TDP with psychiatric disorders, mainly social phobia, dysthymia, and personality disorders (e.g., avoidant or compulsive).…”

A Review on the Validity of Type-D Personality: From the Aspect of Construct and Predictability

“….In response to criticism about how SI differs from existing concept of introversion or repressive copying style, Denollet stated that while people who use defense mechanisms such as repression or denial reported less subjective pain or stress in the self-reporting test, people with high SI actually complain pain and do not showed defensive tendency[9][15]. After examining the independence of the two construct between type-D tendency and neurotic tendency of alexithymia which is closely related to defensive copying style of repression, Denollet concluded that the two personality construct were empirically separate psychological constructs[16][17][18].…”