Abstract
The present study assessed selected factors that contribute to the recollection of emotional memories over time. Participants with high-trait borderline personality disorder (BPD) watched a randomly selected positive, negative, or neutral character in a video clip (stimulus) and were asked to recall the content immediately, then 2, 4, and 6 days later. In the final sample (N = 558, average age: 33 years, 65% female), general impression had the strongest effect on recall after accounting for the effect of current mood, extremity of the responses, and level of BPD, regardless of stimulus valence. The level of BPD had an effect only when negative evaluative wording (e.g., “guilty”) was used. In conclusion, people with high-trait BPD tend to remember negative stimuli more negatively over time (unlike neutral or positive stimuli), and this effect is mostly related to general impression.
Highlights
Affective memories prompt a dynamic interaction with the environment and influence behaviour
In borderline personality disorder (BPD), one possible source of uncontrolled emotional behaviour is the biased recall of emotional memories
In the present study we tested several factors that may influence emotional recall over time, paying special attention to changes related to the level of BPD trait
Summary
H2 The general impression of a person’s character is a stronger determinant of the emotional memory of a video clip over time than extremity or the level of the borderline personality trait (halo effect). In order to test hypotheses H1–H5 and H7, the participant’s mood, the general positive impression of the character, extremity, and a negative or positive evaluation of the character (PANAS) were used as outcomes, with valence group, time, and valence group x time interaction and BPD trait as predictors in random intercept linear mixed-effect models.
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