Date of Graduation

5-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Psychology (MA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Psychological Science

Advisor/Mentor

Veilleux, Jennifer C.

Committee Member

Vargas, Ivan

Second Committee Member

Beike, Denise R.

Keywords

borderline personality disorder; emotion invalidation; mental illness; personality psychology; self-stigma

Abstract

Self-stigma involves internalized negative evaluation in people with a societally prescribed label (i.e., mental health diagnosis). Thus, measures of self-stigma due to mental illness exclude people without a diagnosis who may negatively evaluate themselves because of their emotions— a process we define as self-invalidation due to emotion. In the current research, I introduced a definition of self-invalidation due to emotion as distinct from self-stigma due to mental illness and emotion invalidation from others. After expert review of the item pool (Study 1), and exploratory (Study 2) and confirmatory factor analysis (Study 3), a 10-item scale for Self-Invalidation Due to Emotion (SIDES) was developed, with subscales of self-invalidation due to high and low emotional experience. A longitudinal study (Study 4) of a college student and community sample replicated and expanded on Study 2 findings, with greater self-invalidation due to high emotional experience predicting greater emotion dysregulation, emotional reactivity and expressivity, and beliefs about emotion uncontrollability. In contrast, greater self-invalidation due to low emotional experience predicted less emotional reactivity and expressivity, and greater beliefs about emotion controllability (Study 4). Finally, in a community sample of people with a history of mental illness (Study 5), greater self-invalidation due to high but not low emotional experience predicted symptoms of borderline personality pathology and distress regardless of self-stigma due to mental illness or perceived emotion invalidation (Study 5). The current research supports the SIDES as a psychometrically sound, more inclusive measure of self-stigma, relevant for predicting distress and maladaptive emotional tendencies in people with and without a mental illness.

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