The Big Five personality dimensions and mental health: The mediating role of alexithymia Mohammad Atari*, Mahsa Yaghoubirad Department of Psychology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 3 March 2016 Received in revised form 19 June 2016 Accepted 17 August 2016 Available online xxx Keywords: The Big Five Alexithymia Mental health Structural equation modeling Mediation A B S T R A C T The role of personality constructs on mental health has attracted research attention in the last few decades. The Big Five personality traits have been introduced as parsimonious dimensions of non- pathological traits. The five-factor model of personality includes neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness to experience. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between the Big Five dimensions and mental health considering the mediating role of alexithymia as an important emotional-processing construct. A total of 257 participants were recruited from non-clinical settings in the general population. All participants completed the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28). Structural equation modeling was utilized to examine the hypothesized mediated model. Findings indicated that the Big Five personality dimensions could significantly predict scores of alexithymia. Moreover, alexithymia could predict mental health scores as measured by indices of depression, anxiety, social functioning, and somatic symptoms. The fit indices (GFI = 0.94; CFI = 0.91; TLI = 0.90; RMSEA = 0.071; CMIN/df = 2.29) indicated that the model fits the data. Therefore, the relationship between the Big Five personality dimensions and mental health is mediated by alexithymia. ã 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The collection of features of what is now considered as alexithymia were first noted in report of clinical observations of psychosomatic patients (Reusch, 1948). These features included an immature ability to appropriately recognize and explain emotions. Reusch (1948) referred to these clinical characteristics as “infantile personality”. Alexithymia is characterized by cognitive and affec- tive deficits in recognition of subjective emotional states (Taylor, 1984). Lack of differentiated emotional awareness and concrete cognitive style are usually experienced in alexithymia. The construct of alexithymia generally includes four key features: (a) undifferentiated feelings and bodily sensations of emotional states; (b) difficulty in identification and description of feelings; (c) limited imaginal capacity; and (d) an externally oriented concrete thinking style (Nemiah and Sifneos, 1970; Taylor et al., 1991). High prevalence of alexithymia in the general population (13%; Salminen et al., 1999) and clinical samples (McGillivray et al., 2016) has made alexithymia an interesting research topic in the past three decades. High levels of alexithymia have been linked to depression (Honkalampi et al., 2000), personality disorders (Berenbaum, 1996), low levels of creativity (Czernecka and Szymura, 2008), somatization (Mattila et al., 2008), social anxiety (Fukunishi et al., 1997), obsessive-compulsive symptoms (Rufer et al., 2006), boredom (Eastwood et al., 2007), relationship dissatisfaction (Holder et al., 2015), and sleep disturbances (Bauermann et al., 2008). The associations of alexithymia with personality and mental health are considered interesting topics in psychosomatic research. Broadly, studies suggest that personality (e.g., the Big Five personality dimensions) is related to alexithymia (Timoney and Holder, 2013). Investigating the association between the Big Five personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism; McCrae and Costa, 1989) and alexithymia may particularly provide insight into the nature of alexithymia and contribute to develop more effective treatments for individuals with alexithymia (Wise et al., 1992). In an important study, Picardi et al. (2005) showed that alexithymia is correlated with lower levels of extraversion, emotional stability, openness, agreeableness, and reward dependence. Moreover, a positive relationship has been found between alexithymia and neuroticism, particularly with the facets of anxiety, depression, * Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ale-Ahmad Bridge, Guisha, Tehran, 14155-6456, Iran. E-mail addresses: Mohammad.attari@yahoo.com, Atari@ut.ac.ir (M. Atari). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2016.08.008 1876-2018/ã 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Asian Journal of Psychiatry 24 (2016) 59–64 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Asian Journal of Psychiatry journal homepa ge: www.elsev ier.com/locate/ajp