scholarly journals Mouse-tracking reveals cognitive conflict during negative impression formation in women with Borderline Personality Disorder or Social Anxiety Disorder

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e0247955
Author(s):  
Johanna Hepp ◽  
Pascal J. Kieslich ◽  
Andrea M. Wycoff ◽  
Katja Bertsch ◽  
Christian Schmahl ◽  
...  

Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) suffer from substantial interpersonal dysfunction and have difficulties establishing social bonds. A tendency to form negative first impressions of others could contribute to this by way of reducing approach behavior. We tested whether women with BPD or SAD would show negative impression formation compared to healthy women (HCs). We employed the Thin Slices paradigm and showed videos of 52 authentic target participants to 32 women with BPD, 29 women with SAD, and 37 HCs. We asked participants to evaluate whether different positive or negative adjectives described targets and expected BPD raters to provide the most negative ratings, followed by SAD and HC. BPD and SAD raters both agreed with negative adjectives more often than HCs (e.g., ‘Yes, the person is greedy’), and BPD raters rejected positive adjectives more often (e.g., ‘No, the person is not humble.’). However, BPD and SAD raters did not differ significantly from each other. Additionally, we used the novel process tracing method mouse-tracking to assess the cognitive conflict (via trajectory deviations) raters experienced during decision-making. We hypothesized that HCs would experience more conflict when making unfavorable (versus favorable) evaluations and that this pattern would flip in BPD and SAD. We quantified cognitive conflict via maximum absolute deviations (MADs) of the mouse-trajectories. As hypothesized, HCs showed more conflict when rejecting versus agreeing with positive adjectives. The pattern did not flip in BPD and SAD but was substantially reduced, such that BPD and SAD showed similar levels of conflict when rejecting and agreeing with positive adjectives. Contrary to the hypothesis for BPD and SAD, all three groups experienced substantial conflict when agreeing with negative adjectives. We discuss therapeutic implications of the combined choice and mouse-tracking results.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Weinbrecht ◽  
Michael Niedeggen ◽  
Stefan Roepke ◽  
Babette Renneberg

AbstractWe investigated how patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) process an increase in the frequency of social interaction. We used an EEG-compatible version of the online ball-tossing game Cyberball to induce an increase in the frequency of social interaction. In the first condition, each player received the ball equally often (inclusion: 33% ball reception). In the following condition, the frequency of the ball reception was increased (overinclusion: 45% ball reception). The main outcome variable was the event-related potential P2, an indicator for social reward processing. Moreover, positive emotions were assessed. Twenty-eight patients with SAD, 29 patients with BPD and 28 healthy controls (HCs) participated. As expected, HCs and patients with BPD, but not patients with SAD, showed an increase in the P2 amplitude from the inclusion to the overinclusion condition. Contrary to our expectations, positive emotions did not change from the inclusion to the overinclusion condition. EEG results provide preliminary evidence that patients with BPD and HCs, but not patients with SAD, process an increase in the frequency of social interaction as rewarding.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. e0188024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael M. Havranek ◽  
Fleur Volkart ◽  
Bianca Bolliger ◽  
Sophie Roos ◽  
Maximilian Buschner ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (8) ◽  
pp. 1581-1589 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Isomura ◽  
M. Boman ◽  
C. Rück ◽  
E. Serlachius ◽  
H. Larsson ◽  
...  

BackgroundWe aimed to provide unbiased estimates of familial risk and heritability of social anxiety disorder (SAD) and avoidant personality disorder (AVPD).MethodWe identified 18 399 individuals diagnosed with SAD and 2673 with AVPD in the Swedish National Patient Register between 1997 and 2009. Risks (odds ratios; OR) for SAD in all biological and non-biological relatives of probands, compared to relatives of unaffected individuals were calculated. We also estimated the risks for AVPD in relatives of probands with SAD.ResultsThe risk for SAD among relatives of SAD probands increased proportionally to the degree of genetic relatedness. The risks for first-degree relatives [OR 4.74, 95% confidence interval (CI) 4.28–5.25] were significantly higher than for second-degree and third-degree relatives. Second-degree relatives (OR 2.30, 95% CI 2.01–2.63) had significantly higher risk than third-degree relatives (OR 1.72, 95% CI 1.52–1.94). Relatives at similar genetic distances had similar risks for SAD, despite different degrees of shared environment. Heritability was estimated to be approximately 56%. There were no significant sex differences in the familial patterns. The risk of AVPD in relatives of SAD probands was significantly elevated, even after excluding individuals with both diagnoses (first-degree OR 3.54, second-degree OR 2.20, third-degree OR 1.62). Non-biological relatives (spouses/partners) also had elevated risks for both SAD (OR 4.01) and AVPD (OR 3.85).ConclusionsSAD clusters in families primarily due to genetic factors. SAD and AVPD are aetiologically related and may represent different expressions of the same vulnerability. The strong marital concordance observed in SAD/AVPD may indicate assortative mating but the exact mechanisms and implications require further investigation.


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