اختلال شخصیت مرزی در ابعاد مختلف هوش هیجانی

Abstract Although considerable attention has begun to be focused on personality disorders in recent years, relatively little is known about the relationship between personality disorders and emotional intelligence. In response to the need to better understand this relationship, the present research was designed to determine whether personality disorder symptomatology would be associated with six aspects of emotional intelligence: emotional clarity, emotional attention, emotional regulation, private emotional awareness, private emotional preoccupation, and public emotional monitoring. The results indicated that several personality disorders were systematically associated with these aspects of emotional intelligence.

Introduction The topic of emotional intelligence has begun to attract the attention of researchers and professionals alike (Ciarrochi, Forgas, & Mayer, 2001). Early psychologists believed that rational thought was different from, even antithetical to, human emotions (Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, & Palfai, 1995). Emotional processes were viewed as interruptions to rational mental activities. Contemporary psychologists now realize that emotions can aid in understanding adaptive social behavior (Salovey, Bedell, Detweiler, & Mayer, 1998). Emotional intelligence can be defined as the appraisal and expression of emotion for one's self and others, the regulation of emotion in one's self and others, and the utilization of emotion for motivational purposes (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Generally speaking, these features of emotional intelligence combine to aid in people's ability to adapt to life's changes through the use of both rational and emotional coping skills. Emotional intelligence involves emotional problem solving as well (Mayer & Geher, 1996). In order to solve emotional problems, individuals must first become aware of their own emotions and then use that information to recognize emotions in others. This ability to recognize emotions is vital to people's emotional well being, because the ability to recognize emotions in others is related to additional aspects of emotional intelligence, including empathy and openness (Mayer and Salovey, 1993 and Mayer and Salovey, 1997). Without the emotional mental ability to detect what other people feel, individuals would probably be less able to experience empathy and understanding toward others. Thus, emotional intelligence not only involves personal components (e.g., emotional insight and emotional self-management), but also encompasses interpersonal components (e.g., empathy and handling relationships). Recent researchers have begun to examine the impact of emotional intelligence tendencies on people's mental health. As people develop and mature, emotional reactions may combine with complex thoughts to help develop highly sophisticated methods for human functioning (Mayer & Salovey, 1995). For those unable to properly function emotionally, long term therapy that specifically focuses on affect consciousness has been found to facilitate the self-regulation of emotions (Monsen, Odland, Faugli, Daae, & Eilertsen, 1995). More specifically, this 5-year follow-up of patients who received long term therapy for more than a year found that treatment was systematically related to changes in how well people's emotions were regulated (affect consciousness was assessed via a semistructured instrument in this investigation). Additional research by Mayer, DiPaolo, and Salovey (1990) has examined people's abilities to recognize emotional content and to use this ability as a basis for empathizing with others. Their findings revealed that those individuals characterized by limited emotional awareness were less likely to empathize with others. Both the recognition of emotions and the potential importance of this ability to daily functioning are basic to emotional well being (Mayer & Geher, 1996). According to Lane and Schwartz (1987), emotional abilities are very important to mental health. Lane and Schwartz (1987) found that emotional disturbance was a fundamental aspect of schizophrenia, organic mental disorders, psychosomatic disorders, and personality disorders. Moreover, the practice of psychological therapy relies upon emotions in the diagnosis and subsequent treatment of mental disorders. For example, every personality disorder described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1994) involves disturbances in affect or its regulation (Westen, Muderrisoglu, Fowler, Shedler, & Koren, 1997). Two self-report instruments have been devised by Salovey, Mayer, and their colleagues to assess multiple aspects of emotional intelligence: The State Meta-Mood Scale (SMMS; Mayer & Stevens, 1994) and the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS; Salovey et al., 1995). Meta-mood is defined as a reflected experience of mood (Mayer & Gaschke, 1988); as such, state meta-mood refers to people's immediate awareness of and thoughts about their ongoing moods (Mayer & Stevens, 1994). By contrast, the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (Salovey et al., 1995) was developed to assess people's chronic tendency to attend not only to their moods and emotions but also to assess people's dispositional ability to discriminate and regulate their moods and emotions. