Blinded by our emotions: The impact of borderline personality disorder and affect on emotion recognition sensitivity

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated abnormalities in emotion recognition within individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, it is yet unknown how much these abnormalities can be attributed to emotional states or affect. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the independent effects of BPD, positive affect, and negative affect on emotion recognition sensitivity. We recruited a mixed, transdiagnostic community sample of 118 adults diagnosed with either a personality disorder, only an affective disorder, or without psychopathology. Participants completed self-report assessments of positive and negative affect and two behavioral assessments of emotion recognition sensitivity. We found that both positive and negative affect predict lower overall emotion recognition sensitivity in both tasks, beyond the effect of BPD. We did not find a significant, independent effect of the diagnosis of BPD. Additionally, we found that the diagnosis of BPD moderated the relationship between negative affect and emotion recognition sensitivity within one task. Findings from the present study suggest that sensitivity to other people’s emotional expressions may be influenced by affect beyond the effect of the BPD diagnosis. The implications for future research efforts on emotion recognition and BPD are discussed.