Beyond Feeling Down: Expectations About and Memories of Daily Affective Experiences in Major Depressive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder

Recent evidence suggests that individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) or borderline personality disorder (BPD) not only experience an excess of negative affect but also hold negatively biased internal representations of their affective experiences. Such biases may play an important role in the maintenance of these disorders. However, previous evidence in this area has mostly been based on nonclinical samples. The current experience sampling study compared the momentary affective experiences of 55 individuals with current MDD, 56 individuals with BPD, and 53 healthy individuals with their prior expectations and subsequent memories of these affective experiences. Results showed that individuals with both MDD and BPD considerably overestimated their future and past negative affect. Furthermore, they did not show the optimistic recall bias for positive affect observed in healthy individuals. Notably, the absence of an optimistic bias regarding the expectation of positive affect was specific to depression. Important theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.