Krause-Utz Annegret, Saygin Melisa, Podbylska Maria, Chatzaki Elianne, la Rosa Benedetta, Lis Stefanie
Department of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Science, Leiden University.
Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Personal Disord. 2025 May;16(3):210-222. doi: 10.1037/per0000722.
Difficulties in emotion regulation (ER) are a core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD). To date, studies in BPD have mainly focused on intrapersonal rather than interpersonal emotion regulation (ipER) strategies. Attention to social-affective distractors was found to interfere with working memory (WM) in BPD, which may contribute to impairments in ER. However, whether these difficulties might affect the use of ipER is an open question. This study aimed to investigate the associations between BPD symptoms, ipER strategies, basic WM, and social-affective interference on WM. One hundred twenty-four women with a wide range of BPD symptoms rated the frequency of using the ipER strategies, including enhancing positive affect, perspective-taking, soothing, and social modeling (Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire). In a subsample of N = 70 women, we measured attentional impairments (omission errors) induced by social-affective distractors (neutral, happy, fearful, and angry faces) and performance during distractor-free trials within a modified Sternberg WM task. Women with more severe BPD symptoms reported less frequent use of enhancing positive affect and showed more omission errors, especially for distracting happy faces. Better performance during distractor-free trials was related to more frequent use of enhancing positive affect. Task performance largely accounted for the association between BPD symptoms and the use of enhancing positive affect. Findings suggest that BPD symptoms are associated with changes in specific domains of ipER, especially a reduced tendency to increase feelings of happiness and joy through others. Attentional deficits may be an important mechanism here. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
情绪调节困难是边缘型人格障碍（BPD）的核心特征。迄今为止，对BPD的研究主要集中在个体内部而非人际情绪调节（ipER）策略上。研究发现，对社会情感干扰因素的关注会干扰BPD患者的工作记忆（WM），这可能导致情绪调节受损。然而，这些困难是否会影响ipER的使用仍是一个悬而未决的问题。本研究旨在调查BPD症状、ipER策略、基本WM以及社会情感对WM的干扰之间的关联。124名具有广泛BPD症状的女性对使用ipER策略的频率进行了评分，这些策略包括增强积极情绪、换位思考、安抚和平社会模仿（人际情绪调节问卷）。在N = 70名女性的子样本中，我们测量了社会情感干扰因素（中性、快乐、恐惧和愤怒面孔）引起的注意力损伤（遗漏错误）以及在改良的斯特恩伯格WM任务中无干扰试验期间的表现。BPD症状较严重的女性报告称，她们较少使用增强积极情绪的策略，并且表现出更多的遗漏错误，尤其是在面对令人分心的快乐面孔时。在无干扰试验中表现更好与更频繁地使用增强积极情绪的策略有关。任务表现很大程度上解释了BPD症状与增强积极情绪使用之间的关联。研究结果表明，BPD症状与ipER特定领域的变化有关，尤其是通过他人增加幸福和喜悦感倾向的降低。注意力缺陷可能是其中的一个重要机制。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
