Emotion Vulnerability in the Context of Positively Valenced Stimuli: Associations with Borderline Personality Disorder Symptom Severity

Theories of borderline personality disorder (BPD) have posited that emotion vulnerability (including greater baseline emotion intensity, greater emotion reactivity to salient stimuli, and slower return to emotional baseline) is a key etiological factor in the development of the disorder. Despite evidence to suggest that baseline negative emotion is greater in individuals with BPD (and perhaps across psychopathology), less is known about potential patterns of positive emotion vulnerability that may be uniquely associated with BPD symptoms. In the current study, 120 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory psychology course were shown three positively valenced video clips. Self-report and psychophysiological indices of emotion (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia and galvanic skin response) were measured before, during, and after each clip. Analyses examined associations with BPD and depression symptom severity. Some evidence was found for a more attenuated subjective positive emotional response specific to BPD symptom severity, distinct from the effects of depression severity. Other patterns of associations with BPD severity, including greater baseline negative emotion and attenuated parasympathetic activity, were largely accounted for by depression severity. Results also suggested that positive emotion vulnerability in BPD may be somewhat context specific, and certain positively valenced stimuli (e.g., others expressing positive emotion) may contribute more to attenuated positive emotional responses. More broadly, this study highlights the value in examining how psychopathology may impact emotional responses to positive stimuli specifically.