Dating violence victimization and borderline personality pathology: Temporal associations from late adolescence to early adulthood

Borderline personality pathology is a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive interpersonal deficits that onset during adolescence. Risk factors for borderline personality pathology include maladaptive interpersonal dynamics within attachment relationships. Given the shift toward emphasizing romantic relationships during adolescence as an important attachment relationship with implications for healthy development, the current study aimed to evaluate the longitudinal and reciprocal relations between victimization in dating relationships and borderline pathology in the transition from late adolescence to early adulthood. A large sample of high school daters (N = 818; 58% female; M _age = 16.10 years, SD _age = .78) were recruited to complete annual assessments of borderline personality features and dating violence victimization across 5 years. Results of a cross-lagged panel model revealed that primarily among girls, borderline features predicted increased levels of relational, psychological, and physical violence, whereas psychological and sexual violence predicted greater borderline features. The current findings provide the first evidence of a longitudinal association between victimization and borderline pathology in adolescence and suggest, particularly among girls, that interventions for borderline features have important implications for reducing dating violence victimization among adolescents and young adults.