Atypical emotion interpretation has been widely reported in individuals with borderline personality disorder ; however, empirical studies reported mixed results so far. We suggest that discrepancies in observations of emotion interpretation by iBPD can be explained by biases related to their fear of rejection and abandonment, i.e., the three moral emotions of anger, disgust, and contempt. In this study, we hypothesized that iBPD would show a higher tendency to correctly interpret these three displays of social rejection and attribute more negative (...) valence. A total of 28 inpatient iBPDs and 28 healthy controls were asked to judge static and dynamic facial expressions in terms of emotions, valence, and self-reported arousal evoked by the observed faces. Our results partially confirmed our expectations. The iBPD correctly interpreted the three unambiguous moral emotions. Contempt, a complex emotion with a difficulty in recognizing facial expressions, was recognized better by iBPD than by healthy controls. All negative emotions were judged more negatively by iBPD than by controls, but no difference was observed in the neutral or positive emotion. Alexithymia and anxiety trait and state levels were controlled in all analyses. (shrink)

Empathy of pain as a multi-dimensional process includes sharing and understanding the pain of others in relation to oneself. Subjects in such studies are typically members of western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic societies. In the literature review that we conducted, we observed that little is known about the empathy for pain in people who are not members of societies with these cultural characteristics. We often understand those who are “similar” to us more easily - ones who belong to “our” (...) cultural circle. However, contact with another culture could help prevent such bias. Group characteristics, such as focus on others, hierarchy preference, or cultural differences in self-constructs, can change the activity of brain regions associated with empathy and compassion. Increasing the diversity of the research participants connected with education level, poverty, industrialization, and respect for basic citizen freedoms seem to be necessary to fully understand the mechanisms that influence the development and operation of empathy. (shrink)