The Relationship Between Diculty in Emotion Regulation and Alexithymia With Hostile Attribution Bias and Anger in in Adolescent Boys With High Bullying: a Path Analysis

Adolescence is one of the critical stages and the period of evolution of human physical and mental development that occurs between childhood and youth. Successful completion of this course plays a role in mental health and personality. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of Diculty in Emotion Regulation and Alexithymia with Hostile attribution bias and Anger in adolescent boys with bullying, which plays an important role in developmental outcomes in adolescents. Methods 345 male students in Zanjan, iran participated in this study.To measure self-reporting tools, Gertz and Roemer(2004) Diculty in emotion regulation Questionnaire, Toronto Alexithymia Questionnaire(TAS-20), McBril, Milich & Handley (2003 hostile attribution bias Questionnaire, and Eiseng and Glenn Wilson (2003) Aggression Questionnaire(2009) were evaluated. Path analysis method was used to analyze the causal model. The results show a good t of the model with the experimental data. The results also showed a direct and signicant effect between anger and Diculty in Emotion Regulation (β =0.19, p <0.05), Alexithymia (β = 0.17, p <0.05) and Hostile attribution bias in male adolescents (β =0.32, p<0.05) with high bullying. As well the mediating role of Hostile attribution bias in the relationship between Diculties in emotion regulation with anger is signicant (β = 0.32). Moreover the mediating role of Hostile attribution bias in the relationship between Alexithymia with anger is signicant (β = 0.20). These results contribute to the theoretical knowledge of how Alexithymia and hostile attribution bias affect anger in adolescent populations. The ndings supported the mediating role of hostile attribution bias in the relationship between Diculty in Emotion Regulation and Alexithymia with anger in adolescents. All three predictor variables are trainable and can be used in anger reduction and bullying interventions in adolescents.


Introduction
Adolescence is a transitional period of development between childhood and adulthood, adolescents are described with unique behaviors (1,2). Adolescence is an important developmental stage that is signi cant in terms of physical importance, change, and cognitive, behavioral, and social vulnerability, and one of the developmental challenges that occurred during this period (3). One of the common challenges in this period is the phenomenon of bullying, which is especially observed in boys (1,4).
Bullying is a widespread public health problem worldwide (5,6). Bullying is an aggressive, intentional, and repetitive behavior committed by a group or individual against one or more victims and usually involves unintended purpose (s) that causes humiliation and distress and can have consequences (7)(8)(9).
Bullying in general may lead to victimization (10), In addition to being widespread, bullying is associated with a number of negative consequences, including depression (6).
Anger is an unpleasant state that is often de ned as a negative emotional response to perceived stimulation (11,12). In addition to paying more attention to negative details, anger also causes bias in information processing (11,13). Anger is a strong stimulus for aggressive actions (14) Which increases aggression mainly through purposeful manipulation or threatening of interpersonal relationships (15,16) includes harm, violation of other rights, theft and bullying (17).
The important point is that negative stimuli do not naturally produce anger, but Cognitive processes such as evaluation, expectations, and private speech also interfere. (18). Aggressive people tend to describe the motives of others as vague and provocative rather than harmful or accidental. This tendency is called hostile attribution bias (19,20). Identifying and recognizing negative situations and correctly assessing the intentions of individuals play a decisive role(21) that indirect biases against the existence of such siding reduce the social performance of adolescents (19) This bias is more used in the period of adolescent development (16).
Health literacy is de ned as the knowledge and competence of individuals to successfully manage emotions (22,23). The di culty is the most important aspect of emotion regulation. Di culty in Emotion Regulation includes lack of awareness, Not accepting emotions, and dysfunctional and ineffective behavioral responses (24). Emotion regulation is a meta-diagnostic structure that is a special form of selfcontrol and resulting from experience (24)(25)(26).
Another variable in the transition from thought to anger is Alexithymia, which comes from a Greek word meaning lack of a word to describe emotion, Was invented by sifneos in 1972 (27) Which refers to a disorder in the identi cation and expression of emotions (28,29) Which has shown a weak communication (30) And it consists of two aspects, cognitive and emotional (31,32). Alexithymia is characterized by disturbances in emotional regulation (33). Alexithymia is a psychological trait, not only is there Di culty in Emotion Regulation, but there is also a defect in the cognitive processing of emotions, so emotions remain indistinguishable (29,30,34,35). Lan (36) states about people with Alexithymia that these people express emotional distress through physical complaints (35). Which is characterized by di culties in identifying and describing their emotional state and is associated with de cits in empathy and emotional awareness. It also affects social functioning and can be associated with problems in re ecting mental states(37), Ellis (38) showed Alexithymia was positively associated with aggression in students, Also in Conway (39) research Children who have negative emotions and have di culty in emotion regulation are more likely than other children to engage in aggressive behaviors, On the other hand, according to the results of Van Bockstaele et al (20), the Hostile attribution bias can be targeted by using training techniques, and such changes in training bias may reduce aggression in adolescents, In this regard, the results of the study Xua, Chen and Xia (40) argued that child abuse may cause immediate aggression during a provocative event through Hostile attribution bias and lead to delayed aggression after interpersonal con ict through ruminant Be angry.
Adolescent disorders can be one of the strongest predictors of depression, substance abuse, and dropping out of college in adulthood. According to the existing studies, the relationship between the Hostile attribution bias in adults and university students has been considered and studied. While the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between di culty in emotion regulation and alexithymia with hostile attribution bias and anger in in adolescent boys with high bullying.

