The development and evaluation of a brief form of the Normative Male Alexithymia Scale (NMAS-BF)

The current study extended prior work on the Normative Male Alexithymia Scale (NMAS), a unidimensional measure of some men's limitations in expressing emotion that results from gender-based socialization informed by the masculine norm of restrictive emotionality (RE). Data (N = 505 men) were from Amazon Mechanical Turk participants. First, dimensionality was reassessed using exploratory factor analysis, which supported the unidimensional structure. Second, based on these results, three 6-item models of the NMAS-Brief Form (NMAS-BF) were developed, based on classical test theory (CTT), CTT optimized to avoid item redundancy, and item response theory (IRT). Third, the relative fits of these versions were assessed using confirmatory factor analysis on a separate part of the sample, finding that the IRT version was the best fitting model. Fourth, evidence for reliability for the NMAS-BF items (α = .80) and validity was found. Convergent evidence for validity was supported by a significant, moderate, positive correlation between the latent constructs of the NMAS-BF and Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20), which measures clinical alexithymia. Concurrent evidence for validity of the latent factor of the NMAS-BF was assessed in a structural regression model which found that the NMAS-BF uniquely predicted RE scores when TAS-20 scores were included in the model. Finally, incremental evidence for validity was examined using hierarchical multiple regression, finding that NMAS-BF scores significantly predicted variance in RE scores above and beyond that predicted by TAS-20 scores. The results are discussed in relation to prior literature, future research directions, applications to counseling practice, and limitations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).