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Project

Self-other sharing and distinction of emotions in interactions of individuals with borderline personality disorder based on non-verbal emotion communication

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) typically have unstable interpersonal relationships characterized by intense emotions. Recent evidence suggests that these problems may stem from impairments in sharing and distinguishing their own and others’ emotions. Indeed, BPD patients typically have difficulty sharing others’ emotions, while at the same time having a tendency to experience others’ emotions as if they were their own (i.e. emotional contagion). Despite indirect evidence from neuroimaging and self-report studies, there is a paucity of behavioral studies investigating emotional contagion in BPD. At the same time, BPD patients’ own non-verbal emotion communication may induce emotional contagion in their interaction partners, although, again, few behavioral studies have actually investigated this. These difficulties in the sharing and distinction of emotions in BPD patients and their interaction partners may have a negative impact on emotional attunement in these interactions, which may be expressed as reduced interpersonal synchrony. In order to better understand the fundamental processes underlying social dysfunction in BPD, this project proposes to investigate the bidirectional influence of non-verbal emotion communication on the emotions of BPD patients and their interaction partners, as well as the synchrony of non-verbal emotion communication, using well validated experimental approaches.

Date:1 Oct 2021 →  Today
Keywords:borderline personality disorder, self-other distinction, emotional contagion
Disciplines:Psychopathology