Social desirability and alexithymia.

We examined the influence of alexithymia on social desirability among 215 Japanese college students. Alexithymic-scoring students who showed a lack of communicating their feelings to other people were likely to indicate higher scores on hostility and lower scores on social desirability. The scores on hostility were negatively correlated with those on social desirability. Recent studies have shown that alexithymia is positively correlated not only with neurotic and psychotic conditions but also with neuroticism. Unfavorable expression of hostile feelings by alexithymic-scoring students may be related to their lower scores on social desirability.