Childhood trauma and borderline personality disorder features: a moderated-mediation model of rejection sensitivity and experiential avoidance

Background: Childhood trauma is a well-established risk factor for features of borderline personality disorder (BPD), a psychiatric condition characterised by both interpersonal dysfunction and emotional deficits. Although contemporary theoretical frameworks emphasise the interplay between interpersonal and affective domains in BPD, empirical studies testing the specific sequential mechanisms by which these processes mediate the impact of childhood trauma remain limited. Objective: The present study tested an integrated model in which rejection sensitivity (an interpersonal process) and experiential avoidance (an emotional process) independently and sequentially mediate the link between childhood trauma and BPD features, while also examining the potential moderating role of distress endurance. Method: This cross-sectional study included 869 university students aged 19–35 years. Participants completed the Borderline Personality Inventory (BPI), the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire–Short Form (CTQ-SF), the Adult Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (ARSQ), and the short form of Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (MEAQ-30). The data were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Results: Childhood trauma exerted significant direct and indirect effects on BPD features. Analyses supported a complementary partial mediation model, demonstrating that rejection sensitivity and experiential avoidance mediated this association independently and sequentially. Furthermore, moderation analyses indicated that distress endurance failed to significantly buffer the maladaptive pathways from rejection sensitivity to experiential avoidance or from experiential avoidance to BPD features. Conclusions: Experiential avoidance acts as a salient sequential mechanism linking childhood trauma and rejection sensitivity to BPD features in a non-clinical sample. Consequently, interventions targeting the reduction of experiential avoidance, rather than fostering general distress endurance, may be more effectively to mitigate the concurrent impact of childhood trauma on BPD features. Childhood trauma is associated with the severity of borderline personality features through rejection sensitivity and experiential avoidance.The intensity of borderline personality features is more closely linked to experiential avoidance than to rejection sensitivity.Interventions targeting the reduction of experiential avoidance, rather than fostering general distress endurance, may effectively attenuate the concurrent impact of childhood trauma on borderline personality features. Childhood trauma is associated with the severity of borderline personality features through rejection sensitivity and experiential avoidance. The intensity of borderline personality features is more closely linked to experiential avoidance than to rejection sensitivity. Interventions targeting the reduction of experiential avoidance, rather than fostering general distress endurance, may effectively attenuate the concurrent impact of childhood trauma on borderline personality features.