Hypomanic Traits Research Articles

Modelling the associations between parental depressive symptoms, hypomanic traits, and infant socio-emotional development: The mediating role of parental reflective functioning

BackgroundAlthough understanding of maternal hypomania in the postpartum period is gradually improving, the intergenerational pathways of risk associated with hypomania in the context of postpartum depression remain unknown. It is also unclear whether distinct or shared pathways of risk exist for infants exposed to different parental mood characteristics and whether these pathways are mediated by parental reflective functioning. MethodsAn online survey was administered to 1788 parents (89 % mothers, 50 % White) who were primary caregivers of a child under 2. Structural equation modelling techniques were employed to model direct and indirect associations between parental depressive symptoms, hypomanic traits and infant socio-emotional development, investigating the mediating role of parental reflective functioning. ResultsElevated levels of parental depressive symptoms, in the presence of hypomanic personality traits, were directly associated with infant socio-emotional challenges, without affecting parental reflective functioning. However, higher levels of parental hypomanic traits in the postnatal period displayed a fully mediated pathway of risk transmission to infants' socio-emotional development via their negative association with parental reflective functioning. LimitationsResults should be interpreted with caution as the reliance on self-and-parent-reported scales may have introduced biases influenced by individual perceptions and situational factors. Additionally, the cross-sectional design of this study inhibits establishing cause-and-effect relationships. ConclusionsOverall, these results highlight the critical role of both parental depressive symptoms and hypomanic traits on infant socio-emotional development, suggesting that supporting parental mood regulation and mentalizing abilities in the postnatal period could reduce the risk of early maladaptive socio-emotional trajectories in children.

Family Death During Upbringing and Maladaptive Personality Traits

Major depression and other serious mental health concerns appear to follow parental or sibling death for many child and adolescent survivors. While grief and depression remain a central focus in bereavement research, the impact of sibling and parental death on personality development remains incompletely understood. This study focused on coarser personality adaptations that may occur in response to childhood or adolescent grief. Analysis was conducted on a crowdsourced survey sample (N = 2,398) which included respondents with parent (n = 143) or sibling (n = 102) death prior to age of 17. Parental death was associated with Callousness and Hostility as personality dimensions. Sibling death was linked to higher Callousness, Hostility, Physical Aggression, Depressivity, and Hypomanic trait scores. Callousness elevations (>1 SD) were more common among respondents classified in the sibling and parental bereavement groups (ORs of 3.02 & 2.17, respectively). Significant differences were found after control of variance associated with respondent age and childhood adversity exposure count. Parent and sibling suicide exclusions reduced trait differences between the bereaved and nonbereaved respondents. Sibling death was associated with more trait differences and larger effect sizes than parental loss. Questions remain regarding the nature of the psychological conditions that differentiate normative, resilient, and callous personality adaptations in the aftermath of early family tragedy. The prognostic value of the DSM-5-TR traumatic bereavement specifier was discussed.

Impact of hypomanic personality traits on brain functional connectivity during a dynamic theory-of-mind task

Hypomanic personality traits are present in the general population and represent a risk factor for developing bipolar disorder. This personality style, notably its social component, is linked to difficulties in theory of mind (i.e., ability to infer mental states). Exploring the neural correlates of mental states’ inference in individuals with these personality traits can provide meaningful insights into the development of bipolar disorder. The aim of the present study was therefore to investigate the potential impact of hypomanic traits on brain activation and task-based connectivity strength during a dynamic theory of mind task in a nonclinical population. A total of 52 nonclinical participants were recruited, and hypomanic traits were assessed with the Hypomanic Personality Scale. The severity of hypomanic traits was positively associated with right middle and inferior frontal gyri activations (in high vs. low inference in nonemotional condition and emotion vs. no emotion in high inference, respectively). It was also associated with stronger connectivity between the salience network (i.e., bilateral putamen and pallidum) and bilateral superior temporal gyri (high inference in nonemotional condition), and between cerebellar and temporal areas (high inference in emotional condition). These changes may either reflect adaptations or differential processing, and further studies are therefore mandatory.

