How do I want to feel? The link between emotion goals and difficulties in emotion regulation in borderline personality disorder

Abstract

Objectives. Appropriate contextualized emotion goals (i.e., desired emotional endpoints that facilitate goal attainment) are fundamental to emotion regulation, as they may determine the direction of regulation efforts. Given that difficulties in emotion regulation are prevalent in borderline personality disorder (BPD), we explored whether BPD traits (Study 1) and BPD diagnosis (Study 2) presented specific contextualized emotion goals, and whether these emotion goals may be linked to difficulties in emotion regulation.Methods. In Study 1, 358 individuals were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk and assessed on the presence of borderline traits, emotion regulation ability, and general and contextualized emotion goals. In Study 2, these measures were employed in a sample of 35 people with BPD and 35 matched controls who were also assessed on their current mood state and screened for Axis I and II disorders of the DSM-IV.Results. Study 1 showed that emotion dysregulation was positively predicted by borderline traits and contextualized emotion goals that impair goal attainment (i.e., greater preference for anger for collaboration and happiness for confrontation). Findings of Study 2 also showed that a higher preference for happiness for confrontation was linked to higher emotion dysregulation in both individuals with BPD and controls. Furthermore, individuals with BPD reported a lower preference for happiness for collaboration than controls.Conclusions. These results support the importance of looking at emotion goals and its link with emotion dysregulation. Interventions targeting maladaptive contextualized goals may represent an important therapeutic window to enhance emotion regulation. Practitioner pointsClinical implications BPD individuals' emotion regulation is linked to maladaptive emotion goals. Helping people at risk to manipulate their emotion goals to be more context sensitive may enhance well-being and serve as a therapeutic tool in practice.[BL-P] and mccaghj@ hope.ac.uk [JM]).

Emotion Goals in Psychopathology: A New Perspective on Dysfunctional Emotion Regulation

“…Difficulties matching emotion goals to contextual demands were also evident among people with borderline personality disorder (López-Pérez & McCagh, 2020). Compared with never disordered individuals, individuals with borderline personality disorder reported wanting to feel less happiness in collaboration.…”

General and contextualized emotion goals and its link with well‐being across late, middle, and young adulthood

“…All measures were reported in a 5‐point Likert scale from 1 = Never to 5 = Always. The different emotion terms were presented in randomized order following other studies relying on those measures (Ford & Tamir, 2012; López‐Pérez & McCagh, 2020).…”

“…For example, individuals with major depressive disorder reported a higher preference for sadness compared to non‐depressed individuals (Millgram et al ., 2019). People with borderline personality disorder reported a lower preference for happiness in collaboration contexts compared to matched controls (López‐Pérez & McCagh, 2020). Finally, individuals with bipolar disorder have reported an excessive preference and valuing of happiness (Ford, Mauss, & Gruber, 2015).…”

Atypical Emotional Responses in Borderline Personality Disorder and Implications for Intervention

“…Such that, BPD has a stronger preference for aggression over cooperation was connected to impairments in emotion management. Thus, when exposed to equivocal scenarios, people with BPD may have a larger propensity for aggressive, more unexpected wrath shifts, and a greater anger bias [7].…”