Understanding the Role of Demographics in Emotional Processing: A Study on Alexithymia across University Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate how university students' demographics affect their alexithymia. Convenient sampling was used to reach a sample size of 482. A demographic questionnaire and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20-UR) were used to collect data. SPSS-24 was used for both descriptive statistics and neural network analysis. Alexithymia is significantly predicted by demographic characteristics, according to the study's normalized importance results. Specifically, the best indicator of alexithymia was the father's occupation (Importance =.172; 100%) followed by birth order (Importance =.144; 83.4%). The influence of parent’s education was the moderate strong (mother's education, Importance =.127; 73.4% and father's education Importance =.124; 71.9%). Alexithymia was also influenced by socioeconomic position (Importance =.081; 47.1%) and number of siblings (Importance =.105; 61%). Age (Importance =.081; 46.9%), family system (Importance =.059; 34.3%), and residential status (Importance =.057; 33.1%) was also altering alexithymia. The least significant variable was gender (Importance =.049; 28.7%). It was determined that the most important demographic predictors of alexithymia were the father's occupation, birth order, and parental education, while gender and residential status had little relevance.