The Independent Contributions of Emotion Dysregulation and Hypermentalization to the “Double Dissociation” of Affective and Cognitive Empathy in Female Adolescent Inpatients With BPD
Harari, Shamay-Tsoory, Ravid, and Levkovitz (2010) demonstrated a “double dissociation” in empathy in borderline personality disorder (BPD), such that BPD patients had higher affective than cognitive empathy, whereas controls exhibited the opposite pattern. Two processes that may relate to this dissociation are emotion dysregulation (ER) and hypermentalization. However, these interrelated processes have not been studied concomitantly, and the dissociation of empathy types has not been examined in adolescents with BPD. This study examined the relations between ER, hypermentalization, and cognitive and affective empathy in 252 adolescent inpatients with and without BPD. Participants completed a computerized task of hypermentalization and measures of ER and empathy. Findings only partially replicated Harari et al.'s findings, with differential performance in cognitive and affective empathy demonstrated across groups. Multivariate analyses revealed that in both groups, ER related to increased affective empath...
This multidimensional approach brings together cognitive, sociobiological and behavioural perspectives providing students with a thorough, vet balanced and well-synthesised presentation of contemporary empathy research. The author approaches the topic in two ways: 1. through empirical work which is examined in a variety of empathy-related areas, clearly recognising the theoretical context; 2. through an organisational model which puts the smaller pieces into one, more coherent whole.
#1Peter Fonagy(UCL: University College London)H-Index: 134
#2Anthony Bateman(UCL: University College London)H-Index: 50
The papers in this special issue offer evidence of personality disorder as a dysfunction of higher-order cognition, which is conceptualized variously as a disorder of mentalizing, metacognition, mindfulness, social cognition and reflective function. While there may be differences in the scope of these concepts, they all imply that higher-order mental processing is at the core of personality function. In this commentary, the authors use mentalizing as an umbrella term for these concepts, and argu...
Abstract Reflective functioning offers an empirically grounded framework for the assessment of mentalization. This article briefly outlines the theory of mentalization and the development of the Reflective Functioning (RF) scale (Fonagy, Target, Steele, & Steele, 1998). It then offers a review and discussion of empirical studies of parental RF regarding the role of RF in linking adult and child attachment and parental RF in the context of psychopathology. Furthermore, empirical studies on RF in ...
Last. Marco Picchioni('KCL': King's College London)H-Index: 41
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A body of work has developed over the last 20 years that explores facial emotion perception in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). We identified 25 behavioural and functional imaging studies that tested facial emotion processing differences between patients with BPD and healthy controls through a database literature search. Despite methodological differences there is consistent evidence supporting a negative response bias to neutral and ambiguous facial expressions in patients. Findings for n...
#1Carla Sharp(UH: University of Houston)H-Index: 59
The aim of the current chapter is to review and discuss the literature on the social-cognitive basis of BPD with the ultimate goal of providing an integrated framework for theory and research. The chapter begins with a description of the behavioral phenotype of disrupted interpersonal relationships in BPD, especially in the context of adolescence, which justifies a social-cognitive approach to BPD. Next, the ever-expanding empirical support for the social-cognitive basis of interpersonal disrupt...
Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have biases in facial emotion recognition, which may underlie many of the core features of this disorder. Although they are known to misperceive specific prototypic expressions of emotion (i.e., those displayed at full emotional intensity), patients with this disorder may also show biases in their perceptions of emotions that are expressed at lower levels of emotional intensity. Females with BPD (n 31) and IQ- and demographically matched non...
#1Carolyn Ha(UH: University of Houston)H-Index: 15
#2Carla Sharp(UH: University of Houston)H-Index: 59
Last. Paul T. Cirino(UH: University of Houston)H-Index: 45
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Reflective function refers to the capacity to reflect on the mind of self and others in the context of the attachment relationship. Reflective function (and its conceptual neighbor, mentalizing) has been shown to be an important correlate of a variety of disorders, including borderline personality disorder (BPD). The current study examined the construct validity of the Reflective Function Questionnaire for Youths (RFQY) in an inpatient sample of adolescents. Adequate internal consistency was est...
