Laboratory measures of aggression and impulsivity in women with borderlinepersonality disorder

To characterize how severe negative affect in women is reflected in objecti ve measures of aggression and impulsivity, the aggressive and impulsive beh avior of 14 hospitalized women with borderline personality disorder (BPD) w as compared with that of 17 controls. In an impulsivity task, subjects expe rienced two sets of 50 trials during which they could choose a smaller, imm ediate monetary reward or a larger but progressively delayed reward. In a s eparate task (PSAP), subjects earned monetary reinforcers with repeated but ton presses, and were provoked by the subtraction of money which was blamed on a fictitious other participant. Subjects could respond by ostensibly su btracting money from the fictitious subject (the aggressive response). Whil e selection frequency of the short-delay responses was similar in patients and controls, BPD patients responded to avoid longer delay of reward across trials, and had higher Barratt Impulsiveness Scale total scores and attent ional subscale scores. BPD patients responded to the money losses with roug hly three times as many aggressive responses as controls and had higher Bus s-Durkee Hostility Inventory (BDHI), Brown History of Violence, and Retrosp ective Overt Aggression Scale scores than controls. Aggressive responding r ates correlated positively with BDHI scores. These results extend previous findings that negative affect in women is reflected in laboratory behaviora l measures. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.