Attributional Style in Healthy Persons: Its Association with 'Theory of Mind' Skills

Abstract

Objective Attributional style, especially external personal attributionbias, was found to play a pivotal role in clinical and non-clinicalparanoia. The study of the relationship of the tendency toinfer/perceive hostility and blame with theory of mind skills hassignificant theoretical importance as it may provide additionalinformation on how persons process social situations. The aim of thisstudy was whether hostility perception bias and blame bias might beassociated with theory of mind skills, neurocognition and emotionalfactors in healthy persons.Methods Total 263 participants (133 male and 130 female) were recruited.The attributional style was measured by using the Ambiguous IntentionsHostility Questionnaire (AIHQ). Participants were requested to completea Briine's Theory of Mind Picture Stories task, neurocognitive taskincluding Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) and digit span, and otheremotional dysregulation trait scales including Rosenberg's self-esteem,Spielberg's trait anxiety inventory, and Novaco anger scale.Results Multiple regression analysis showed that hostility perceptionbias score in ambiguous situation were found to be associated withtheory of mind questionnaire score and emotional dysregulation traits ofNovaco anger scale. Also, composite blame bias score in ambiguoussituation were found to be associated with emotional dysregulationtraits of Novaco anger scale and Spielberg's trait anxiety scale.Conclusion The main finding was that the attributional style ofhostility perception bias might be primarily contributed by theory ofmind skills rather than neurocognitive function such as attention andworking memory, and reasoning ability. The interpretations andimplications would be discussed in details. Psychiatry Investig2013;10:34-40