Reciprocal effects between daily situational perceptions and borderline personality symptoms in young adulthood: the role of childhood parenting experiences

Abstract

Background Recent research has emphasized the importance of within-person transactions between situational perceptions and borderline symptomatology. The current study extends current evidence by evaluating a broad range of situational perceptions and their transactions with borderline symptomatology across both private and professional contexts. Additionally, it explores whether early experiences of parental harsh punishment and emotional support during childhood, two well-established etiological factors in developmental theories of borderline symptomatology, influence the effect of daily situation perception in adulthood on borderline symptom presentation. Methods N = 131 young adults (Mage = 20.97, s.d. age = 1.64) completed end-of-day diaries of their borderline symptoms and perceptions of the home and school or work environment for 14 days. During their mid-childhood, reports of maternal strategies of harsh punishment and emotional support were collected. Results Findings revealed that on the same day, borderline symptoms were associated with more negative and stressful, and less positive perceptions of both the private and professional context. Additionally, borderline symptoms predicted more negative and stressful perceptions of school/work on subsequent days. Finally, while early harsh punishment predicted overall increases in daily borderline symptoms 10 years later, emotionally supportive parenting in childhood predicted decreases in borderline symptom expression in less positive and more stressful contexts. Conclusions The current study points to the importance of managing BPD symptoms to reduce subsequent negative perceptions of the environment, and also indicates the relevance of exploring adult person-situation processes based on early parenting experiences.

Momentary borderline personality disorder symptoms in youth as a function of parental invalidation and youth‐perceived support

“…Results demonstrated that approximately half of the variance in BPD symptoms was at the within‐person level, similar to previous research using composite measures of BPD pathology (Vanwoerden, Hofmans, & De Clercq, 2020) as well as single BPD symptoms or criteria (e.g. Scott et al., 2015).…”

Evaluation of a Parenting Program for Disadvantaged Families in the Czech Republic

“…Moreover, as the perception of the usefulness of parent training is one of the important factors in the intervention (Graf et al, 2014), it seems crucial for social workers to be able to provide training that is understandable for the parents and communicate the benefits. And indeed, programs aimed at increasing the quality of children's environment, focused on fostering the skills of parents, can have long-term benefits, such as the improvement of well-being of children in adulthood (Kiviniemi et al, 2020; Vanwoerden et al, 2021). For this reason, and in line with other authors’ work, we think it would be especially the role of practitioners, their competence, experience or training, that holds an important role in successful implementation of evidence-based parenting programs (Shapiro et al, 2015; Turner et al, 2011).…”

“…A recent Finnish longitudinal study found that parental strictness during children's upbringing can eventually lead to higher levels of emotional distress, anxiety, or depression symptoms in adulthood (Kiviniemi et al, 2020). In addition, early experiences of a negatively perceived childhood environment or lack of emotional support are connected to personality disorders such as borderline personality disorder (Vanwoerden et al, 2021).…”