Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

DeShong, Hilary L.

Committee Member

McKinney, Clifford B.

Committee Member

Nadorff, Michael R.

Date of Degree

5-13-2022

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Applied Psychology

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Psychology

Abstract

Childhood adversity is linked with a variety of negative outcomes including suicide attempts and personality disorders, most commonly Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). A core feature of BPD, emotion dysregulation is often reported following early childhood adversity and contributes to both suicidal ideation and attempts. One explanation for the development of emotion dysregulation within BPD, is the biosocial model, which states that there must be an interaction between childhood emotional vulnerability and parental invalidation. Recent literature suggests that this interaction may not be necessary. Thus, the current study extended previous literature by examining childhood risk factors (i.e., ACES, parental invalidation, and childhood emotional vulnerability) as individual and interactive effects in predicting both BPD and suicide directly, as well as indirectly predicting suicide through BPD. Overall, the results indicated that all three risk factors individually predicted BPD and suicide risk and that the biosocial interaction also significantly predicts BPD and suicide risk.

Share

COinS