Maladaptive beliefs as mediators of the relationship between personality traits and Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms

Renata Saldanha-Silva,Fabio Luiz Nunes,Helga Alessandra De Rezende,Marcela Mansur-Alves

doi:10.1590/1982-0275201936e180016

Abstract

Abstract The present study analyzes the relationship between maladaptive beliefs, personality traits, and Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms by focusing in the mediating role of beliefs in the prediction between personality and psychiatric disorders. The sample consisted of 823 adults aged between 18 and 39 years (M = 24.09, SD = 4.71), who answered a questionnaire of symptoms and beliefs for Borderline Personality Disorder and Big Five Personality Inventory. The predictive model that fit better to the data indicates Neuroticism and Conscientiousness as predictors of Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms, mediated by maladaptive belief patterns. In this sense, it is possible to conclude that both personality traits and maladaptive beliefs are important for the understanding of Borderline Personality Disorder. The theoretical implications of this result and the limitations of the study are discussed.

Highlights

O presente estudo analisou as relações existentes entre crenças desadaptativas, traços de personalidade e sintomas do Transtorno da Personalidade Borderline, com foco no papel mediador das crenças na relação entre personalidade e transtornos de personalidade
We investigate how personality traits and beliefs interact in the prediction of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) symptoms by testing mediation models through structural equation modeling
The results suggest that personality traits are associated with the frequency of BPD symptoms, especially the dimensions of neuroticism and conscientiousness

Summary

Introduction

O presente estudo analisou as relações existentes entre crenças desadaptativas, traços de personalidade e sintomas do Transtorno da Personalidade Borderline, com foco no papel mediador das crenças na relação entre personalidade e transtornos de personalidade. Different researchers, using different data analysis techniques (exploratory factorial analysis, structural equation modeling, and Item Response Theory), have documented the overlap between the more general features of the DSM-5 trait model with the features proposed by the FFM (Suzuki et al, 2015; Wright & Simms, 2014) This is equivalent to saying that when inventories that operationalize the two models (maladaptive traits and typical variants) are analyzed together, most of the items that measure the facets of four of the five proposed dimensions (extraversion/detachment, neuroticism/negative affectivity, agreeableness/antagonism, conscientiousness/ disinhibition) can be grouped into joint dimensions that would be unidimentional (Suzuki et al, 2015; Suzuki, Griffin, & Samuel, 2017). This may increase the chances of developing behaviors that confirm his/her negative perceptions of reality (Farnam, Farhang, Bakhshipour, & Niknam, 2011; Faustino, 2015; Roose et al, 2012)

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Results

Conclusion