title: The Twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale--II. Convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity.
abstract: A previous paper described the development of the twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and reported preliminary evidence of reliability and factorial validity of the scale. This paper describes a study that further evaluated the construct validity of the TAS-20 by examining its relationship with measures of personality traits theoretically related or unrelated to the alexithymia construct, as well as its relationship with an observer-rated measure of alexithymia. Evidence of convergent and discriminant validity of the TAS-20 was demonstrated in samples of university students by a pattern of correlations with the scales of the NEO Personality Inventory and separate measures of psychological mindedness and need-for-cognition that was consistent with theoretical predictions. The concurrent validity of the scale was demonstrated by positive correlations with observer-ratings of alexithymia in a sample of behavioural medicine out-patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Bagby
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Parker
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D001364:Awareness; D001521:Behavior Therapy; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005201:Fantasy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D008875:Middle Aged; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results