title: Suboptimal decision making in borderline personality disorder: effect of potential losses.
abstract: This research explored the underlying processes mediating risky decisions for individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). We tested whether BPD patients were more apt to take risks compared to a matched comparison group. We used two controlled tasks designed to assess risky decision-making, both to achieve gains and to avoid losses. Overall, BPD patients showed increased risk-taking compared to the comparison group (p = .011, η2 = .224), and were especially likely to be risk-seeking when the decision was framed as a potential loss (p < .0001, d = 1.77). When the outcome involved pure losses, BPD patients were insensitive to the relative expected value between choice options resulting in suboptimal decision making (p = .004, d = 1.24), but did not differ from the comparison group when taking risks to achieve gains (p = .603, d = 0.21). We discuss these results in the context of behavioral and neuropsychiatric research suggesting abnormalities BPD patients' ability to effectively regulate affect.
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Murcia (Spain).
authors.forename: Juan P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Navarro
authors.affiliation: Idaho State University (USA).
authors.forename: Joshua A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Weller
authors.affiliation: Hospital General Universitario Reina Sofía (Spain).
authors.forename: Jose M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: López-Navarro
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Murcia (Spain).
authors.forename: Jose M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Martínez-Selva
authors.affiliation: University of Southern California (USA).
authors.forename: Antoine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bechara
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012201:Reward; D012309:Risk-Taking; D055815:Young Adult