You say it‘s not me: the influence of offering external explanations of rejection and acceptance behavior on the perception of benevolence in borderline personality disorder

Our findings indicate that acceptance and provided external explanations for rejection have a less positive impact on the perception of a social partner's attitude toward oneself in BPD patients than in HCs. More research is needed to identify predictors of benevolence perception and which steps of social information processing are altered. The therapeutic implications include the importance of strengthening the perception and enjoyment of being accepted as well as improving the mentalizing ability of BPD patients.