An experimental pilot study of response to invalidation in young women with features of borderline personality disorder Kristen A. Woodberry ⁎ , Kaitlin P. Gallo, Matthew K. Nock Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States Received 7 November 2006; received in revised form 5 June 2007; accepted 8 June 2007 Abstract One of the leading biosocial theories of borderline personality disorder (BPD) suggests that individuals with BPD have biologically based abnormalities in emotion regulation contributing to more intense and rapid responses to emotional stimuli, in particular, invalidation [Linehan, M.M., 1993. Cognitive–Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. Guilford, New York.]. This study used a 2 by 2 experimental design to test whether young women with features of BPD actually show increased physiological arousal in response to invalidation. Twenty-three women ages 18 to 29 who endorsed high levels of BPD symptoms and 18 healthy controls were randomly assigned to hear either a validating or invalidating comment during a frustrating task. Although we found preliminary support for differential response to these stimuli in self-report of valence, we found neither self- report nor physiological evidence of hyperarousal in the BPD features group, either at baseline or in response to invalidation. Interestingly, the BPD features group reported significantly lower comfort with emotion, and comfort was significantly associated with affective valence but not arousal. We discuss implications for understanding and responding to the affective intensity of this population. © 2007 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT); Skin conductance; Interpersonal; Valence; Arousal; Validation 1. Introduction Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a clinically complicated disorder characterized by impulsivity and affective instability (Siever and Davis, 1991; APA, 1994). In spite of a high volume of literature on this disorder, major questions remain about its etiology and maintenance. Progress in treating BPD may offer new directions for this research. Of the treatments devel- oped specifically for BPD, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT, Linehan, 1993) has received by far the most empirical support (Robbins and Chapman, 2004; Linehan et al., 2006). One surprising element of this widely disseminated treatment is that the underlying theory permeating both therapist training and patient education remains largely untested. The present study was designed as a preliminary test of one tenet of the underlying theory: that individuals with BPD have a heightened biologically based sensitivity to emotional invalidation. We briefly review Linehan's theory of BPD and existing research relating to its key components: emo- tional vulnerability and invalidation. We then discuss our Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Psychiatry Research 157 (2008) 169 – 180 www.elsevier.com/locate/psychres ⁎ Corresponding author. William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States. Tel.: +1 617 620 3012; fax: +1 617 496 9462. E-mail address: woodber@fas.harvard.edu (K.A. Woodberry). 0165-1781/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2007.06.007