CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 53Personality Disorders and PsychopathologyChild and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentPersonality Traits and Psychology

Emotional instability, poor emotional awareness, and the development of borderline personality

Cole, Pamela M., Llera, Sandra J., Pemberton, Caroline K.·2009·Development and Psychopathology
DOI 10.1017/s0954579409990162
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Emotional instability and poor emotional awareness are cardinal features of the emotional dysregulation associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Most models of the development of BPD include child negative emotional reactivity and grossly inadequate caregiving (e.g., abuse, emotional invalidation) as major contributing factors. However, early childhood emotional reactivity and exposure to adverse family situations are associated with a diverse range of long-term outcomes. We examine the known effects of these risk factors on early childhood emotional functioning and their potential links to the emergence of chronic emotional instability and poor emotional awareness. This examination leads us to advocate new research directions. First, we advocate for enriching the developmental assessment of children's emotional functioning to more closely capture clinically relevant aspects. Second, we advocate for conceptualizing children's early family experiences in terms of the proximal emotional environment to which young children may be or become sensitive. Such approaches should contribute to our ability to identify risk for BPD and guide preventive intervention.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1017/s0954579409990162

Cites

155 of 155 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Childhood neglect, abuse and trauma are proposed to negatively impact the foundational relational processes that foster healthy emotion regulation during early childhood development.

    “childhood neglect, abuse and trauma, all of which are proposed to negatively impact the foundational relational processes that foster healthy emotion regulation during early childhood development (Cole et al., 2009; Crowell et al., 2009; Weiss et al., 2013b)”

    From An Emotion Regulation and Impulse Control (ERIC) Intervention for Vulnerable Young People: A Multi-Sectoral Pilot Study (2021) · cites this paper as Cole et al., 2009

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Cole, P. M., Llera, S. J., & Pemberton, C. K.
Affiliations
Pennsylvania State University (US)
Corresponding author
Cole, Pamela M.
ORCID
Venue
Development and Psychopathology
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2009-10-14
Volume
21
Issue
4
Pages
1293-1310
ISSN
  • 0954-5794 (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-2198
DOI
10.1017/s0954579409990162
OpenAlex
W2153521828
Cited by
53
References
150
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 4
FWCI
2.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified)
Locations
  • Development and Psychopathology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
Keywords
borderline personality disorder, neuroticism, emotional awareness, emotional dysregulation, adverse childhood experiences, emotional invalidation, caregiving quality, risk factors, preventive interventions
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Affective Symptoms, Awareness, Borderline Personality Disorder, Child, Child Abuse, Developmental Disabilities, Emotions, Family, Humans, Individuality, Learning, Social Behavior, Temperament, Caregivers

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review