Background Emotion dysregulation represents a core symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Deficits in emotion perception are thought to underlie this clinical feature, although studies examining emotion recognition abilities in BPD have yielded inconsistent findings. Method The results of 10 studies contrasting facial emotion recognition in patients with BPD ( n = 266) and non-psychiatric controls ( n = 255) were quantitatively synthesized using meta-analytic techniques. Results Patie...
Empirical evidence and therapeutic interactions have suggested that individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) may demonstrate enhancements in aspects of social-emotional cognition. To assess the empirical evidence for this phenomenon, and to comprehensively evaluate alternative hypotheses for its possible role in BPD etiology and symptoms, the authors systematically searched the literature for investigations of empathy in BPD and reviewed 28 studies assessing a range of empathic abi...
The 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics (ICD-11) defines personality disorder according to personality functioning, which relates to self- and interpersonal functioning. The aim of the present study was to assess the relationship between mentalizing and personality functioning in patients with subthreshold or diagnosed borderline personality disorder. A total of 116 eligible participants were included. Mentalizing was assessed usin...
Last. Logan Bickel(UM: University of Michigan)H-Index: 1
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Abstract Empathy is a complex, multi-dimensional process. As such, it can be impaired at multiple stages, producing disorders of empathy with separable underlying causes. Studies often divide empathy into emotional and cognitive components to simplify the large space of empathic processes. This practice can be helpful, but also causes people to misunderstand their interdependence at the level of the mechanism and how they correspond to surveys and tasks. As a result, inferences made from experim...
Abstract Background Empathy is a complex and multifaceted construct comprising cognitive and affective components. Abnormal empathic responses are implicated in borderline personality disorder (BPD). Specifically, unconscious motor mimicry (a primitive component of affective empathy evident from infancy) is theorized to be heightened and to contribute to the heightened emotional contagion often seen in people with BPD. Yet, no study has directly tested whether abnormally heightened unconscious m...
Last. Naomi Sweller(Macquarie University)H-Index: 19
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Attribution theory seeks to explain why an individual experiences a given emotion in a certain situation. This process occurs intrapersonally, with individuals seeking to identify the factors that led them to experience a given emotional state, with difficulties in this process potentially constituting a component of emotional dysregulation. It was hypothesised that when individuals with poor emotion regulation experienced emotions within a context that did not provide clear antecedents for thei...
Resumen El trastorno limite de personalidad (TLP) se ha considerado como el paradigma de trastorno severo de la personalidad. Los principales sintomas son el comportamiento suicida, la autolesion no suicida, el comportamiento agresivo y la reactividad emocional. El inicio del TLP depende de la combinacion de factores geneticos y ambientales, especialmente de la vulnerabilidad biologica y la exposicion a experiencias traumaticas durante la infancia. Entre sus caracteristicas destacan las alteraci...
Last. Danilo Bzdok(RWTH Aachen University)H-Index: 36
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Abstract During the past decade, novel approaches to study social interaction have expanded and questioned long-standing knowledge about how humans understand each other. We aim to portray and reconcile the key psychological processes and neural mechanisms underlying navigation of the social environment. Theoretical accounts mostly revolved around either abstract inferences or embodied simulations, whereas experimental studies mostly focused on theory of mind or mentalizing, empathy, and action ...
#2Amanda Venta(SHSU: Sam Houston State University)H-Index: 19
Last. Carla Sharp(UH: University of Houston)H-Index: 59
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Abstract Background Suicide ideation and attempt are alarmingly prevalent in adolescents, and even more so for youth in psychiatric settings. Interpersonal factors have been emphasized as important in the etiology and maintenance of suicide ideation and attempt in adolescents. Evaluating social cognitive deficits offers important insight into processes underlying interpersonal problems associated with suicide ideation and attempt; however little social-cognitive research has been conducted in th...
Last. Martin Debbané(UCL: University College London)H-Index: 36
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Abstract Introduction Adolescence is a critical period for the development of mentalizing – the imaginative capacity to understand one's own and others' behaviour in terms of underlying mental states. Yet, factors and mechanisms underlying individual differences in adolescent mentalizing remain poorly understood. This exploratory study examined whether and how a) age and gender and b) psychological difficulties correlate with mentalizing performance in adolescents from the general population. Me...
