title: Attributional style in healthy persons: its association with 'theory of mind' skills.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Attributional style, especially external personal attribution bias, was found to play a pivotal role in clinical and non-clinical paranoia. The study of the relationship of the tendency to infer/perceive hostility and blame with theory of mind skills has significant theoretical importance as it may provide additional information on how persons process social situations. The aim of this study was whether hostility perception bias and blame bias might be associated with theory of mind skills, neurocognition and emotional factors in healthy persons.
  
  
  METHODS
  Total 263 participants (133 male and 130 female) were recruited. The attributional style was measured by using the Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire (AIHQ). Participants were requested to complete a Brüne's Theory of Mind Picture Stories task, neurocognitive task including Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) and digit span, and other emotional dysregulation trait scales including Rosenberg's self-esteem, Spielberg's trait anxiety inventory, and Novaco anger scale.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Multiple regression analysis showed that hostility perception bias score in ambiguous situation were found to be associated with theory of mind questionnaire score and emotional dysregulation traits of Novaco anger scale. Also, composite blame bias score in ambiguous situation were found to be associated with emotional dysregulation traits of Novaco anger scale and Spielberg's trait anxiety scale.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The main finding was that the attributional style of hostility perception bias might be primarily contributed by theory of mind skills rather than neurocognitive function such as attention and working memory, and reasoning ability. The interpretations and implications would be discussed in details.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea. ; Section of Affect and Neuroscience, Institute of Behavioural Science in Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Im Hong
authors.initials: IH
authors.lastname: Jeon
authors.forename: Kyung Ran
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Hwan Hee
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jin Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Mikyung
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Hye Hyun
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Jo
authors.forename: Se Jun
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Koo
authors.forename: Yu Jin
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Jeong
authors.forename: Yun Young
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Jee In
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Su Young
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Eun
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Suk Kyoon
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: An
keywords: Attributional style; Healthy persons; Theory of Mind skills