Abstract
Background: Facial emotion recognition is impaired in addiction and personality disorders. Dysfunctional personality beliefs reflect negative interpersonal schemas that may underpin emotion recognition deficits. We aimed to examine the association between personality beliefs and emotion recognition among participants with cocaine use disorder including those with comorbid personality disorders. Methods: We recruited 70 participants with cocaine use disorder aged between 19 and 52 who had used 14 g of cocaine over 4.8 years on average. Thirty-eight participants had an additional personality disorder (11 Borderline, 7 Histrionic, 5 Antisocial, 10 Avoidant, and 5 Obsessive–Compulsive). Dysfunctional beliefs were indicated with the Personality Belief Questionnaire, and facial emotion recognition was indicated with the Ekman’s Test. We applied correlations/multiple regressions to test the relationship between beliefs and emotion recognition. Results: Personality beliefs reflecting paranoid, borderline, and antisocial schemas were negatively associated with emotion recognition. Antisocial beliefs were associated with poorer recognition of fear, and paranoid beliefs with poorer recognition of disgust. Antisocial beliefs were significantly associated with emotion recognition after adjusting for cocaine use. Conclusion: Dysfunctional personality beliefs are associated with poorer emotion recognition in cocaine addiction. Personality-related negative schemas about the self and others can impact social cognition and interaction during cocaine treatment.
Highlights
Facial emotion recognition reflects the ability to identify basic emotions in others and is essential for adaptive social interaction [1, 2]
We aimed to examine the relationship between dimensional estimates of dysfunctional personality beliefs, measured with the Personality Belief Questionnaire (PBQ), and emotion recognition, indicated by the goldstandard Ekman facial emotion recognition test, among people with cocaine-substance use disorders (SUD) including those with comorbid personality disorders
The inclusion criteria were as follows: i) meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) [23] criteria for cocaine dependence indicated with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders–Clinical Version (SCID-CV) [24], ii) being abstinent for at least 2 weeks indicated by self-report and regular urine analyses, and iii) IQ levels ≥80 indicated with the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test [25]
Summary
Facial emotion recognition reflects the ability to identify basic emotions in others and is essential for adaptive social interaction [1, 2]. Deficits in facial emotion recognition are a hallmark of substance use disorders (SUD) [3]. SUD often co-occur with personality disorders [4], Beliefs and Emotion Recognition little is known on the relationship between comorbid personality dysfunction and facial emotion recognition. This is important because personality disorders are characterized by difficulties with social interaction and disturbed representations of others [5,6,7]. Unraveling the link between personality dysfunction and facial emotion recognition can contribute to understand social interaction problems and persistence of SUD among individuals with comorbid personality disorders. We aimed to examine the association between personality beliefs and emotion recognition among participants with cocaine use disorder including those with comorbid personality disorders
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