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the relationship between personality disorders and university students' emotional intelligence tendencies. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (APA, 1994), a personality disorder involves a continuous pattern of behavior that deviates from social norms. Personality disorders also involve a broad spectrum of situations, and their onset is typically found before the age of 18. There are 10 personality disorders included in the DSM-IV, which are grouped into three clusters. Cluster A (schizoid, schizotypal, and paranoid) includes individuals who appear odd or eccentric; Cluster B (histrionic, borderline, narcissistic, and antisocial) refers to persons who appear dramatic, emotional, or erratic; and Cluster C (avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive) consists of people who appear anxious or fearful. In addition, the DSM-IV describes 2 provision personality disorders in Appendix B (depressive and passive-aggressive). 1.1. Summary No previous research has indicated that personality disorders are directly associated with emotional intelligence. Thus, there was a need to examine the relationship between the DSM-IV personality disorders and several aspects of emotional intelligence. More specifically, the present research was designed to examine whether personality disorder symptomatology would be associated with several aspects of people's emotional intelligence. Researchers have demonstrated that personality disorder symptomatology can be measured through the use of questionnaire techniques (Fossati et al., 1998; Hunt & Andrews, 1992). The present investigation assessed personality disorder symptomatology through the use of the Personality Disorder Questionnaire-4+ (PDQ-4+; Hyler, 1994). The current research also assessed several different facets of emotional intelligence using the Multidimensional Emotional Awareness Questionnaire (MEAQ; Snell, 1999) and the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (Salovey et al., 1995). The MEAQ consists of 20 items designed to measure three aspects of emotional awareness: (a) private emotional attention (PEA) (defined as the dispositional tendency to pay attention to, to be concerned with, and to be aware of one's internal and privately felt emotional experiences), (b) private emotional preoccupation and rumination (PEU, defined as the dispositional tendency to be preoccupied with and to ruminate about one's internal and privately felt emotional experiences), and (c) public emotional monitoring (PEM, defined as the dispositional tendency to pay attention to, to be concerned with, and to be aware of other people's public reactions to one's privately felt emotional experiences). By comparison, the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (Salovey et al., 1995) assesses the following three aspects of emotional intelligence: attention to feelings, clarity of feelings, and mood repair. Attention to feelings denotes how much attention people give to their feelings. Clarity of feelings indicates how well individuals understand their feelings, and mood repair refers to attempts by people to repair unpleasant moods or to maintain pleasant moods (Salovey et al., 1995). 1.2. Hypothesis It was anticipated that borderline personality disorder symptomatology would be associated with both emotional clarity (EC) and emotional regulation. More specifically, it was predicted that individuals who score higher on the PDQ-4+ measure of borderline personality disorder would be more likely to report less emotional clarity and less emotional regulation, as measured by the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (Salovey et al., 1995). This prediction was based on the rationale that borderline personality disorder symptomatology includes a pattern of instability in one's affect, which includes the ability to understand one's moods (clarity) and the ability to moderate (regulation) one's moods (Gunderson, 1996). Research findings on borderline personality disorder (Rogers, Widiger, & Krupp, 1995) also show that persons who have borderline personality disorder tend to experience aloneness, characterized by a terrifying inner emptiness and a sense of void. Gunderson (1996) also found that individuals with borderline personality disorder tend to exhibit an inability to control their own emotions.

3. Results Table 1 presents the correlations between the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4+ and the measures of emotional clarity (TMMS), emotional attention (TMMS), emotional repair (TMMS), private emotional awareness (MEAQ), private emotional preoccupation (MEAQ), and public emotional monitoring (MEAQ). Because of the large sample size, it was decided to interpret only correlations with a probability level greater than 0.001. The results are presented in several sections corresponding to the various aspects of emotional intelligence assessed in this research. Table 1. Correlations between the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4+ (PDQ-4+) and both the Multidimensional Emotional Awareness Questionnaire (MEAQ) and the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS) among university students Personality disorders on the PDQ-4+ MEAQ TMMS PEA PEU PEM EC ER EA Total PDQ-4+ score −0.04 0.31**** −0.29**** −0.35**** −0.31**** −0.04 DSM-IV Cluster A personality disorders Paranoid personality disorder −0.05* 0.21**** 0.18**** −0.23**** −0.27**** −0.07** Schizoid personality disorder −0.21**** −0.03 −0.06** −0.19**** −0.30**** −0.26**** Schizotypal personality disorder −0.00 0.24**** 0.14**** −0.18**** −0.21**** −0.03 DSM-IV Cluster B personality disorders Antisocial personality disorder −0.10**** 0.08**** −0.01 −0.19**** −0.14**** −0.12**** Borderline personality disorder −0.05* 0.28**** 0.19**** −0.30**** −0.35**** −0.01 Histrionic personality disorder 0.11**** 0.28**** 0.25**** −0.18**** −0.03 0.12**** Narcissistic personality disorder −0.02 0.19**** 0.16**** −0.21**** −0.14**** −0.05* DSM-IV Cluster C personality disorders Avoidant personality disorder −0.01 0.27**** 0.36**** −0.28**** −0.30**** 0.02 Dependent personality disorder −0.03 0.24**** 0.33**** −0.30**** −0.20**** −0.03 Obsessive compulsive personality disorder 0.02 0.14**** 0.17**** −0.14**** −0.07** 0.03 DSM-IV Appendix B personality disorders Negativistic personality disorder −0.05* 0.21**** 0.17**** −0.27**** −0.35**** −0.06* Depressive personality disorder −0.04 0.24**** 0.22**** −0.25**** −0.36**** −0.02 Note. N=1359–1375. Higher PDQ-4+ scores correspond to greater amounts of each personality disorders. Higher MEAQ scores correspond to greater private emotional awareness (PEA), private emotional preoccupation (PEQ) and public emotional monitoring (PEM), respectively. Higher TMMS scores correspond to greater emotional clarity (EC), emotional attention (EA), and emotional regulation (ER), respectively. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.005, ****p<0.001. Table options 3.1. TMMS emotional clarity An inspection of Table 1 reveals a statistically significant negative correlation between emotional clarity and each of the 12 personality disorders on the PDQ-4+: paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, avoidant, dependent, obsessive compulsive, negativistic, and depressive personality disorder. Emotional clarity was also found to negatively correlate with the total PDQ-4+ score (see Table 1). 3.2. TMMS emotional repair Table 1 also shows a significant negative correlation between emotional repair and all but one (histrionic) of the 12 DSM-IV personality disorders: paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, avoidant, dependent, obsessive compulsive, negativistic, and depressive personality disorder. Emotional repair (ER) also had a significant negative correlation with the total PDQ-4+ score (see Table 1). 3.3. TMMS emotional attention In addition, Table 1 indicates that emotional attention was found to have a significant negative correlation with both schizoid and antisocial personality disorders, but was positively correlated with histrionic personality disorder. 3.4. MEAQ private emotional attention An inspection of Table 1 indicates a significant negative correlation between private emotional attention, as measured by the MEAQ, and both schizoid and antisocial personality disorder. Private emotional attention was also found to have a significant positive correlation with histrionic personality disorder. 3.5. MEAQ private emotional preoccupation An inspection of Table 1 indicates a significant negative correlation between private emotional preoccupation (PEU) and all but one (schizoid) of the personality disorders measured by the PDQ-4+: paranoid, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, avoidant, dependent, obsessive compulsive, negativistic, and depressive personality disorder. Private emotional preoccupation (PEU) also had a significant negative correlation with the total PDQ-4+ score (see Table 1). 3.6. MEAQ public emotional monitoring Table 1 indicates a significant positive correlation between public emotional monitoring and all but two of the PDQ-4+ subscales (schizoid and antisocial personality disorder): paranoid, schizoidtypal, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, avoidant, dependent, obsessive compulsive, negativistic, and depressive personality disorder. Public emotional monitoring also had a significant negative correlation with the total PDQ-4+ score (see Table 1)