Increases in negative affective arousal precede lower self-esteem in patients with borderline personality disorder but not in patients with depressive disorders: an experience sampling approach

BACKGROUND: Instability in self-esteem and instability in affect are core features of borderline personality disorder (BPD). For decades, researchers and theorists have been interested in the temporal dynamics between these constructs. Some hypothesize that changes in affective states should precede changes in self-esteem (Linehan, Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. Diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, 1993), while others suggest that changes in self-esteem should precede changes in affective states (Kernberg, Borderline conditions and pathological narcissism, 1975). METHODS: In this study, we investigated the temporal relations between negative affective arousal states and current self-esteem in daily life. Patients with BPD (n = 42) or depressive disorders (DD; n = 40), and non-clinical controls (NCC; n = 40) were assessed every 15 min for 13 h. RESULTS: As expected, dynamic structural equation modeling showed higher levels of average daily negative affective arousal and lower levels of average daily self-esteem in the BPD group compared with the NCC group, and scores in the DD group were in-between the BPD and the NCC groups. In line with predictions based on Linehan’s (Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. Diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, 1993) model of affective dysregulation in BPD, negative affective arousal (t) and subsequent self-esteem (t+ 1) were significantly linked only in the BPD group, implying that higher negative affective arousal is followed by lower current self-esteem in the next measurement (ca. 15 min later). Importantly, self-esteem (t) and subsequent negative affective arousal (t + 1) were not significantly related (Kernberg, Borderline conditions and pathological narcissism, 1975). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest close dynamic temporal relations between affective instability and self-esteem instability in BPD, which highlights the importance of providing patients with means to effectively modulate high negative affective arousal states. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40479-023-00229-w.