Borderline personality features and instability of daily negative affect and self-esteem.
We used a daily process design and multilevel modeling to examine the role of borderline personality features in the day-to-day stability of college students' negative affect and self-esteem and their reactivity to interpersonal stressors. At the end of each day for two weeks, students completed a checklist of daily stressors and measures of state affect and self-esteem. We predicted that high scores on a measure of borderline features would be related to more daily interpersonal stressors, greater negative affective and self-esteem reactivity to these stressors, and less day-to-day carryover of negative mood and self-esteem. The first and third hypotheses were supported, but not the second. The findings demonstrate the utility of a daily process methodology and multilevel modeling to study the day-to-day functioning of individuals with borderline features.
Tolpin
Laura Hochschild
LH
Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark 19716, USA.
Gunthert
Kathleen Cimbolic
KC
Cohen
Lawrence H
LH
O'Neill
Suzanne C
SC
D000339:Affect; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012649:Self Concept; D012737:Sex Factors; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology