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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Natural Emotion Vocabularies and Borderline Personality Disorder
AU - Entwistle, Charlotte
AU - Horn, Andrea B.
AU - Meier, Tabea
AU - Hoemann, Katie
AU - Miano, Annemarie
AU - Boyd, Ryan L.
PY - 2023/12/31
Y1 - 2023/12/31
N2 - Background Emotion dysregulation is a characteristic central to borderline personality disorder (BPD). Valuably, verbal behaviour can provide a unique perspective for studying emotion dysregulation in BPD, with recent research suggesting that the varieties of emotion words one actively uses (i.e., active emotion vocabularies [EVs]) reflect habitual experience and potential dysregulation therein. Accordingly, the present research examined associations between BPD and active EVs across two studies. Methods Study 1 (N = 530) comprised a large non-clinical sample recruited from online forums, whereby BPD traits were measured via self-report. Study 2 (N = 64 couples) consisted of mixed-gender romantic couples in which the woman had a BPD diagnosis, as well as a control group of couples. In both studies, participants’ verbal behaviours were analysed to calculate their active EVs. Results Results from both studies revealed BPD to be associated with larger negative EV (i.e., using a broad variation of unique negative emotion words), which remained robust when controlling for general vocabulary size and negative affect word frequency in Study 2. The association between BPD and negative EV was insensitive to context. Limitations Limitations of this research include: 1) the absence of a clinical control group; 2) typical constraints surrounding word-counting approaches; and 3) the cross-sectional design (causality cannot be inferred). Conclusions Our findings contribute to BPD theory as well as the broader language and emotion literature. Importantly, these findings provide new insight into how individuals manifesting BPD attend to and represent their emotional experiences, which could be used to inform clinical practice.
AB - Background Emotion dysregulation is a characteristic central to borderline personality disorder (BPD). Valuably, verbal behaviour can provide a unique perspective for studying emotion dysregulation in BPD, with recent research suggesting that the varieties of emotion words one actively uses (i.e., active emotion vocabularies [EVs]) reflect habitual experience and potential dysregulation therein. Accordingly, the present research examined associations between BPD and active EVs across two studies. Methods Study 1 (N = 530) comprised a large non-clinical sample recruited from online forums, whereby BPD traits were measured via self-report. Study 2 (N = 64 couples) consisted of mixed-gender romantic couples in which the woman had a BPD diagnosis, as well as a control group of couples. In both studies, participants’ verbal behaviours were analysed to calculate their active EVs. Results Results from both studies revealed BPD to be associated with larger negative EV (i.e., using a broad variation of unique negative emotion words), which remained robust when controlling for general vocabulary size and negative affect word frequency in Study 2. The association between BPD and negative EV was insensitive to context. Limitations Limitations of this research include: 1) the absence of a clinical control group; 2) typical constraints surrounding word-counting approaches; and 3) the cross-sectional design (causality cannot be inferred). Conclusions Our findings contribute to BPD theory as well as the broader language and emotion literature. Importantly, these findings provide new insight into how individuals manifesting BPD attend to and represent their emotional experiences, which could be used to inform clinical practice.
KW - Borderline personality disorder
KW - Personality pathology
KW - Emotion dysregulation
KW - Emotion processes
KW - Language analysis
KW - Emotion vocabularies
U2 - 10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100647
DO - 10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100647
M3 - Journal article
VL - 14
JO - journal of affective disorders reports
JF - journal of affective disorders reports
SN - 2666-9153
M1 - 100647
ER -