Emotion Dynamics and the Association With Depressive Features and Borderline Personality Disorder Traits: Unique, Specific, and Prospective Relationships

Patterns of emotional change in daily life have been consistently linked to depressive and borderline personality disorder (BPD) features. However, dynamic measures and average affect show considerable statistical overlap, and depressive and BPD features are comorbid. Moreover, the prospective nature of these relationships is unclear. We used a measurement burst design in which 202 young adults with varying levels of psychopathological features participated in a week-long experience sampling at baseline and 1-year follow-up. Taking overlap into account, we found that BPD traits were uniquely and specifically linked to higher levels of variability in negative affect (NA). For depressive features, indications were found for a specific association with inertia of NA, but these results were not robust and consistent. In fact, overall, incremental predictive power of the dynamic measures above mean affect was limited, especially for depressive features. Prospective relationships showed that psychopathological features predicted stronger emotion dynamic patterns 1 year later rather than the other way around.