This study evaluated whether the impairment in cooperation that characterizes individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) can be explained by the difficulty to use emotion regulation strategies and to accurately perceive the fairness of others' behavior. Forty-one patients with BPD and 41 sex and age matched healthy controls (HC) played the responder's role in a Modified Ultimatum Game during which they were asked to apply 3 different emotion regulation strategies: look, distancing, and reappraisal. Offer rejection rates were used as an index of punishment behavior. After the experiment, participants also rated the degree of perceived equity of the offers after receiving fair and unfair offers. Reappraisal was effective in decreasing punishment behaviors for unfair offers in both the BPD and HC groups. By contrast, BPD patients displayed a different behavior than HC when making decisions upon fair offers, independently from the regulation strategies adopted. In fact, they rejected higher rates of fair offers than HC. Further, BPD patients judged fair offers as less fair than HC. This indicates an altered judgment and decision making on fair interpersonal exchanges. In conclusion, BPD patients exhibit increased punishment behavior during fair, "favorable" social exchanges, which they tend to perceive as less fair than controls. Thus, BPD patients may be biased toward underestimating positive feedback from others.

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Several studies investigated the influence of pre-surgical psychological variables on the outcome of bariatric surgery, but the effective role of personality factors (i.e., both normal personality traits and personality disturbances) in shaping bariatric surgery outcome is still unclear. We analyzed nine recent papers that examined the impact of pre-operative personality traits on postoperative weight loss among individuals undergoing surgery for severe obesity. A personality pattern denoting the ability to self-regulate in spite of the urges or demands of the moment emerged as a robust predictor of good outcome across studies, independently from baseline psychiatric comorbidity and personality disorders.

Few studies assess the role of personality styles in predicting the onset of depression among cardiac patients. This study evaluates whether temperament and character can represent a risk factor for the development of incident first-ever depressive episodes in patients at their first acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Two hundred sixty-seven (72.1%) subjects (male) completed the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) a few days after the cardiac event. At baseline and after 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 24 months of follow-up, the participants completed the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorder (PRIME-MD) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale to establish the presence of a depressive episode and its severity. During the follow-up, 61 (22.8%) participants developed a depressive episode. Temperamental risk factors for incident depression were scored high on novelty seeking and harm avoidance at the TCI. Given the detrimental effect of depression on cardiac prognosis, clinicians should take temperament variables into account when determining the treatment plans of their patients with ACS.

2016-12-23T18:37:48

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