3 A meta-analysis on the association between EA and BPP 101 relationship between emotional awareness and BPP. There were seven studies in the meta-analysis that controlled for negative affectivity. Results were mixed, leading to an overall nonsignificant result. When controlling for negative affectivity, one study found a negative relationship ([67], Study A), two found that emotional awareness was the most important correlate of BPP [91, 104], and four found no significant association. One of these four studies found no relation between emotional awareness and BPP, but also found no relation between emotional awareness and negative affectivity ([67], Study A). Another, ([87], Study B) found no relationship between emotional awareness and BPP, whether or not negative affectivity was controlled for. As all studies used a correlational design, the direction of the effects remains unclear. More studies involving all three variables are needed to properly address whether a lack of emotional awareness precedes BPP and negative affectivity. A second limitation is that nearly all the studies included in this meta-analysis relied on data gathered through explicit self-reporting. This poses two problems regarding the validity of the results. First, the use of monomethod measurements could mask certain aspects of the object of investigation, for example, the presence of possible hyper-responsiveness to emotional events in BPP (for example, see Hazlett et al., 2007). Second, since explicit self-reports paradoxically require that the respondents are aware of their lack of emotional awareness and diminished capacity to describe feelings, this could threaten the validity of the measurement. What might be reported could be predominantly beliefs about one’s own (dis)abilities and not actually (low) emotional awareness or alexithymia [112]. Moreover, measurements of BPP also relied primarily on self-reports. Thus, one could argue that this metaanalysis shows that self-report measures of BPP are associated with self-report measures of deficits in limited emotional awareness. Although such an interpretation might be an all too pessimistic approach to self-reports as a principal methodology in psychological research, the reliance on studies with this monomethod design does point to a key limitation in the current state of research. It cannot be ruled out that the correlations found between BPP and emotional awareness result from method variance, rather than true correlation. When using a mono-method design using self-report for measuring variables, it is known that different kinds of problems tend to run together. The higher the reported number of symptoms of a certain disorder, the higher will be the number of symptoms of other disorders, due to factors such as response style of the participant. Future studies should use a multi-method, multi-measure approach to rule out the possibility that any relationships found are merely artifacts of measurement or other methodological biases [52, 113-115]. Researchers should include performancebased instruments, such as the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), where performances are rated by examiners [116, 117]. Two studies using the LEAS [16,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw