Interpersonal emotion regulation, borderline personality disorder symptoms, and working memory during social-affective distraction.

What is it about?

Difficulties in emotion regulation are a central feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD). People with BPD are usually highly sensitive, experience strong unstable emotions and have difficulties regulating them, especially in social situations. Previous research has shown that an increased attention to social cues makes it harder for people with BPD to focus on other tasks. It is not yet understood if this partly explains why people with BPD show difficulty regulating their emotions together with others or in the presence of others (interpersonal emotion regulation). In this study, it was investigated if attention to faces during a working memory task relates to impairments in interpersonal emotion regulation. One hundred twenty-four women with a wide range of BPD symptoms rated the frequency of using the interpersonal emotion regulation strategies (enhancing positive affect, perspective-taking, soothing, and social modeling, from the Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire). A subsample of seventy women also performed the working memory task with neutral, happy, fearful, and angry faces as distractors (compared to no distractors). Women with more severe BPD symptoms reported a less frequent use of interpersonal emotion regulation strategies, especially enhancing positive affect through interaction with others. They made more mistakes in the task, when they were distracted by faces, particularly happy faces. Better performance during distractor-free trials was related to more frequent use of enhancing positive affect. Task performance largely accounted for the association between BPD symptoms and the use of enhancing positive affect. Findings suggest that people with BPD are more easily disturbed by happy expressions of others. It could be that they perceive positive social cues as more disturbing and distracting. This could partly explain why they experience less positive affect when interacting with others.

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Why is it important?

More and more studies suggest that people with borderline personality disorder perceive positive social cues differently. This can have an impact on interpersonal relationships and also might explain why people with BPD find it more difficult to enhance their mood while being with others.