Neurotheology, creativity and bipolarity: divergent thinking and hypomanic traits among Arab college students

ABSTRACT The idea of a connection between creativity and psychopathology has been attributed to our earliest human ancestors. It is also a notion that has, historically, been expressed across cultures. Contemporary research exploring the link between creativity and psychopathology, however, is equivocal. More recently, it has been hypothesized that this is only a subset of mental health problems that are linked with creativity; specifically, approach-based psychopathologies, such as mania and hypomania. This study explored the relationship between creativity (divergent thinking) and approach-based psychopathology (hypomanic traits) among Arab college women (n= 218) in the United Arab Emirates. The study used a Web-based version of the Alternative Uses Task to assess creativity. The study also administered the Hypomanic Personality Scale to assess hypomanic traits/bipolar risk. As predicted, there was a positive correlation between hypomanic traits and creativity. These findings broaden support for the idea of a link between approach-based psychopathologies and creativity. By extension, they lend further tentative support to archaeological hypotheses about the co-emergence of theology, creativity and mental illness.

ПРЕДИКТОРИ ПІДНЕСЕНОГО НАСТРОЮ ТА ВИСОКОЇ АКТИВНОСТІ ЗА ГІПОМАНІЇ ТА САМОАКТУАЛІЗАЦІЇ

The issue of overdiagnosis of hypomanic episodes is relevant due to their borderline nature. Diagnostic criteria describing elevated mood and activity, high self-esteem and productivity, is partly resembling a healthy process of self-actualization, which on the one hand leads to the already mentioned overdiagnosis, and on the other – to the social stigma of patients with bipolar disorder and medical and social prejudice against the elevated mood and activity they display. As part of this work, using correlation and regression, differentiation of high mood and high activity predictors is made in groups of people with a high level of self-actualization (n = 25) and patients diagnosed with the bipolar affective disorder without comorbidity (n = 24). A sample of healthy individuals with a normal level of self-actualization (n = 110) was also involved to control side variables and compare means. The following assessment inventories are used to collect data: Personal Orientation Inventory (Shostrom, 1963 – in the adaptation of SAT (Aleshina, Gozman, Zaika & Kroz, 1984)), shortened version of MMPI Mini-Mult (Zaitsev, Kozyula, 1981), FPI-B (Hampel & Selg, 1963 – adapted by Krylov, Ronginsky, 1989). The regression of the "hypomania" scale, Mini-Mult, as a dependent variable, showed different groups of predictors for the two studied samples. The statistics are summarized as a model of the relationship between elevated mood and activity predictors for the two groups. Significant differences in the configuration and elements of the linkages indicate the possibility of further development of this problem to create assessment tools and methodological guidelines for psychosocial care for groups at risk of developing or recurrence of bipolar disorder. Mainly, the difference in predicting variables consists of highly negative relation of cognitive needs to hypomania in the BAD group with highly positive direct affection of "schizoid" variable of Mini-Mult, whereas hypomanic trait in the self-actualizing group is affected by "schizoid" variable indirectly and is mainly subject of effect for "existential flexibility" and "time competence" variables.

Personality Traits in Marathon Runners and Sedentary Controls With MMPI-2-RF.

BackgroundEndurance exercise in general and marathon running in particular have become increasingly popular over the past decades. Recent investigations about personality structures in this cohort and comparisons to non-active cohorts are lacking.MethodsIn the ReCaP study (Running effects on Cognition and Plasticity), a total of 100 marathon runners and 46 sedentary controls were recruited. After elimination of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) profiles with insufficient validity, 79 marathon runners (MA) and 27 sedentary controls (SC) remained for final analyses. Depressive symptoms were evaluated with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD).ResultsMarathon runners had lower scores in scales measuring somatic and cognitive complaints, stress, demoralization, hopelessness and distrust. Within the marathon group, committed runners exhibited hypomanic traits compared to regular runners.Discussion and ConclusionPersonality differences could be summarized as (sub-)depressive personality traits in SC compared to MA rather than typical (sub-) depressive symptoms in the meaning of depressive disorders. Future studies should further evaluate cause and consequence of endurance training and hypomanic or euthymic symptoms, as a two-way interaction exists.Trial Registrationhttp://apps.who.int/trialsearch/Trial2.aspx?TrialID=DRKS00012496.

