Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20: Examining 18 Competing Factor Structure Solutions in a U.S. Sample and a Philippines Sample.

The Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 is arguably the most utilized measure of alexithymia. Although a three-factor solution has been found by numerous studies, these findings are not universal. This article examined and compared 18 competing factor structures for the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, which included between one and four correlated latent factor structures, common methods models that accounts for negatively worded items, and bifactor models. Although the two-factor bifactor model with a common methods factor had the better model fit compared with the other 17 models examined, it still did not achieve the requisites of a good model fit across all model fit indices. Issues stemmed primarily from the externally oriented thinking factor and the negatively worded items. Post hoc analyses indicated that a two-factor bifactor model with the negatively worded items dropped achieved the requisites of a good model fit and can be treated as a unidimensional measure despite the presence of multidimensionality. Multiple-group analysis indicated that the factor loadings were invariant across U.S. and Philippines samples. After controlling for noninvariance at the item intercept level, the Philippines sample had a higher alexithymia general score compared with the U.S. sample.