Self-other generalisation shapes social interaction and is disrupted in borderline personality disorder
Generalising information from ourselves to others, and others to ourselves allows for both a dependable source of navigation and adaptability in interpersonal exchange. Disturbances to social development in sensitive periods can cause enduring and distressing damage to lasting healthy relationships....
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eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
2025-07-01
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| Online Access: | https://elifesciences.org/articles/104008 |
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| author | Joseph M Barnby Jen Nguyen Julia Griem Magdalena Wloszek Henry Burgess Linda J Richards Jessica Kingston Gavin Cooper P Read Montague Peter Dayan Tobias Nolte Peter Fonagy London Personality and Mood Disorders Consortium |
| author_facet | Joseph M Barnby Jen Nguyen Julia Griem Magdalena Wloszek Henry Burgess Linda J Richards Jessica Kingston Gavin Cooper P Read Montague Peter Dayan Tobias Nolte Peter Fonagy London Personality and Mood Disorders Consortium |
| author_sort | Joseph M Barnby |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Generalising information from ourselves to others, and others to ourselves allows for both a dependable source of navigation and adaptability in interpersonal exchange. Disturbances to social development in sensitive periods can cause enduring and distressing damage to lasting healthy relationships. However, identifying the mechanisms of healthy exchange has been difficult. We introduce a theory of self-other generalisation tested with data from a three-phase social value orientation task – the Intentions Game. We involved humans with (n=50) and without (n=53) a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and assessed whether infractions to self-other generalisation may explain prior findings of disrupted social learning and instability. Healthy controls initially used their preferences to predict others and were influenced by their partners, leading to self-other convergence. In contrast, individuals with borderline personality disorder maintained distinct self-other representations when learning about others. This allowed for equal predictive performance compared to controls despite reduced updating sensitivity. Furthermore, we explored theory-driven individual differences underpinning contagion. Overall, the findings provide a clear explanation of how self-other generalisation constrains and assists learning, and how childhood adversity is associated with separation of internalised beliefs. Our model makes clear predictions about the mechanisms of social information generalisation concerning both joint and individual reward. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e149b0ba373a4db694be8da32bd12b86 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2050-084X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | eLife Sciences Publications Ltd |
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| series | eLife |
| spelling | doaj-art-e149b0ba373a4db694be8da32bd12b862025-08-20T03:11:42ZengeLife Sciences Publications LtdeLife2050-084X2025-07-011410.7554/eLife.104008Self-other generalisation shapes social interaction and is disrupted in borderline personality disorderJoseph M Barnby0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6002-1362Jen Nguyen1Julia Griem2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1779-5255Magdalena Wloszek3Henry Burgess4https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3481-952XLinda J Richards5https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7590-7390Jessica Kingston6Gavin Cooper7P Read Montague8Peter Dayan9https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3476-1839Tobias Nolte10https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6834-7727Peter Fonagy11https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0229-0091London Personality and Mood Disorders ConsortiumDepartment of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, United Kingdom; Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom; Centre for AI and Machine Learning, Edith Cowan University, Perth, AustraliaDepartment of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, United KingdomDepartment for Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Anna Freud, London, United KingdomAnna Freud, London, United KingdomDepartment of Neuroscience, Washington University in St. Louis, St Louis, United StatesDepartment of Neuroscience, Washington University in St. Louis, St Louis, United StatesDepartment of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, United KingdomDepartment of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, United KingdomCentre for Human Neuroscience Research, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, United StatesMax Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany; University of Tübingen, Tübingen, GermanyDepartment for Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Anna Freud, London, United KingdomDepartment for Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Anna Freud, London, United KingdomGeneralising information from ourselves to others, and others to ourselves allows for both a dependable source of navigation and adaptability in interpersonal exchange. Disturbances to social development in sensitive periods can cause enduring and distressing damage to lasting healthy relationships. However, identifying the mechanisms of healthy exchange has been difficult. We introduce a theory of self-other generalisation tested with data from a three-phase social value orientation task – the Intentions Game. We involved humans with (n=50) and without (n=53) a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and assessed whether infractions to self-other generalisation may explain prior findings of disrupted social learning and instability. Healthy controls initially used their preferences to predict others and were influenced by their partners, leading to self-other convergence. In contrast, individuals with borderline personality disorder maintained distinct self-other representations when learning about others. This allowed for equal predictive performance compared to controls despite reduced updating sensitivity. Furthermore, we explored theory-driven individual differences underpinning contagion. Overall, the findings provide a clear explanation of how self-other generalisation constrains and assists learning, and how childhood adversity is associated with separation of internalised beliefs. Our model makes clear predictions about the mechanisms of social information generalisation concerning both joint and individual reward.https://elifesciences.org/articles/104008social learninginterpersonal generalisationcomputational modellingmentalisingborderline personality disordertrauma |
| spellingShingle | Joseph M Barnby Jen Nguyen Julia Griem Magdalena Wloszek Henry Burgess Linda J Richards Jessica Kingston Gavin Cooper P Read Montague Peter Dayan Tobias Nolte Peter Fonagy London Personality and Mood Disorders Consortium Self-other generalisation shapes social interaction and is disrupted in borderline personality disorder eLife social learning interpersonal generalisation computational modelling mentalising borderline personality disorder trauma |
| title | Self-other generalisation shapes social interaction and is disrupted in borderline personality disorder |
| title_full | Self-other generalisation shapes social interaction and is disrupted in borderline personality disorder |
| title_fullStr | Self-other generalisation shapes social interaction and is disrupted in borderline personality disorder |
| title_full_unstemmed | Self-other generalisation shapes social interaction and is disrupted in borderline personality disorder |
| title_short | Self-other generalisation shapes social interaction and is disrupted in borderline personality disorder |
| title_sort | self other generalisation shapes social interaction and is disrupted in borderline personality disorder |
| topic | social learning interpersonal generalisation computational modelling mentalising borderline personality disorder trauma |
| url | https://elifesciences.org/articles/104008 |
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