Features of Emotional Experiences in Individuals with Personality Disorders

• Authors: Ewa Trzebińska , Anna Gabińska
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Personality disorders (PDs) are marked by significant disturbances in the way of experiencing oneself, others and the world around. Yet there is paucity of research on the nature of emotional experiences in these disorders. The aim of this study was to examine whether and how emotional experience of individuals with ten distinct forms of PDs distinguished in DSM differs from those without PDs. The study was conducted via the Internet on a large nonclinical sample (N = 3509). Participants were administered a PDs measure and a performance task assessing three features of emotional experiences: emotional sensitivity, the valence of experienced emotions and the profile of five components constituting an emotion. As predicted, PDs sufferers experienced emotions differently from controls. Results demonstrated that individuals with all PDs were more receptive to emotional elicitation and displayed higher negative emotionality and a deficiency in the affective component of experienced emotions.

Keywords

EN

personality disorders; emotional experience; emotional sensitivity; emotional valence; components of emotions

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 147-155

Dates

published

2014-06-01

online

2014-06-17

Contributors

author

Ewa Trzebińska

• University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty of Psychology in Warsaw, Poland

author

Anna Gabińska

• University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty of Psychology in Warsaw, Poland

References

• Aguilera, A., López, S. R., Breitborde, N. J. K., Kopelowicz, A. & Zarate, R. (2010). Expressed emotion and sociocultural moderation in the course of schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 119, 875-885.[Crossref][WoS]
• American Psychiatric Association. (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
• American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text rev.).Washington, DC: Author.
• American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.).Washington, DC: Author.
• Balsis, S., Woods, C. M., Gleason, M. E. J., & Oltmanns, T. F. (2007). Overdiagnosisand underdiagnosis of personality disorders in older adults. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 15, 742-753.[Crossref][WoS]
• Berenbaum, H., Boden, M.T., Baker, J.P., Dizen, M., Thompson, R.T., & Abramowitz, A. (2006). Emotional correlates of the different dimensions of schizotypal personality disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115, 359-368.
• Bland, A. R., Williams, C. A., Scharer, K., & Manning, S. (2004). Emotion processing in borderline personality disorders. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 25, 655-672.
• Clonninger, C. R. (2007). Foreward. In W. O’Donohue, K. A. Fowler & S. O. Lilenfeld (Eds.), Personality disorders. Toward the DSM-V (pp. vii-xv). New York: Guilford Press.
• Cohen, M.A., & Fredrickson, B.L. (2009). Positive emotions. In S.J. Lopez & C.R. Snyder (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (pp. 13-24). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Cruise, C.R., Sheeber, L. B. & Tompson, M. C. (2011). Behavioral correlates of maternal expressed emotion in interaction tasks. Journal of Family Psychology, 25, 781-784.[Crossref][WoS]
• Dacko, M. (2011). Zaburzenia osobowości a styl przywiązania u osób w bliskich związkach partnerskich. Current Problems of Psychiatry, 12, 428-432.
• Diener, E., Lucas, R. E. i Napa Scolon, C. (2006). Beyond the hedonic treademill. Revising the adaptation theory of well-being. American Psychologist, 5, 305-314.[Crossref]
• Emmelkamp, P. M. G., & Kamphuis, J. H. (2007). Personality Disorders. New York: Psychology Press.
• Feldman Barrett, L. & Niedenthal, P. M. (2004). Valence focus and the perception of facial affect. Emotion, 4, 266-274.[Crossref]
• Frijda, N. H. (2005). Emotion experience. Cognition and Emotion, 4, 473-497.[Crossref]
• Frijda, N. H. (2009). Emotion experience and its varieties. Emotion Review, 1, 261-271.
• Gardner, K. J., Qualter, P., & Tremblay, R. E. (2010). Emotional functioning of individuals with borderline personality traits in a nonclinical population. Psychiatry Research, 176, 208-212.[WoS]
• Johnson, J.G., Cohen, P., Smailes, E.M., Skodol, A.E., Brown, J. & Oldham, J.M. (2001). Childhood verbal abuse and risk for personality disorders during adolescence and early adulthood. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 42(1), 16-23.
