Not all high-alexithymia individuals are risk-takers: private self-consciousness moderates the relationship between alexithymia and risk-taking behaviours

Abstract

This article concerns the influence which alexithymia exerts on risk-taking. In particular, alexithymia is seen as a factor which encourages risk-taking as it allows high-alexithymia individuals to feel emotions which are sufficiently intense to compensate for their deficit of emotional awareness. In this connection, we make the hypothesis that alexithymia’s influence is moderated by private self-consciousness (SC). This is because private SC increases the likelihood that high-alexithymia individuals become aware of their risk-taking tendency and that this tendency is discrepant with their pro-safety standards (‘putting someone in danger is bad’) or self-schemas (‘I am a responsible person’). Thus, private SC is likely to enable and motivate them to consciously regulate their behaviour in a safer direction. This hypothesis was empirically tested by a questionnaire amongst 372 French drivers, whose SC, alexithymia, as well as their current adoption of eight risky behaviours (with a more detailed analysis of speeding). The use of conditional process analyses reveal no main effects of alexithymia and private SC but strong interaction effects, while controlling for other predictors. More precisely, when private SC is low high-alexithymia individuals break more the speed limits and adopt more frequently risky behaviours than low-alexithymia drivers. Conversely, when private SC is high, they are less risk-prone. As practical implication, we recommend the use of techniques increasing private SC amongst high-alexithymia persons.

Keywords:

• alexithymia
• private self-consciousness
• risk-taking
• driving

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Significant interaction effect on the mean frequency of risky behaviour (b = −.24, CI: −.45/−.03, p = .026, ΔR² = .01) and marginally significant interaction effect on the overall speeding behaviour (b = −.28, CI: −.57/.02, p = .065, ΔR² = .01). Simple slopes analyses: at the M − 1 SD value of the moderator the effects were marginally significant (overall speeding behaviour: b = .20, CI: −.02/.42, p = .069; mean frequency of risky behaviour: b = .14, CI: −.01/.30, p = .079), but the JN technique shows that the effects were significant with a moderator value ≤−.864 for the overall speeding behaviour and ≤−.673 for the mean frequency of risky behaviours. When private SC was medium (M) alexithymia was not significantly associated with both behavioural variables (overall speeding behaviour: b = .06, CI: −.10/.22, p = .45; mean frequency of risky behaviour: b = .02, CI: −.09/.13, p = .72), nor when private SC was high (M + 1 SD) (overall speeding behaviour: b = −.08, CI: −.30/.14, p = .46; mean frequency of risky behaviour: b = −.10, CI: −.26/.05, p = .19). No significance regions in the upper part of the distribution were found according to the JN technique.