title: Emotional granularity and borderline personality disorder.
abstract: This study examined the affective dysregulation component of borderline personality disorder (BPD) from an emotional granularity perspective, which refers to the specificity in which one represents emotions. Forty-six female participants meeting criteria for BPD and 51 female control participants without BPD and Axis I pathology completed tasks that assessed the degree to which participants incorporated information about valence (pleasant-unpleasant) and arousal (calm-activated) in their semantic/conceptual representations of emotions and in using labels to represent emotional reactions. As hypothesized, participants with BPD emphasized valence more and arousal less than control participants did when using emotion terms to label their emotional reactions. Implications and future research directions are discussed.
authors.affiliation: VA National Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA 02130, USA. Michael.Suvak@VA.GOV
authors.forename: Michael K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Suvak
authors.forename: Brett T
authors.initials: BT
authors.lastname: Litz
authors.forename: Denise M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Sloan
authors.forename: Mary C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Zanarini
authors.forename: Lisa Feldman
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Barrett
authors.forename: Stefan G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Hofmann
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans