Abstract
BackgroundThe Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) was developed to assess five levels of emotional awareness: bodily sensations, action tendencies, single emotions, blends of emotion, and combinations of blends. It is a paper and pencil performance questionnaire that presents 20 emotion-evoking scenes. We developed a Japanese version of the LEAS (LEAS-J), and its reliability and validity were examined.MethodsThe LEAS-J level was independently assessed by two researchers who scored each response according to the LEAS scoring manual. High inter-rater reliability and internal consistency were obtained for the LEAS-J. Measures were socioeconomic status, LEAS-J, Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20), Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). TAS-20, IRI and NEO-FFI were the measures used to explore the construct validity of LEAS-J, as it was predicted that higher scores on the LEAS-J would be related to fewer alexithymic features, greater empathetic ability, and a greater sense of cooperation with others. Questionnaires were completed by 344 university students.ResultsThe criterion-referenced validity was determined: a significant negative relationship was found with the externally-oriented thinking scores of TAS-20, and positive relationships were found with fantasy, perspective taking, and empathic concern on IRI and with extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness on NEO-FFI.ConclusionsConsistent with our expectations, the findings provide evidence that the LEAS-J has good reliability and validity. In addition, women had significantly higher scores than men on LEAS-J, showing that the gender difference identified in the original LEAS was cross-culturally consistent.
Highlights
The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) was developed to assess five levels of emotional awareness: bodily sensations, action tendencies, single emotions, blends of emotion, and combinations of blends
scenario are oneself (Self)-reporting has serious limitations, when testing individuals with a limited and undifferentiated capacity for describing their emotional experience, namely, alexithymic subjects. It is questionable whether, when completing the items, these patients are sufficiently aware of their own difficulties to accurately rate themselves on their difficulty in emotional awareness and expression of their own feelings. In contrast to such self-reported measurements, examinees do not have to assess their own abilities regarding emotional awareness when using the LEAS; their descriptions are rated by examiners who place them into the appropriate levels of emotional awareness
The students were told that any student who registered to participate would be paid a small fee for completing the questionnaires at home and for sending them back by mail. Because it was too time-consuming in the classroom setting to complete the test battery that included the numerous short essays required by LEAS, the participants were requested to complete them at home
Summary
The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) was developed to assess five levels of emotional awareness: bodily sensations, action tendencies, single emotions, blends of emotion, and combinations of blends. Self-reporting has serious limitations, when testing individuals with a limited and undifferentiated capacity for describing their emotional experience, namely, alexithymic subjects It is questionable whether, when completing the items, these patients are sufficiently aware of their own difficulties to accurately rate themselves on their difficulty in emotional awareness and expression of their own feelings. In contrast to such self-reported measurements, examinees do not have to assess their own abilities regarding emotional awareness when using the LEAS; their descriptions are rated by examiners who place them into the appropriate levels of emotional awareness. LEAS is a performance-based measure for evaluating such an emotional capacity that is scored by trained raters who judge the written responses according to a strictly defined scoring structure
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