Alexithymia and Attachment Insecurities in Impulsive Aggression

The aims of this study were to develop a new measure of impulsive aggressiveness,
and to assess whether this measure was associated with deficits in mentalized
affectivity and adult attachment styles in a sample of 637 non-clinical
participants. Extending Fonagy and Bateman’s (2004) hypothesis, the mediating
role of poor affectivity mentalization in the relationship between insecure
attachment styles and impulsive aggression was also evaluated. Selected insecure
attachment styles (R2
adjusted ¼ .18, p 5 .001) and deficits in mentalized affectivity
(R2
adjusted ¼ .25, p 5 .001) were significantly associated with impulsive aggressiveness.
The overall regression model accounted for roughly 33% of the variance
in impulsive aggressiveness. Mentalization deficits significantly mediated the
effects of attachment styles on impulsive aggressiveness, although effect size
measures suggested that only partial mediation occurred.