Abstract
BackgroundEmotional instability, consisting of patterns of strong emotional changes over time, has consistently been demonstrated in daily life of patients with a borderline personality disorder (BPD). Yet, little empirical work has examined emotional changes that occur specifically in response to emotional triggers in daily life, so-called emotional reactivity. The goal of this study was to examine emotional reactivity in response to general emotional appraisals (i.e. goal congruence or valence, goal relevance or importance, and emotion-focused coping potential) and BPD-specific evaluations (trust and disappointment in self and others) in daily life of inpatients with BPD.MethodsThirty inpatients with BPD and 28 healthy controls participated in an experience sampling study and repeatedly rated the intensity of their current emotions, emotional appraisals, and evaluations of trust and disappointment in self and others.ResultsResults showed that the BPD group exhibited stronger emotional reactivity in terms of negative affect than healthy controls, however only in response to disappointment in someone else. BPD patients also showed weaker reactivity in positive affect in response to the appraised importance of a situation; the more a situation was appraised as important, the higher the subsequent positive affect for healthy controls only, not the patient group.ConclusionsThese findings show that appraisals can trigger strong emotional reactions in BPD patients, and suggest that altered emotional reactivity might be a potential underlying process of emotional instability in the daily life.
Highlights
Emotional instability, consisting of patterns of strong emotional changes over time, has consistently been demonstrated in daily life of patients with a borderline personality disorder (BPD)
The level of BPD symptoms has been shown to moderate the relationship between the experience of momentary unstable mood and a range of different situational triggers, including being offended and disappointed [33]. To further extend these findings regarding interpersonal triggers of emotional change, we examined the importance of trust in others, since it has been linked to BPD by previous studies, and disappointment in others, since this has already been shown to be a potential trigger of emotional change
Current study The goal of the current study1 is to obtain a better understanding of what is driving patterns of emotional change in patients with BPD. This was done by examining emotional reactivity in daily life, in response to (1) general emotional appraisals, that have been shown to play an important role in shaping emotional experiences in general, and (2) evaluations of trust and disappointment in self and in others, which reflect vulnerabilities that are deemed specific for those with BPD. We examined whether these appraisals and evaluations in daily life could give rise to stronger emotional reactions in BPD patients compared to healthy participants
Summary
Emotional instability, consisting of patterns of strong emotional changes over time, has consistently been demonstrated in daily life of patients with a borderline personality disorder (BPD). Borderline personality disorder and emotional instability Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a pervasive and debilitating disorder that is characterized by severe affective dysregulation [2, 7] This has been detected in lab studies and studies using trait questionnaires (see an overview by Carpenter and Trull [8]) and been supported by numerous daily life studies that examined the emotional functioning of BPD patients in an ecologically valid way. These daily life studies use experience sampling methods, in which participants repeatedly report their emotional states in daily life, allowing researchers to track the ups and downs of emotional states of participants in their own natural environment. These daily life studies elucidate the nature of emotional instability in the daily lives of those with BPD, little is known about the processes with which these unstable emotional patterns in daily life come about
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