Psychology Commons^™

Borderline Personality Features And Integration Of Positive And Negative Thoughts About Significant Others, Kathy R. Berenson, Jessica C. Johnson, Fanghui Zhao, Olga U.A. Nynaes, Tamir Goren

Psychology Faculty Publications

Taking the bad with the good is a necessity of life, and people who readily integrate thoughts of their loved one’s flaws with thoughts of their more positive attributes maintain more stable, satisfying relationships. Borderline personality disorder, however, is often characterized by interpersonal perceptions that fluctuate between extremes of good and bad. We used a timed judgment task to examine information processing about significant others in individuals high in borderline personality features relative to healthy individuals and those high in avoidant personality features. In Study 1, when judging traits of a liked significant other, same-valence facilitation by negative primes (judging …