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  • Title: Borderline personality features and emotional reactivity: the mediating role of interpersonal vulnerabilities.
    Author: Dixon-Gordon KL, Yiu A, Chapman AL.
    Journal: J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry; 2013 Jun; 44(2):271-8. PubMed ID: 23333423.
    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.
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