著者

後藤 直子 佐藤 健二

出版者

徳島大学

雑誌

徳島大学総合科学部人間科学研究 (ISSN:09199810)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.14, pp.25-39, 2006

---

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experience rates and gender differences of self-injurious behaviors (SIB) and aggressive behaviors among the healthy undergraduates in Japan. In addition, we tested whether alexithymia, which is a personality construct defined as a difficulty in identifying and expressing emotional experience, mediates between childhood maltreatment, SIB, and aggressive behaviors. The sample was comprised of 300 (143 male, 157 female) undergraduate students. Measures were the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, the Self-Injurious Behaviors Questionnaire, which assessed the lifetime frequency of six methods of superficial self-injury, and the Aggressive Behaviors Questionnaire. As results, there were gender differences in 3 variables of emotional abuse, physical neglect and emotional neglect. Multiple Regression analyses revealed that the correlation between maltreatment and alexithymia was positive also in Japan. The relation was not seen between maltreatment and SIB even in the undergraduates in Japan. And, the relation was not found between alexithymia and SIB. Furthermore, the relation was not found between maltreatment, aggressive behaviors and alexithymia in the undergraduates in Japan. It was suggested that alexithymia does not contribute significantly as the mediational factor between childhood maltreatment, SIB, and aggressive behaviors among undergraduates in Japan. One reason that the hypothesis of this study was not supported may be that the quality of the SIB in this sample differed from that of previous study.