Associations among Childhood Trauma, Alexithymia, and Empathy: A Bayesian Network Analysis

Traumatic events in childhood can have a significant negative impact on a child's development and adolescent behaviour. Recent years have witnessed the emergence of evidence on positive post-traumatic growth, especially an increase in empathy and prosocial behaviour. But the relationship between factors of childhood trauma and empathy remains ambiguous. Applying The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, The Toronto Alexithymia Scale, The Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy and The Empathy Quotient to measure, this study investigated the relationships amongst childhood trauma, alexithymia, and empathy in a sample of 1004 Chinese adults (female: 487, males: 517). Undirected network and Bayesian network were illustrated and tested. The results of network analysis showed that childhood trauma was negatively correlated with cognitive empathy, but not with emotional empathy. At the same time, Bayesian network suggested the most predictive effect of alexithymia in the whole network. Traumatic childhood experiences may have a negative impact on an individual's ability to identify and express self-emotions, thereby empathize. In the quest to improve empathic abilities among individuals suffered from childhood trauma, alexithymia might serve as a promising target for intervention.

The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-026-00837-y.