Assessing Impulsivity in Adolescents with Borderline Personality Features via an Emotional Contextual Go/NoGo Paradigm.

PURPOSE

This study examined the influence of emotional contexts and invalidating family environment on impulsivity, especially response inhibition function, in adolescents with borderline personality features.

METHODS

483 Chinese adolescents (52.2% females; Mage = 15.54 years) from a community sample completed the scales of McLean Screening Instrument for Borderline Personality Disorder and Chinese Invalidating Family Scale for Adolescents and the Go/NoGo task under positive, neutral, and negative emotional conditions. Repeated measures ANCOVAs were performed without and with invalidating family environment as a covariate to compare the behavioral outcomes of the Go/Nogo task between participants with different levels of borderline personality features under different emotions.

RESULTS

Adolescents with high borderline personality features made significantly more commission errors in the Go/NoGo task only in positive emotional conditions, and the group differences in commission error rates became non-significant after controlling invalidating family environment.

CONCLUSION

The results suggest the impaired response inhibition function particularly under positive emotions of adolescents high in borderline personality features and its close association to invalidating family environment, pointing to more targeted diagnostic and treatment strategies for adolescent borderline personality disorder.