Author:

Keywords:

Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Psychiatry, Temperament dimensions, BPD subtypes, Emotional action tendencies, Attentional bias, Emotional Stroop Task, Approach-Avoidance Task, APPROACH-AVOIDANCE TENDENCIES, BEHAVIORAL-INHIBITION, EFFORTFUL CONTROL, SOCIAL ANXIETY, PERFORMANCE, ACTIVATION, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Attentional Bias, Avoidance Learning, Borderline Personality Disorder, Emotions, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Stroop Test, Temperament, Young Adult, REGULATIVE TEMPERAMENT, SCALES, TASK, 11 Medical and Health Sciences, 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, 3202 Clinical sciences, 5203 Clinical and health psychology

Abstract:

Disturbances in emotion regulation have been identified as a core feature of patients with a borderline personality disorder (BPD). Findings of studies using experimental measures of emotion processing are mixed, which may be partially explained by the heterogeneity of the BPD population. To address this issue, we investigated differences in experimental measures of emotional action tendencies (approach-avoidance behaviour) and attentional bias to emotional stimuli in BPD subtypes. Data of the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) and the Emotional Stroop Task (EST) were collected in 140 BPD patients, previously clustered into four BPD subtypes based on temperament dimensions. We investigated (1) the relationship between temperament dimensions and the performance on the AAT and EST and (2) compared performance on these tasks in previous defined BPD subtypes. The results of the present study demonstrated a positive relationship between effortful control (EC) and AAT effect-scores. A higher level of EC was positively associated with a general emotional action tendency towards faces with directed gaze, even when controlling for gender, age and BPD severity. Preliminary results on the comparison of the BPD subtypes demonstrated no significant differences in AAT and EST performance. These findings emphasize the relevance of EC in emotional action tendencies in BPD patients.