1. Enhanced memory for negative social information in borderline personality disorder
- Author
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Nikolaus Kleindienst, Inga Niedtfeld, Karen Hillmann, Lars Schulze, Christian Schmahl, Frank Renkewitz, and Andreas Mädebach
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Adult ,050103 clinical psychology ,Emotions ,Interpersonal communication ,Trust ,PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Clinical Psychology ,Young Adult ,Interpersonal relationship ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Psychology|Clinical Psychology ,Borderline Personality Disorder ,Memory ,Social cognition ,Negativity bias ,medicine ,bepress|Medicine and Health Sciences|Medical Specialties|Psychiatry ,Humans ,Interpersonal Relations ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Social Behavior ,Borderline personality disorder ,Biological Psychiatry ,Social perception ,05 social sciences ,Cognition ,medicine.disease ,Cognitive bias ,PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences ,Clinical Psychology ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Social Perception ,PsyArXiv|Psychiatry ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences ,Female ,Psychology ,PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Clinical Psychology|Personality Disorders ,Clinical psychology - Abstract
This manuscript has been published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/abn0000540).Biased social cognition towards an enhanced processing of negative social information might contribute to instability in interpersonal relationships. Such interpersonal dysfunctions are important for the understanding of several mental disorders, among them borderline personality disorder (BPD). To experimentally test enhanced memory retrieval of negative social information, using a newly developed variant of a looking-at-nothing paradigm, 45 BPD patients and 36 healthy women learned positive and negative personality traits of different target persons. In a translational memory test, participants were asked to use the learned information to evaluate statements about the target person. In addition to behavioral measures of memory performance, we investigated eye gaze patterns to decompose memory retrieval processes. We hypothesized that BPD patients would retrieve negative as compared to positive person information more accurately than healthy controls, and show increased eye gaze towards spatial locations where negative information was provided during the learning phase. Results pointed to a more accurate retrieval of negative person attributes in the patient group as compared with healthy controls (HC), thereby corroborating a negativity bias in social cognition in an exemplary sample of patients with interpersonal problems. Interestingly, the observed negativity bias for person memory was associated with BPD severity, stronger expectancies to be rejected by others, and social detachment. No group differences regarding eye fixation behaviour were found. We propose that enhanced retrieval of negative person information might be associated with dysfunctional cognitive schemas as well as reduced behavioral trust, and be of relevance for mental disorders characterized by interpersonal difficulties.
- Published
- 2020
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