The temporal relation of arousal and perceived rejection in patients with borderline personality disorder and depressive disorders: An experience sampling approach.

Abstract

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by high levels of arousal and perceived rejection by others. The temporal relation between these constructs, however, remains largely unclear. Based on predictions derived from the dynamic affect model and the rejection sensitivity model, we expected increases in arousal and perceived rejection to predict subsequent increases in perceived rejection and arousal, respectively. To investigate this topic, we assessed current self-reported affective arousal and perceived rejection in patients with BPD (n = 42), patients with depressive disorders (DDs; n = 43), and healthy controls (HCs; n = 40) for 52 times within 13 hr (ca. every 15 min). In line with previous studies, dynamic structural equation model results indicate significantly higher trait levels of arousal and perceived rejection in patients with BPD compared with participants in the DD and HC groups. In addition, we found substantial autoregressive and cross-lagged effects for arousal and perceived rejection. Other than expected, the magnitude of these effects did not significantly differ across diagnostic groups. Our findings suggest close temporal relations between arousal and perceived rejection. In patients with BPD, these effects unfold against the background of substantially elevated trait levels of arousal and perceived rejection. Future experience sampling studies should provide additional context information (e.g., through monitoring rejection events) to investigate how patients with BPD perceive rejection in everyday life and how this affects subsequent levels of arousal.

Arousal Temporally Precedes Dissociation in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder: A Preliminary Experience Sampling Study

“…In addition, we estimated a model across all participants because including random-effects variances for autoregressive and cross-lagged effects. Such models can be used to include predictors of within-level processes (e.g., diagnostic group) and test their significance (see Heekerens et al, 2022;Santangelo, Holtmann et al, 2020 for examples). In our data set the model did not converge.…”

“…Data for this study were collected as part of a larger data set. Participants provided data during three individual assessments and some of these data were reported in a separate manuscript (Heekerens et al, 2022) that focused on temporal relations between arousal and perceived rejection. In the current manuscript, we focus on temporal relations between arousal and valence dimensions of affect and dissociation.…”

Increases in Negative Affective Arousal Precede Lower Self-Esteem in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder but not in Patients with Depressive Disorders: An Experience Sampling Approach

“…Participants overlapped between those studies. However, individuals included in this study are not identical with our past studies (Heekerens et al, 2022(Heekerens et al, , 2023.…”

“…Data for this study were collected as part of a larger data set. Participants provided data during three individual assessments and the rest of these data were reported in separate manuscripts that focused on temporal relations between negative affective arousal and perceived rejection ( rst assessment; Heekerens et al, 2022), as well as between arousal and valence dimensions of affect and dissociation (second assessment; Heekerens et al, 2023). In the current manuscript, we focus on temporal relations between negative affective arousal and self-esteem (third assessment).…”

Affective arousal temporally precedes dissociation in patients with borderline personality disorder: A preliminary experience sampling study.

“…Data for this study were collected as part of a larger data set with the aim of investigating relations between subjective distress and specific psychopathological symptoms. Participants provided data during three individual assessments and some of these data were reported in a separate manuscript (Heekerens et al, 2022) that focused on temporal relations between arousal and perceived rejection. In the current manuscript, we focus on temporal relations between arousal and valence dimensions of affect and dissociation.…”