Lower self-positivity and its association with self-esteem in women with borderline personality disorder

Self-esteem, the global attitude towards one's self, is low in persons with borderline personality disorder (BPD). This may be partially due to the ways these persons protect or enhance the self. A case in point is self-positivity, the association of positive rather than negative events, experiences, and objects with the self. Self-esteem and self-positivity may result from either conscious or non-conscious processes. We examined whether low self-esteem is related to low self-positivity in BPD, and whether their covariation is contingent upon conscious processing. We assessed explicit self-esteem via self-report (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) and implicit self-esteem via the Initial Preference Task in women with BPD and healthy control women. We assessed self-positivity in a self referential processing task, in which participants rated the valence of positive, neutral, and negative nouns, and later recalled them. We manipulated referential context via supraliminal or subliminal priming of self-reference, other-reference, or no reference. Explicit and implicit self-esteem were lower in the BPD group than in the healthy control group. Participants with BPD rated self-referential words less positively, when primes were presented supraliminally. Less positive and slower ratings of positive self-referential words were associated with lower explicit, but not implicit, self-esteem in the BPD group.