Loading...
Borderline personality disorder features are associated with inflexible social interpretations
Duda,J.M. Fineberg,S.K. Deng,W. Ma,Y. Everaert,J. Cannon,T.D. Joormann,J.
Duda,J.M.
Fineberg,S.K.
Deng,W.
Ma,Y.
Everaert,J.
Cannon,T.D.
Joormann,J.
An error occurred retrieving the object's statistics
Abstract
Background Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is thought to involve aberrant social learning, including impaired revision of social interpretations with new evidence (social interpretation inflexibility). However, this topic has received little empirical attention outside of specific literatures, such as moral inference or behavioral economics. Further, the contribution of comorbid depression to BPD-related interpretation inflexibility has not yet been assessed. Methods: In two independent samples (Study 1: N = 213; Study 2: N = 210, oversampled for BPD features), we assessed the associations between BPD symptoms, depressive symptoms, and task-based measures of social interpretation flexibility. Results We found that BPD symptoms, particularly volatility of identity and relationships, were associated with less revision of social interpretations with both positive and negative evidence. Meanwhile, depressive symptoms were associated with a pattern of less revision of social interpretations with positive versus negative information. Limitations: The use of cross-sectional, crowd sourced samples limits causal interpretations. Translation to clinical populations should be assessed in future studies. Conclusions Results suggest that inflexible social interpretations across valences may be feature of BPD-related pathology, and could be connected to symptoms involving volatility in social contexts. Future studies should investigate whether treatments geared toward increasing the flexibility of social interpretations are effective in treating BPD symptoms, especially those involving interpersonal difficulties.
Description
Date
2024-03-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Borderline personality disorder, Cognitive flexibility, Depression, Interpretation bias, Social learning
Citation
Duda, J M, Fineberg, S K, Deng, W, Ma, Y, Everaert, J, Cannon, T D & Joormann, J 2024, 'Borderline personality disorder features are associated with inflexible social interpretations', Journal of Affective Disorders, vol. 348, pp. 78-87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2023.12.036