Women With Borderline Personality Disorder Show Reduced Identification of Emotional Facial Expressions and a Heightened Negativity Bias

Abstract

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) frequently display impairments in the identification of emotional facial expressions paralleled by a negativity bias. However, it remains unclear whether misperception of facial expressions is a key psychopathological marker of BPD. To address this question, the authors examined 43 women diagnosed with BPD and 56 healthy female controls using an emotion face identification task and a face dot-probe task together with measures on psychopathology. Compared to controls, women with BPD showed impaired identification of disgusted and angry faces concurrent with a bias to misclassify faces as angry, and a faster preconscious vigilance for fearful relative to happy facial expressions. Increased severity of borderline symptoms and global psychopathology in BPD patients were associated with reduced ability to identify angry facial expressions and a stronger negativity bias to anger. The findings indicate that BPD patients who misperceive face emotions have the greatest mental health issues.

Narrative coherence of autobiographical memories in women with borderline personality disorder and associations with childhood adversity

“…BPD participants and controls were matched on age (t (52)=0.092; p = .927) and parental education (t (50)= 1.046; p = .300). As previously reported in a larger sample, the BPD participants had a significantly lower educational level (t (51)=3.227; p = .0002), poorer VCI score (t (52)=5.265; p < .0001), and had more self-reported experiences of childhood trauma on the CTQ (t (48)= − 7.502; p < .0001) relative to controls [35,41]. No significant difference between BPD participants and controls was observed in the number of words used to narrate their memories (t (52)=1.096; p = .278).…”

“…We have previously shown that the BPD participants in the present study displayed lower verbal comprehension relative to controls [ 35 , 41 ] and the VCI scale has been shown to be positively associated with reading comprehension and spelling [ 42 ]. Because our participants were asked to write down their autobiographical memories, individual differences in verbal comprehension abilities could affect how the autobiographical memories was communicated on paper.…”

Narrative Coherence of Autobiographical Memories in Women with Borderline Personality Disorder and Associations with Childhood Adversity

“…BPD participants and controls were matched on age (t(52) = 0.092; p = .927) and parental education (t(50) = 1.046; p = .300). As previously reported in a larger sample, the BPD participants had a signi cantly lower educational level (t(51) = 3.227; p = .0002), poorer VCI score (t(52) = 5.265; p < .0001), and had more self-reported experiences of childhood trauma on the CTQ (t(48)=-7.502; p < .0001) relative to controls (35,41). No signi cant difference between BPD participants and controls was observed in the number of words used to narrate their memories (t(52) = 1.096; p = .278).…”

“…Verbal comprehension index. We have previously shown that the BPD participants in the present study displayed lower verbal comprehension relative to controls (35,41) and the VCI scale has been shown to be positively associated with reading comprehension and spelling (42). Because our participants were asked to write down their autobiographical memories, individual differences in verbal comprehension abilities could affect how the autobiographical memories was communicated on paper.…”

Fear of positive evaluation in borderline personality disorder

“…Researchers try to understand the nature of these strong social impairments to improve psychological interventions for BPD. There is extensive research showing that social impairments in BPD are associated with a negativity bias, which means that individuals with BPD process social information in a negative manner [3][4][5][6][7].…”