Prediction of social anxiety based on childhood trauma with the mediating role of emotional alexithymia in adolescents

Alireza Zare Davijani¹ Solmaz Dabiri² Sahar Jabari Moghadam³ Parveen Fakhri⁴ Zainab Malareza⁵

1) Faculty member, Payam Noor University, Tehran, Iran
2) PhD student in Psychology, Department of Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Rudehen Branch, Tehran, Iran.
3) Senior expert in school counseling, Islamic Azad University, Roudhan Branch, Tehran, Iran
4) Master s student in Educational Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Islamshahr Branch, Tehran, Iran
5) Master of Family Psychology, Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran

IOI Code : XEBH-HBFFA
Publication : 2nd National Conference on Clinical Psychology of Children and Adolescents(cpcauma2.ir)
Abstract :
    Social anxiety during adolescence can disrupt the process of social development. The present study was conducted with the aim of predicting social anxiety based on childhood trauma with the mediating role of alexithymia in adolescents.The present study was descriptive-correlational and structural equation modeling. The statistical population of the present study included all teenagers in Tehran in 1401. Among these adolescents who scored higher than 40 in the social anxiety questionnaire, 102 people were selected as a sample and they were asked to answer the childhood trauma questionnaire and the alexithymia scale. The results of the research showed that the correlation coefficient between social anxiety with childhood trauma and alexithymia is significant at the level of 0.01. Also, alexithymia had a mediating role in the relationship between childhood trauma and social anxiety in adolescents. Based on this, in the relationship between childhood trauma and social anxiety in adolescents, emotional ataxia had a mediating role. Therefore, childhood trauma can help to increase social anxiety in adolescents through increasing the level of alexithymia.

Keywords : childhood trauma social anxiety adolescent alexithymia