Borderline personality features and emotional reactivity: the mediating role of interpersonal vulnerabilities

Abstract

Background and objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating role of interpersonal vulnerabilities in the association of borderline personality (BP) features with emotional reactivity to an interpersonal stressor.

Methods: For this study, female university students with high (N = 23), mid (N = 23), and low (N = 22) BP features completed the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems-Personality Disorders-25 (IIP-PD-25). Self-reported emotions, skin conductance responses (SCRs), interbeat intervals, and heart rate variability measured emotional reactivity to a social rejection stressor.

Results: BP features were positively associated with interpersonal dysfunction and predicted greater SCR reactivity and self-reported emotional reactivity. Interpersonal dysfunction mediated the association between BP features and physiological (SCRs), but not self-reported, emotional reactivity. In particular, scores on the interpersonal ambivalence subscale of the IIP-PD-25 mediated the association of BP features with SCR reactivity.

Limitations: This study examined BP features in a non-clinical sample, and relied on a relatively small sample. Furthermore, the design of the present study does not capture the potential transaction between interpersonal vulnerabilities and emotional dysfunction.

Conclusions: The findings of this study illuminate one potential mechanism underlying the heightened reactivity of persons with BP features to rejection, suggesting that interpersonal ambivalence plays a particularly important role in physiological reactivity.