Capturing Within-Person Variability of Borderline Traits in Youth from A Developmentally Sensitive Situational Judgement Perspective

There is evidence on the significance of early maladaptive traits for understanding the roots of borderline personality pathology. Given the interpersonal nature of BPD and fluctuations in symptoms, the present study aims to test the assumption that a situation-contingent contextualized assessment of borderline traits is a viable avenue to capture the way underlying traits are reflected in socio-affective behavior that occurs in age-relevant situations. We aimed to explore the extent to which the variability on these responses represents a meaningful construct for understanding the clinical richness of BPD. Towards this end, a contextualized measure of DSM-5 BPD traits was developed along a situational judgement test format, allowing to explore both between-person and within-person variability in a more economic format than repeated measurement. Examination of the psychometric properties of the SJT revealed distinctive correlational patterns of the situation-based traits with symptom scales of a youth BPD measure, but also indicated that for certain traits consistency in trait-level across different situations is more maladaptive, whereas for other a greater degree of variability in trait expression is more maladaptive. Overall, the present work may set the stage for further research on the potential of SJTs for the assessment of personality pathology traits.