Family Communication Patterns and Communicative Responses to Jealousy: The Mediating Role of Alexithymia

Abstract

Using family communication patterns theory, the current study proposed a mediating structural model between family communication patterns, alexithymia, and communicative responses to jealousy. Using a college student sample, the results largely supported the predicted model in terms of both direct and indirect effects. Specifically, both family communication patterns were significantly related to alexithymia, while alexithymia was significantly related to the latent constructs of destructive, avoidant, and rival focused responses to jealousy. Indirect effects were also found between both family communication patterns and all four latent constructs of communicative responses to jealousy. Finally, the family communication patterns also interacted to predict alexithymia. Several conclusions and directions for future research are discussed.

Notes

¹ The nonsignificant pathways that were removed included conformity to the jealous latent variable in all four models, conversation to the jealous latent variable in every model except for constructive, and the interaction term to the jealous latent variable in every model except for rival-focused. Model fit indices and path estimates for the initial models are available upon request.