Schreiber Alison M, Hall Nathan T, Parr Daniel F, Hallquist Michael N
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Psychol Med. 2025 Apr 2;55:e105. doi: 10.1017/S0033291725000595.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a debilitating psychiatric illness whose symptoms frequently emerge during adolescence. Critically, self-injury and suicide attempts in BPD are often precipitated by interpersonal discord. Initial studies in adults suggest that the interpersonal difficulties common in BPD may emerge from disrupted processing of socioemotional stimuli. Less is known about these processes in adolescents with BPD symptoms, despite substantial changes in socioemotional processing during this developmental period.
Eighty-six adolescents and young adults with and without BPD symptoms completed an emotional interference task involving the identification of a facial emotion expression in the presence of a conflicting or congruent emotion word. We used hierarchical drift diffusion modeling to index speed of processing and decision boundary. Using Bayesian multilevel regression, we characterized age-related differences in facial emotion processing. We examined whether BPD symptom dimensions were associated with alterations in facial emotion processing. To determine the specificity of our effects, we analyzed behavioral data from a corresponding nonemotional interference task.
Emotion-related impulsivity, but not negative affectivity or interpersonal dysfunction, predicted inefficient processing when presented with conflicting negative emotional stimuli. Across both tasks, emotion-related impulsivity in adolescents, but not young adults, was further associated with a lower decision boundary - resulting in fast but inaccurate decisions.
Impulsive adolescents with BPD symptoms are prone to making errors when appraising facial emotion expressions, which may potentiate or worsen interpersonal conflicts. Our findings highlight the role of lower-level social cognitive processes in interpersonal difficulties among vulnerable youth during a sensitive developmental window.
边缘型人格障碍（BPD）是一种使人衰弱的精神疾病，其症状常在青春期出现。至关重要的是，BPD中的自我伤害和自杀企图往往由人际冲突引发。对成年人的初步研究表明，BPD中常见的人际困难可能源于社会情感刺激处理过程的中断。尽管在这个发育阶段社会情感处理有显著变化，但对于有BPD症状的青少年在这些过程方面知之甚少。
86名有或无BPD症状的青少年和青年完成了一项情绪干扰任务，该任务涉及在存在冲突或一致的情绪词的情况下识别面部情绪表达。我们使用分层漂移扩散模型来衡量处理速度和决策边界。使用贝叶斯多级回归，我们描述了面部情绪处理中与年龄相关的差异。我们研究了BPD症状维度是否与面部情绪处理的改变有关。为了确定我们效应的特异性，我们分析了来自相应非情绪干扰任务的行为数据。
当面对冲突的负面情绪刺激时，与情绪相关的冲动性而非消极情感或人际功能障碍预测了低效处理。在两项任务中，青少年而非青年中与情绪相关的冲动性进一步与较低的决策边界相关——导致快速但不准确的决策。
有BPD症状的冲动青少年在评估面部情绪表达时容易出错，这可能会加剧或恶化人际冲突。我们的研究结果强调了较低层次的社会认知过程在敏感发育阶段脆弱青年人际困难中的作用。
