Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to assign a set of mental states to yourself and others. in bipolar disorders, alteration of social relationship can be explained by the impairment of the functioning of ToM. Deficit in ToM can be a trait marker of bipolar disorder and people in general population who has high score of hypomanic personality will be more likely to develop bipolar disorders.

The goal of this study is to study abilities in a ToM task in general population with different level of hypomanic personality.

This study examines 323 participants (23.25 ±7.74 years). Measures of hypomanic personality were evaluated by the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS) (Eckblad & Chapman, 1986). It is a self-report scale subdivided in 3 factors: social vitality, mood vitality and excitement. ToM was explored using Yoni task (Shamay-Tsoory & Aahron-Peretz, 2007) French adaptation. This test permits to distinguish the affective and the cognitive components of ToM.

Forward multiple regression analyses were performed to examine the effect of components of the HPS on the total score of ToM task. in women’s group, no subscales of the HPS have been included in the model. Conversely, the analyses performed on men revealed that the mood vitality subscale was a significant predictor of ToM abilities.

The ToM task’s score is linked to the hypomanic score but only in men sample and only for the Mood vitality subscale. This result supports that deficits in ToM can be a trait marker of bipolar disorder in healthy men population.