Ruminative responses to interpersonal precipitants mediate borderline personality disorder features' effects on distress reactivity and recovery in daily life.

Abstract

We tested whether negative interpersonal events (NIEs) precipitate rumination at times of distress in the daily lives of those with borderline personality disorder (BPD) features and whether such responses mediate associations between BPD and the reactivity and recovery components of emotion dysregulation. One hundred twenty-one women completed clinical interviews, survey measures, and a 7-day ecological momentary assessment. Elevated BPD features predicted ruminative response deployment only in the context of NIEs. Though elevated BPD features and NIEs predicted heightened distress reactivity, the indirect effect of BPD on distress reactivity via ruminative responses was conditional on NIE occurrence. Ruminative responses also mediated the conditional effects of BPD features on prolonged recovery from distress; trait rumination served as a second indirect pathway between BPD features and distress recovery. Results suggest that though contextual, rumination is a common pathway for emotional hyperarousal and slow recovery from distress for those with elevated BPD features.