Effects of Social Exclusion on Effortful Control and Mentalizing in relation to Borderline Personality Features

Momoko Sato,Patrick Luyten,Peter Fonagy

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-32775-7

Momoko Sato, Patrick Luyten + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32775-7

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Journal: Scientific Reports	Publication Date: Sep 26, 2018
Citations: 6	License type: open-access

Affiliation: University College London, KU Leuven

Abstract

The current study investigated the effects of social interactions on effortful control (EC) and mentalizing in individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) features. 123 nonclinical participants completed the emotional Stroop task to assess EC and the modified Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) to assess mentalizing capacities before and after having social interactions. The Cyberball paradigm was used to generate socially inclusive and exclusive interactions. Results indicated the high BPD group made more errors on the Stroop task following exclusive social interactions than the low BPD group. The high BPD group, compared to the low BPD group, associated fewer emotional words with facial cues following inclusive social interactions but overanalysed facial cues (hypermentalizing) following the exclusive social interaction. Exclusive social interactions hindered the inhibitory capacities in individuals with high BPD features, but inclusive social interactions facilitated. Individuals with high BPD features responded to exclusive social interactions by hypermentalizing. Thus, it was found social rejection could activate cognitive-affective processes which led to hypermentalizing and impairments in EC which in combination could explain the disruptive effects on social interactions in people with BPD features.

Highlights

As social bonds are crucial for human survival, the drive to increase social ties and to avoid social exclusion is universal[17]
The current study investigated the effect of induced interpersonal distress on the cognitive capacities including the effortful control (EC) and mentalizing for individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) features
Many past studies found that BPD patients were slower than control participants with the emotional Stroop task[44,45], current subjects with high BPD features responded faster than those with low BPD features indicating that they were more impulsive

Summary

Introduction

As social bonds are crucial for human survival, the drive to increase social ties and to avoid social exclusion is universal[17]. BPD patients tend to exhibit higher drive to belong with others[23] and to avoid abandonment because of their intense fears they have about rejection[20] They more likely to be aggressive or impulsive, and dismissive in interpersonal situations[6,24]. Impairments in social cognition such as mentalizing, the capacity to refer to the self and other’s intentions, are considered to contribute to the interpersonal difficulties of BPD patients[28]. Using the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC), a newly developed method to assess mentalizing, other studies have found that BPD features predicted “over-mentalizing” where they were less accurate and excessive in mentalizing[29]. Mentalizing capacity consists of both persistence (trait) and temporal (state) aspects that can be influenced by emotional arousal and social interpersonal contexts (i.e., social rejection)

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