Exploring Relationships between Coping Styles, Alexithymia, and Cardiovascular Emotional Dampening

Abstract

The current study explored potential relationships between three coping styles (problem- focused coping, emotion-approach coping, and emotion-avoidant coping) and two psychological constructs dubbed alexithymia and cardiovascular emotional dampening. Resting blood pressure was collected from twenty-five healthy, normotensive adult college students along with surveys administered to measure alexithymia and levels of usage of the three coping styles. Results showed there was one significant negative correlation between problem-focused coping and alexithymia symptoms, possibly indicating an inverse relationship between alexithymia and problem-focused coping. No other significant correlations related to the hypotheses were found. However, this study was underpowered due to the small sample size, and the results should be considered with the likelihood of a false discovery in mind. Implications of the study are discussed as well as limitations and directions for future research.