Extraversion and Alexithymia

The present study focuses upon assessing the status of alexithymia in male postgraduate students having varied positions on the scale of extraversion. The revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, EPQ-R Short Scale, was initially administered to 200 postgraduate students. On the basis of their scores on the extraversion scale they were selected as participants and were assigned to two groups: extraverts and introverts. Both the groups were administered the alexithymia scale. The comparison of the scores revealed that introverts had higher scores on two factors of alexithymia, viz; difficulty identifying feelings (DIF) and difficulty describing feelings (DDF); conversely extraverts had higher scores on the factor of externally oriented thinking (EOT). The findings were discussed in the light of findings from earlier studies as well as the theoretical assumptions underlying the construct of extraversion.