CEN-CE

Data were collected from 659 Chinese university students (aged 17–23) using validated Chinese versions of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF), Experiences in Close Relationships inventory (ECR), Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI-C) to assess childhood emotional neglect(CEN), attachment anxiety(AA), alexithymia(AL), and cognitive empathy(CE), respectively. We propose four sequentially progressive hypotheses: childhood emotional neglect directly impairs cognitive empathy; this relationship is mediated by individual attachment anxiety; it is also mediated by alexithymia; crucially, attachment anxiety and alexithymia constitute a sequential mediating pathway, whereby childhood emotional neglect first leads to heightened attachment anxiety, which in turn exacerbates an individual's alexithymia, ultimately significantly impairing their cognitive empathy capacity.