Research Method
The present study wants to investigate the relationship between di culty in emotion regulation and alexithymia with hostile attribution bias and anger its method is correlation, speci cally path analysis.

Participants
The participants were includes adolescents aged 12 to 18 years in Zanjan, Iran 2021. Using Cochran's formula, the sample size was estimated to be 345. The inclusion criteria included informed consent and con dentiality of the questionnaires online without mentioning the name, being a teenager, and exclusion criteria for the research were distorted and incomplete questionnaires. The convenience sampling was used to select the sample. Recruitment occurred from February 1th to April 10th 2021. Out of 345 participants in this study, 35 (10%) were 12 years old, 38 (11%) were 13 years old, 47 (13%) were 14 years old, 55 (15%) were 15 years old, 49 (14%) 16 years old, 61 people (17%) are 17 years old, 60 people (17%) are 18 years old. More details are reported in Table 1.  (43) and has three subscales (Di culty in recognizing emotions, di culty in emotion regulation and objective thinking) and 20 items. The items to score based on a ve-point Likert scale from a score of 1 for "strongly disagree" to 5 for "strongly agree". The minimum and maximum scores are 20 and 100, respectively. And Cronbach's alpha coe cient in Chen, Xu, Chen and Chang (44) research for the whole scale was 0.83, test-retest reliability coe cient was 0.87 and the correlation of the three factor coe cients with the total scale score was from 0.72 to 0.82 Also, in Ghorbani and Bagheri (45)

Results
Descriptive statistics including mean and standard deviation as well as correlation matrix for the relationship between variables are reported in Table 1.  (P<0.05). The correlation between anger and di culty in emotion regulation is 0.29, with Alexithymia is 0.19 and with the Hostile attribution bias is 0.36. The correlation between di culty in emotion regulation and Di culty in Emotion Regulation and Hostile attribution bias is 0.17 and 0.26, respectively. Table 3. Path coe cients for direct, indirect and total effect of Di culties in emotion regulation, Alexithymia and Hostile attribution bias on anger Psychological well-being Table 3 shows the direct, indirect, and total effects for the relationship of the variables in the model. In Figure 1, the standard parameter and the value of t are reported.
The model t indices are reported in Table 3.  Table 4 shows that all the t indices of the nal path model, except for the signi cance of the chi-square test, have a good t. Of course, given that the chi-square test is sensitive to the sample size, its signi cance is not so important. Therefore, the model drawn in Fig1 can be generalized to the general community.

