Facial emotional expression in reaction to social exclusion in borderline personality disorder

Disturbances in social interaction are a defining feature of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this study, facial emotional expressions, which are crucial for adaptive interactions in social contexts, were assessed in patients with BPD in response to social exclusion. We examin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological medicine 2011-09, Vol.41 (9), p.1929-1938
Main Authors: Staebler, K., Renneberg, B., Stopsack, M., Fiedler, P., Weiler, M., Roepke, S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Analysis of Variance
Biological and medical sciences
Borderline personality disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder - psychology
Emotional responses
Emotions
Face
Facial Expression
Facial expressions
Female
Games
Games, Experimental
Germany
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Medical sciences
Negative emotions
Personality disorders
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Social exclusion
Social Isolation - psychology
Social psychology
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Summary:Disturbances in social interaction are a defining feature of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this study, facial emotional expressions, which are crucial for adaptive interactions in social contexts, were assessed in patients with BPD in response to social exclusion. We examined facial emotional reactions of 35 patients with BPD and 33 healthy controls when playing Cyberball, a virtual ball-tossing game that reliably induces social exclusion. Besides self-reported emotional responses, facial emotional expressions were analyzed by applying the Emotional Facial Action Coding System (EMFACS). Patients with BPD showed a biased perception of participation. They more readily reported feeling excluded compared to controls even when they were included. In BPD, social exclusion led to an increase in self-reported other-focused negative emotions. Overall, EMFACS analyses revealed that BPD patients reacted with fewer positive expressions and with significantly more mixed emotional expressions (two emotional facial expressions at the same time) compared to the healthy control group when excluded. Besides a negative bias for perceived social participation, ambiguous facial emotional expressions may play an important role in the disturbed relatedness in patients with BPD.
ISSN:0033-2917
1469-8978
DOI:10.1017/S0033291711000080