Responses to social rejection: the role of borderline personality disorder traits

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Stephanie Skinner (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Rosemery Nelson-Gray

Abstract: The present study examined how people with BPD traits respond to social rejection, using a reliving task as the manipulation of social rejection. In addition, this study examined how rejection sensitivity and BPD traits differentially influence responses to social rejection. One hundred forty-seven undergraduate participants completed questionnaires that assessed BPD traits and mood. In addition, all participants wrote about a previous social rejection or acceptance experience. Results showed the all participants, regardless of level of BPD traits, felt the recalled rejection experience was very negative. In addition, results demonstrated that compared to participants lower in BPD traits, participants higher in BPD traits reported significantly higher anger-hostility, depression-dejection, and overall negative mood after reliving a rejection experience than an acceptance experience. This suggests that the reliving task as a type of social manipulation can influence the ability to detect differences between participants higher in BPD traits and participants lower in BPD traits. Finally, results demonstrated that compared to participants lower in BPD traits, participants higher in BPD traits reported significantly higher tension-anxiety, anger-hostility, depression-dejection, and overall negative mood after reliving a rejection experience than an acceptance experience after partialling out the variance explained by rejection sensitivity. These results suggest that there are characteristics over and above rejection sensitivity that are unique to BPD that contribute to the responses to social rejection.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 2014
Keywords
Borderline Personality Disorder, Social Rejection
Subjects
Borderline personality disorder
Rejection (Psychology)
Social acceptance
Interpersonal relations $x Psychological aspects
College students $x Mental health

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