Discussion
Adolescence is one of the most important stages in a person's life. This period can be called a period of storm and stress; this period has a wide range of con icts and challenges. The present study is based on one of the common challenges of adolescence, which is bullying in schools. To address this issue in the present study, The Relationship between Di culty in Emotion Regulation and Hostile attribution bias, Di culty in Emotion Regulation and anger, Di culty in Emotion Regulation and Alexithymia, Alexithymia with Hostile attribution bias, Alexithymia and anger and anger and Hostile attribution bias have been investigated. The results supported the signi cance of all relationships.
One of the signi cant paths was Di culty in Emotion Regulation and Hostile attribution bias. The path coe cient for this relationship was 0.17. This nding is consistent with the ndings of Kawabata, Crick, & Hamaguchi(52); Kokkinos et al (16). Explaining this nding, we can point out that hostile attribution bias plays an important role in the processing of various information. When information is ambiguous, the intent of others is Hostile attribution bias, which not only can lead to negative emotional reactions, but also facilitates negative emotions in ambiguous situations of hostile attribution and retrieving aggressive responses (19,20). On the other hand, it is di cult to effectively regulate emotions, social adjustment and mental health (53).
According to this study intentions, the Di culty in Emotion Regulation and anger is one of the signi cant pathways, that the path coe cient for this relationship obtained equal to 0.22. This nding is consistent with the results of research by Ersan (54), Garofalo et al(55) and Conway (39). In describing this nding can note to emotion disorder i.e. the ineffective use of strategies related to stress, depression, and aggressive behavior. Aggressive behaviors are referring to behaviors that are intended to harm or manipulate intentionally. People are strive to maintain, control, and enhance emotional experience to regulate emotions (16).
Another nding of the study showed a positive relationship between di culty in emotion regulation and Alexithymia 0.09. This nding is consistent with the research of Pandey, Saxena and Dubai(31), Chen, Xu, Jing and Chan (44). Alexithymia is associated with persistent irregularities, and people with Alexithymia and Di culty in Emotion Regulation have not proper function in recognizing the emotions of those people are around them, and they are characterized by reduced emotions as well as mastery of cognitive emotions (32).
According to obtained results in this study, there is positive relationship between Alexithymia and the Hostile attribution bias equal to 0.17. The present nding is consistent with the research of Kafetsios and Hess(30), Hoffman et al (37) and Bergman et al (28). According to this nding people with Alexithymia have di culty in emotion regulation and describing the inner and outer emotional emotions, this means that emotional cues are less noticeable. Thus, Alexithymia may reduce the tendency to emotions attention. Alexithymia has two emotional and cognitive components. The elements of the emotional component are the reduction of recognize and describe emotional feeling's ability and the expression of oneself and others experiences. Furthermore, the cognitive component of Alexithymia is characterized by low and weak introspective thinking (28).
Based on the ndings of the present study, there is a positive relationship between alexithymia and anger that is 0.15 which is consistent with the studies of Velotti et al (56), Farah, Ling, Raine, Yang and Schug (15) and Sfeir, Geara, Hallit and Obeid (2). In expressing this nding, we can point out that alexithymia is a persistent trait that leads people to have di culty in emotion regulation and describing feelings and emotions, and on the other hand, anger is an emotion that we experience in our daily lives and it is a different feeling from negative feelings. The presence of emotional resentment can play a signi cant role in highlighting this anger. (17,56).
According to the results, there is a positive relationship between anger and bias in hostile attribution bias to 0.32 This nding is consistent with the research of Weeks et al (13), Kokkinos et al (16) and Van Bockstaele et al (20). The nding shows hostile attribution bias is seeming as a diagnostic stimulus that motivates people with anger and aggression problems make their behaviors vague and trigger defense mechanisms against people around them; and making hostile attribution bias as a secret process (57).
This study investigated the male adolescents bullying, and cannot be generalized to female adolescents.
In this study, particular questionnaire was used to collect data. Therefore, the limitation of the research tool to the questionnaire is a limitation of the present study. These ndings can be used as research support to enhance theoretical models related to psychological problems in adolescents and students.
It is recommended, studies can investigate the female adolescents bullying in schools, and in addition of a questionnaire, an interview can be used too; in this regard the results will be more accurate. Furthermore, more adolescents can participate in future studies, so that the results can be generalized to larger communities.

Declarations
Ethics approval and consent to participate All participants gave informed written consent with the right to withdraw at any time. In the rst part of the questionnaire, there was a paragraph introducing the study aim and assuring con dentiality of data by anonymous questionnaires. Participants did not experience any harm and they were allowed to stop their participation during the data collection process. The executive process of this research has been approved by the Ethics Committee of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences under No. IR.KUMS.REC.1400.608.

Consent for publication
Not applicable Availability of data and materials The datasets during and/or analyzed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests

Funding
The authors received no speci c funding for this work. Figure 1 Path diagram for relationships between variables with standard parameter (and value T)