Association of Genetic and Environmental Risks for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder With Hypomanic Symptoms in Youths

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and bipolar disorder are highly comorbid, with significantly associated symptoms. The mechanisms that account for their co-occurrence are not known. To examine the degree to which genetic and environmental risk factors for ADHD traits, across childhood and adolescence, are associated with adolescent hypomanic symptoms. This study used data on 13 532 twin pairs from the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden, a prospective, longitudinal twin study. Their parents provided ADHD data when children were 9 or 12 years of age. Of those who reached 15 years of age, 3784 participated. Of those who reached 18 years of age, 3013 participated. The study was performed from December 20, 2017, to December 5, 2018. Data analysis was performed at the Department of Medical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, from March 1, 2018, to October 31, 2018. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder traits and hypomanic symptoms were assessed using parent-rated instruments. Associations between ADHD and adolescent hypomanic symptoms across childhood and adolescence were investigated using generalized estimating equations. Multivariate twin models were used to examine the extent to which genetic and environmental risk factors for ADHD were associated with hypomania. Among 3784 15-year-old twin pairs and 3013 18-year-old twin pairs, ADHD and hypomanic symptoms were significantly associated (age 15 years: β = 0.30; 95% CI, 0.24-0.34; P < .001; age 18 years: β = 0.19; 95% CI, 0.16-0.22; P < .001), especially for the hyperactivity-impulsivity ADHD symptom domain (age 15 years: β = 0.53; 95% CI, 0.46-0.60; P < .001; age 18 years: β = 0.36; 95% CI, 0.30-0.42; P < .001) compared with the inattention domain (age 15 years: β = 0.40; 95% CI, 0.34-0.47; P < .001; age 18 years: β = 0.24; 95% CI, 0.19-0.29; P < .001). Between 13% and 29% of the genetic risk factors for hypomania were also associated with ADHD, with higher estimates detected for symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity (10%-25%) compared with inattention (6%-16%). Environmental factors played a negligible role in the associations. Genetic factors unique to adolescent hypomania were associated with 25% to 42% of its variance, suggesting some etiologic distinction between these forms of psychopathology. More than a quarter of the genetic risk factors for adolescent hypomanic traits were also associated with ADHD symptoms in childhood and adolescence, with hypomania-specific genetic risk factors detected. These findings suggest that ADHD and hypomanic symptoms are associated with shared genetic factors, which should be the focus of further research.

Association of positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy dimensions with affective symptoms and experiences

Schizotypy offers a useful construct for investigating the etiology, development, and expression of schizophrenia-spectrum psychopathology, as well as the comorbid expression of mood and anxiety disorders across the schizophrenia spectrum. The present study examined the associations of positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy with affective symptoms and experiences in a sample of MTurk workers and college students (n = 575). Participants completed the Multidimensional Schizotypy Scale (MSS) and measures of depression, anxiety, social phobia, hypomanic traits, and state affect. As expected, positive schizotypy was significantly associated with hypomanic traits, whereas negative schizotypy was associated with reduced positive affect and reduced hypomanic traits. Although prior research has emphasized the association of positive schizotypy with depression and anxiety, the current results demonstrate that disorganized schizotypy is more strongly associated with elevated negative affect (over-and-above positive schizotypy). As such, these findings highlight the importance of examining disorganization of affect, in addition to the cognitive-behavioral deficits traditionally associated with disorganized schizotypy. Finally, the MSS and MSS-Brief demonstrated closely comparable findings. The present results provide further support for the construct validity of the MSS and the three-factor model of schizotypy.

Psychopathology, everyday behaviors, and autonomic activity in daily life: An ambulatory impedance cardiography study of depression, anxiety, and hypomanic traits

Discrepancies regarding the link between autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity and psychopathology may be due in part to inconsistent measurement of non-psychological factors, including eating, drinking, activity, posture, and interacting with others. Rather than sources of noise, behaviors like being active and being with others may be the behavioral pathways that connect psychopathology symptoms to autonomic activity. The present study examined whether behaviors mediate the association of depression, anxiety, and hypomanic traits with ANS by using experience sampling methodology and ambulatory impedance cardiography. Participants (n = 49) completed measures of affect and one day of experience sampling and ambulatory impedance cardiography. The association of hypomanic traits with heart rate variability and heart rate was mediated by physical activity, and social activity mediated the association of depressive symptoms and respiration. These results highlight the importance of considering the pathways between psychopathology and ANS and the mediating role that everyday behaviors play.

