Construct validity of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale

Previous reports have documented the development of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) in addition to evaluating its reliability and validity. The present paper describes two studies designed to further evaluate the construct validity of the TAS. In Study I 117 university students completed the TAS and the three subscales of the Short Imaginal Processes Inventory. In Study II 74 students completed the TAS and measures of ego strength, anger expression, and physical symptoms. In both studies the pattern of correlations between the TAS and the various psychological measures converged and diverged in a theoretically meaningful fashion, providing further evidence for the validity of the TAS and of the alexithymia construct.