Citation

Hepp J, Lane SP, Carpenter RW, Niedtfeld I, Brown WC, Trull TJ. Clinical Psychological Science 2017; 5(3): 470-484.

Affiliation

Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/2167702616677312

PMID

28529826

PMCID

PMC5436804

Abstract

Theories of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) suggest that interpersonal problems in BPD act as triggers for negative affect and, at the same time, are a possible result of affective dysregulation. Therefore, we assessed the relations between momentary negative affect (hostility, sadness, fear) and interpersonal problems (rejection, disagreement) in a sample of 80 BPD and 51 depressed outpatients at 6 time-points over 28 days. Data were analyzed using multivariate multi-level modeling to separate momentary-, day-, and person-level effects.

RESULTS revealed a mutually reinforcing relationship between disagreement and hostility, rejection and hostility, and between rejection and sadness in both groups, at the momentary and day level. The mutual reinforcement between hostility and rejection/disagreement was significantly stronger in the BPD group. Moreover, the link between rejection and sadness was present at all three levels of analysis for the BPD group, while it was localized to the momentary level in the depressed group.

Language: en

Keywords

Borderline Personality Disorder; Depression; ambulatory assessment; interpersonal problems; negative affect