Table 6_Secular temporal shifts in alexithymia among Chinese college students (2003–2024): a cross-temporal meta-analysis.docx

Multiple lagged macrosocial indicators showed bivariate observational covariation with elevated alexithymia scores. Multivariate adjusted meta-regression further revealed differentiated correlational profiles linking economic predictors to distinct alexithymia subdimensions. Supplementary sensitivity tests and publication-bias assessments were implemented to evaluate the robustness of these observational patterns, alongside explicit acknowledgment of methodological limitations intrinsic to observational meta-analytic research.

Aggregated findings document secular increasing patterns in emotion-identification and emotion-description deficits across pooled college-student samples, as well as observational temporal covariation with multifaceted macrosocial transformations. The present results reflect population-level correlational covariation and provide no evidence for causal connections or intra-individual longitudinal shifts.</p>Systematic review registration<p>This cross‑temporal meta‑analysis is observational social‑science evidence‑synthesis and falls outside the eligibility scope of the PROSPERO registry, which mainly accepts health‑intervention‑focused systematic reviews.

The study protocol, full extracted dataset and reproducible analytical R‑scripts have been publicly archived on the Open Science Framework (OSF). Public accessible project URL: osf.io/4d5pt/.</p>