• Kaye, A. L., & Shea, M. T. (2000). Personality disorders, personality traits, and defense mechanisms measures. In A.J. Rush, H. A. Pincus, & M. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.
• Kerns, J. G. (2005). Positive schizotypy and emotion processing. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 392-401.
• Kring, A.M. (2009). Emotion disturbances as transdiagnostic processes. In M. Lewis, J.M. Haviland-Jones & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions. Third Edition (pp. 691-705). New York: The Guilford Press.
• Linehan, M. M. (1993). Skills Training Manual For Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. New York Guilford Press.
• Linville, P.W. (1985). Self-complexity and affective extremity: don’t pull all of your eggs in one cognitive basket. Social Cognition, 3, 94-120.[Crossref]
• Lynam, D. R. & Widiger, T. A. (2007). Using a general model of personality to identify the basic elements of psychopathy. Journal of Personality Disorders, 21,160-178.[Crossref]
• Magnavita, J. J.,& Carlson, T. M. (2003). Short-term restructuring psychotherapy: An integrative model for personality disorders. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 3/4, 264-299.
• Mattia,J. L., & Zimmerman, M. (2001). Epidemiology. In W J. Livesley (Ed.), Handbook of personality disorders (pp. 107-123). New York: Guildford Press.
• Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2009). Adult attachment and affect regulation. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment. Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp. 503-531).New York: Guildford Press.
• Mullins-Sweatt, S. N. & Widiger, T. A. (2006). The five-factor model of personality disorder: A translation across science and practice, In R. Krueger& J. Tackett (Eds.), Personality and psychopathology. Building bridges (pp. 39-70). New York: Guildford Press.
• Presnall, J. R. & Widiger, T. A. (2012). Personality disorders. In J. E.[PubMed]
• Maddux & B. A. Winstead (Eds.), Psychopathology. Foundations for a contemporary understanding (pp. 277-306). New York: Routledge.
• Reips, U.-D. (2002). Standards for Internet-Based Experimenting. Experimental Psychology, 49, 243-256.[PubMed]
• Russell, J. A. (2009). Emotion, core affect, and psychological construction. Cognition and Emotion, 23, 1259-1283.[WoS][Crossref]
• Scherer, K. R.(2000). Emotions as episodes of subsystem synchronization driven by nonlinear appraisal processes. In M. Lewis, & I. Granic (Eds.), Emotion, development, and self-organization (pp. 70-99). New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Scherer, K. R.(2002). Emotion, the psychological structure of emotions. In N. J. Smelser, & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (pp. 4472-4477). Oxford: Harvard Libraries.
• Suvak, M. K., Litz, B. T., Sloan, D. M.,Zanarini, M. C., Barrett, L. F., & Hofmann, S. G. (2011). Emotional granularity and borderline personality disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 120, 414-426.[WoS][Crossref]
• Teicher, M., Andersen, S., Polcari, A., Anderson, C., Navalta, C., & Kim, D. (2003). Neurobiological consequences of early stress and childhood maltreatment. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 27, 33-44.
• Torgensen, S. (2005). Epidemiology. In J. M. Oldham, A. E. Skodol, & D. S. Bender (Eds.). Textbookof personality disorders (pp. 129-142). Washington, Dc: American Psychiatric Publishing.
• Trzebińska, E. (2002). Automatic and controlled processing in selfunderstanding. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 2, 27-36.
• Trzebińska, E. & Balsam, K. (2013). Samoocena w zaburzeniach osobowości. Przegląd Psychologiczny, 1, 15-23.
• Trzebińska, E. & Gabińska, A. (2008). Inner multiplicity and mental health: a soundness of internal voices. Studia Psychologica, 8, 215-228.
• Trzebińska, E.,& Lasota, O. (2009). Ogólna charakterystyka badań. In E. Trzebińska (Ed.) Szaleństwo bez utraty rozumu. Z badań nad zaburzeniami osobowości. (pp.102-113). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo SWPS Academica.
• Widiger, T. A. (2007). Alternatives to DSM-IV: Axis II. In W. T. O’Donohue, K. A. Fowler,& S. O. Lilenfeld (Eds.), Personality Disorders. Toward the DSM V (pp. 21-40). Los Angeles: Sage.
• Widiger, T. A. & Coker, L. A. (2002). Assessing personality disorders. In J. N. Butcher (Ed.), Clinical personality assessment: Practical approaches (pp. 407-434). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Widiger, T. A. & Samuel, D. B. (2005). Evidence-based assessment of personality disorders. Assessment, 17, 278-287.[Crossref]
• Wilson, T. D. (2002). Strangers to ourselves: Discovering the adaptive unconscious. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/ppb-2014-0020