Introduction: Personality disorder is characterized by a persistent pattern of experiencing personal behavior that clearly contradicts social and cultural expectations and causes a person's helplessness over time.
Aim: The purpose of this research is to investigate the structural relationships between attachment to parents and cold empathy in people with symptoms of borderline personality disorder with the mediation of cognitive-emotional theory.
Method: The present study is applied research with a descriptive-correlational design. The statistical population comprised all students exhibiting symptoms of borderline personality disorder at the Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, during the 2023–2024 academic year. A total of 303 students were selected through criterion-based purposive sampling. Data collection instruments included the Adult Attachment scale (AAI), the Behr Empathy scale (EQ), the Slip Recognition Test (FPT), and the Adult Form of Eyes Test (ET-R). Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling based on the partial least squares (PLS) method, implemented in SmartPLS 3 software.
Results: The results showed that attachment to parents does not have a direct effect on the cold empathy, though it has a direct effect on the psychological and emotional theory among the people with symptoms of borderline personality disorder. Also, the results showed that attachment to parents has an indirect effect on the cold empathy through the mediation of psychological and emotional theory.
Conclusion: High attachment to parents can cause the lack of development of mentalizing ability and empathy in interpersonal relationships among those with borderline personality disorder.