Cognitive Empathy Partially Mediates the Relationship between Childhood Physical Abuse and Borderline Personality Disorder Features in College Students

Abstract

Among college students, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) features are prevalent and impairing. Different types of childhood maltreatment (CM) are associated with BPD features, though the type(s) of CM that is most robustly associated with BPD features and the mechanism by which CM leads to BPD features are not well-studied. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate which type(s) of CM was most robustly associated with BPD features and to test whether empathy, which is negatively correlated with CM, mediated the relationship between CM and BPD features in college students. Two thousand five hundred fifty-one undergraduate college students completed online self-report questionnaires measuring CM, empathy, and BPD features. A series of regression models were tested to explore relationships between types of CM and BPD features and CM, empathy and BPD features. Childhood physical abuse, but neither sexual abuse nor neglect, significantly predicted BPD features. Cognitive empathy partially mediated the relationship between childhood physical abuse and BPD features. These findings suggest childhood physical abuse is negatively associated with cognitive empathy, which in turn, is negatively associated with BPD features. Implications for treating BPD features in college students based on these findings are discussed.