Borderline personality traits influence the functional calibration of shame with social devaluation

Abstract Introduction Shame is an evolved emotion that functions to minimize social devaluation. The shame system ensures that the amount of shame felt for an inappropriate action is finely calibrated to the amount of social devaluation that this action would entail. Severity of borderline personality (BP) traits could be associated with dysregulations in the shame system. Using a functionalist framework, this study examined how shame and social devaluation are experienced and calibrated in different levels of BP traits severity. Methods A total of 109 participants from the general population completed a shame-devaluation task assessing responses to hypothetical socially inappropriate scenarios, along with a measure of BP traits (BSL-23). We compared how shame and devaluation in three groups of individuals—with low, mild and high BP trait severity—track normative shame level and normative social devaluation. Results Compared to individuals with low BP trait severity, individuals with higher levels of BP trait severity show miscalibrations with normative shame—tracking less accurately the levels of shame expressed by others—while devaluation itself remained aligned with normative patterns. Furthermore, compared to individuals with low BP trait severity, the relationship between shame and normative devaluation is weaker for individuals with higher levels of BP traits severity, suggesting an altered functioning of the shame system. Discussion These findings highlight a specific dysregulation in shame processing associated with BP traits severity, which may contribute to interpersonal instability and emotional reactivity. This study offers novel insights by bridging clinical and evolutionary models of emotion and may inform future research and therapeutic approaches targeting maladaptive shame responses related to BP traits or BP disorder.