Predicting Adjustment During the Transition to College: Alexithymia, Perceived Stress, and Psychological Symptoms

Journal of College Student Development, Nov/Dec 2004 by Kerr, Sandra, Johnson, Vanessa K, Gans, Susan E, Krumrine, Jodi

Fifty-six incoming college students were assessed in a study of the contribution of alexithymia, stress, and psychological symptoms to college adjustment. Alexithymia predicted fall semester adjustment, suggesting that interventions aimed at encouraging awareness and discussion of emotions may improve academic and emotional well-being for students making the transition to college.

Understanding the factors that play a role in the transition to college has important consequences. Successful adjustment, particularly during the first year, predicts academic success (Van Heyningen, 1997), and withdrawal from college often is linked to adjustment difficulties (e.g., Gerdes & Mallinckrodt, 1994; Rickinson & Rutherford, 1995, 1996. College attrition remains a concern (Levitz & Noel, 1989; Tinto, 1987), and drop-out without degree completion rates vary from 30% to 43%. Determination of the variables that predict a successful transition is important for student affairs personnel because, as Baker and Siryk (1986) have demonstrated, even minimal interventions can enhance adjustment. Simply interviewing students regarding their responses to a college adjustment questionnaire was associated with better adjustment during the spring semester and lower dropout rates.

Students' perceptions of stress during the college transition are a consistent predictor of academic, social, and emotional maladjustment (Arthur, 1998; Brissette, Scheier, & Carver, 2002; Jones, Cavert, Snider, & Bruce, 1985; Leong, Bonz, & Zachar, 1997; Pancer, Hunsberger, Pratt, & Alisat, 2000; Pritchard & Wilson, 2003; Wintre & Yaffe, 2000). Students who are apprehensive about the move to college and find it more stressful are at greater risk for adjustment difficulties (Jackson, Pancer, Pratt, & Hunsberger, 2000). Of course, wide individual differences in the perception of stress are apparent (Cohen, Karmarck, & Mermelstein, 1983). Not all individuals experience stressful events in the same way. For example, the intensity of the experience will vary to the extent that an individual believes that he or she has the resources to respond to the Stressor (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Students who experience entering college for the first time as stressful will have more difficulty adapting to the demands of the transition.

When events are experienced as stressful, emotional processing has been hypothesized to play a key role in coping. How one manages the emotions that arise from stressful events is thought to be central to the ability to respond adaptively. Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, & Palfai (2002) describe a three-component model of emotion processing and management (Emotional Attention, Clarity, and Repair) derived from factor analysis. The first component, Attention, involves awareness of one's emotions and a belief that emotions are a positive source of information. The second factor, Clarity, is the ability to identify and discriminate among one's emotions accurately. An individual with high levels of emotional clarity can distinguish sadness from anger, for example, and that individual is comfortable with his or her own feelings. The final factor, Repair, involves the ability to adjust or regulate one's emotions when needed; for example, finding something to be happy about during a period of sadness. Mayer and Salovey (Mayer & Salovey, 1993; Salovey & Mayer, 1990) coined the term "emotional intelligence," which has been popularized by others to describe these joint abilities.

Individuals differ in the extent to which they can process emotional information; further, those differences are linked to distress and adjustment. Salovey et al. (2002) found that those who had difficulty identifying their own emotional reactions reported greater adjustment problems. In addition, higher levels of emotional clarity were associated with a lower likelihood of experiencing distress. In other words, individuals who were confused or at a loss about their emotional reactions had poorer reactions to stress, whereas participants who recognized and differentiated their emotional responses were less distressed. In the present study, we focus primarily on one aspect of the Salovey et al. model of emotion processing. We propose that individual differences in incoming students' ability to identify their own emotions will be linked to college adjustment. Students who report difficulty knowing what they are feeling will be more poorly adjusted than more adept students. To assess this ability, we focus on an aspect of emotional functioning known as alexithymia.

Alexithymia represents disrupted or deficient emotional processing. Labeled an "emotional disconnect," alexithymia has been defined as an inability to identify and describe one's own feelings (Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994; Sifneos, 1975; Taylor, 2000). The word alexithymia translates as "no words for mood" (Norton, 1989). In addition to difficulty identifying and describing emotions, other features include confusing emotions with bodily sensations; meager imaginative capacity; and an externally oriented, concrete cognitive style (Nemiah, Freyberger, and Sifneos, 1976). Conceptually, alexithymia may be understood best as the opposite of emotional intelligence (Salovey et al., 2002; Taylor, 2000). It involves a lack of emotional clarity and awareness. Factor analytic studies of alexithymia find that it is comprised of three main factors: Difficulty Identifying Emotions, Difficulty Describing Emotions, and Externally Oriented Thinking.