PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Objective: The study will employ an in-lab experimental design to investigate the emotional reactivity and
cognitive control of individuals across several positive and negative emotions. Background: Borderline
Personality Disorder (BPD), a disorder of emotional and behavioral dysregulation, has significant medical
costs, indicating a high burden to society.15 Suicide is about 200 times higher in individuals with BPD
compared to the general population.16 Individuals with BPD or subclinical BPD often report engaging in a wide
variety of maladaptive behaviors, including nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI),17 binge eating and purging,18
substance misuse,19 shoplifting,20 reckless driving,21 impulsive spending,21 starting arguments,22 physical
aggression,23 and excessive reassurance seeking.7 Due to the high-risk nature of BPD, individuals with this
disorder often engage in multiple treatments throughout their lifetime and therefore require more mental-health
resources than do individuals with other psychiatric disorders.25,26 Significance: Understanding the
development, underlying constructs, and mechanisms of emotion dysregulation is vital for personalized
treatment development and implementation. More effective treatments and implementations of those
treatments would result in a significant decrease of the burden to society. Innovation: Previous studies have
not compared the intensity of emotional reactions across different emotions. Further, no study has investigated
positive valence systems in relation to emotion dysregulation, cognitive control, and engagement of
maladaptive behaviors. Specific Aims: The aims of this project are to expand upon previous literature by
examining the link between emotional reactivity due to rumination in relation to cognitive control difficulties.
Expected Results: First, individuals with greater emotion regulation difficulties will have stronger changes in
affect upon completing the in-lab rumination task. Second, negative emotion rumination tasks will lead to more
difficulties with cognitive control. Finally, individuals with elevated emotion regulation difficulties will show an
increase in negative affect after completing the neutral and positive affect rumination tasks while individuals
with lower scores will have an increase in positive affect after completing the neutral and positive rumination
tasks. Future Directions: This project will lead to the development of personalized medicine for individuals
who have difficulty regulating emotions.
