Patterns of (Dis)Agreement Among the Emotional Reports of Borderline Personality Disorder Individuals and Their Informants

Abstract

Previous studies have outlined a host of emotionally-based problems that pervade the lives of individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder; despite these widely documented deficiencies, the scientific community has yet to ascertain whether similar problems exist within the BPD sufferer’s prototypical interpersonal expression of affective-based information. The purpose of this study was to determine the moderating capacity of BPD on the exchange of emotional information by examining patterns of agreement and disagreement that exist between the emotional reports of Target and Informant pairs. Across 14 days, 211 Target and Informant pairs completed questionnaires designed to assess the intensity with which participants experienced six affect items drawn from the Positive and Negative Affective Schedule-Expanded form (PANAS-X; Watson & Clark, 1994); informant participants completed the questionnaires in accordance with their perceptions of their Target’s affective experiences. Target/Informant pairs were separated into three groups (BPD, Healthy Controls, and Other Mental Disorders), based upon multiple diagnostic criteria. Multiple Regression analysis revealed that BPD largely failed to moderate agreement/disagreement among the emotional reports of these dyad pairs, with a couple notable exceptions. BPD targets who reported being happy were perceived by Informants as being significantly more angry and irritated. Additionally, BPD informants appeared to mistakenly perceive happiness as another nominally different emotion, namely, excitement. The implications of such findings along with suggestions for future examinations exploring the interpersonal exchange of emotional information within the BPD population are discussed.