Facial Emotion Recognition and Borderline Personality Pathology

Abstract The impact of borderline personality pathology on facial emotion recognition has been in dispute; with impaired, comparable, and enhanced accuracy found in high borderline personality groups. Discrepancies are likely driven by variations in facial emotion recognition tasks across studies (s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Psychiatry research 2017-09, Vol.255, p.347-354
Main Authors:	Meehan, Kevin B, Panfilis, Chiara De, Cain, Nicole M, Antonucci, Camilla, Soliani, Antonio, Clarkin, John F, Sambataro, Fabio
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Adult Borderline personality Borderline Personality Disorder - psychology Effortful control Emotions Facial emotion recognition Facial Recognition Female Humans Male Negative affect Psychiatry Self-regulation Social cognition Students - psychology Young Adult
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Summary:	Abstract The impact of borderline personality pathology on facial emotion recognition has been in dispute; with impaired, comparable, and enhanced accuracy found in high borderline personality groups. Discrepancies are likely driven by variations in facial emotion recognition tasks across studies (stimuli type/intensity) and heterogeneity in borderline personality pathology. This study evaluates facial emotion recognition for neutral and negative emotions (fear/sadness/disgust/anger) presented at varying intensities. Effortful control was evaluated as a moderator of facial emotion recognition in borderline personality. Non-clinical multicultural undergraduates ( n =132) completed a morphed facial emotion recognition task of neutral and negative emotional expressions across different intensities (100% Neutral; 25%/50%/75% Emotion) and self-reported borderline personality features and effortful control. Greater borderline personality features related to decreased accuracy in detecting neutral faces, but increased accuracy in detecting negative emotion faces, particularly at low-intensity thresholds. This pattern was moderated by effortful control; for individuals with low but not high effortful control, greater borderline personality features related to misattributions of emotion to neutral expressions, and enhanced detection of low-intensity emotional expressions. Individuals with high borderline personality features may therefore exhibit a bias toward detecting negative emotions that are not or barely present; however, good self-regulatory skills may protect against this potential social-cognitive vulnerability.
ISSN:	0165-1781 1872-7123