Neural Correlates of Semantic Inhibition in Relation to Hypomanic Traits: An fMRI Study.

Language modifications are a core feature of mania, but little is known about the semantic mechanisms behind these disturbances. The aim of the present study was thus to identify deficits in semantic inhibition and their respective neural activation patterns in a sample of individuals assessed for hypomanic personality traits. Thirty-six young adults with no neurological or psychiatric diagnoses were assessed for hypomanic personality traits with the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS) and underwent an fMRI task of semantic ambiguity resolution. Regression analyses revealed a positive association between the HPS score and activity in the left superior frontal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobule, and anterior cingulate gyrus during semantic ambiguity resolution. We found a link between HPS scores and brain areas that are part of the cognitive control loop and semantic memory network during language processing in a nonclinical sample of individuals. The hyperactivation of these regions may reflect a compensatory neural response in a population with greater vulnerability to BD.

Emotional Meaning in Context in Relation to Hypomanic Personality Traits: An ERP Study.

The ability to integrate contextual information is important for the comprehension of emotional and social situations. While some studies have shown that emotional processes and social cognition are impaired in people with hypomanic personality trait, no results have been reported concerning the neurophysiological processes mediating the processing of emotional information during the integration of contextual social information in this population. We therefore chose to conduct an ERP study dealing with the integration of emotional information in a population with hypomanic personality trait. Healthy participants were evaluated using the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS), and ERPs were recorded during a linguistic task in which participants silently read sentence pairs describing short social situations. The first sentence implicitly conveyed the positive or negative emotional state of a character. The second sentence was emotionally congruent or incongruent with the first sentence. We analyzed the difference in the modulation of two components (N400 and LPC) in response to the emotional word present at the end of the “target” sentences as a function of the HPS score and the emotional valence of the context. Our results showed a possible modulation of the N400 component in response to both positive and negative context among the participants who scored high on the Mood Volatility subscale of the Hypomanic Personality Scale. These results seem to indicate that the participants with hypomanic personality traits exhibited specificities in the integration of emotions at the level of the early-mobilized neurocognitive processes (N400). Participants with hypomanic personality traits found it difficult to integrate negative emotional contexts, while simultaneously exhibiting an enhanced integration of positive emotional contexts.

Measuring the validity and psychometric properties of a short form of the Hypomanic Personality Scale

The Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS) is used to investigate hypomanic traits and risk for bipolar spectrum disorders; however, the length of the HPS (48 items) may be prohibitive for clinical research and screening purposes. Meads and Bentall (2008) developed a promising 20-item version of the HPS; however, the psychometric properties and validity of the short form have not been thoroughly examined. The present study investigated the construct validity and psychometric properties of the short HPS. A sample of 2713 non-clinically ascertained young adults was used to assess psychometric properties of the short form relative to the original scale. Two non-overlapping subsamples (n=522; n=145) were used to investigate the validity of the short HPS using personality and temperament questionnaires and clinical interviews of bipolar psychopathology and diagnoses. The short and original HPS generally had comparable correlations with measures of temperament, personality, impulsivity, borderline personality, grandiosity, psychosocial functioning, and alcohol use, and comparably predicted DSM bipolar and bipolar spectrum diagnoses. Overall, the short HPS was found to be both reliable and valid. However, the short HPS tended to be more strongly correlated with pathological components of hypomanic personality and less strongly correlated with exuberant and potentially adaptive aspects of the construct.

Theory of mind and hypomanic traits in general population

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 could be a trait marker of bipolar disorder and people in the general population with high hypomanic personality scores would be more likely to develop bipolar disorders. This study examined 298 participants. Measures of hypomanic personality were evaluated using the Hypomanic Personality Scale. ToM was explored using the Yoni task. Participants also completed the BDI-II. Forward multiple regressions were performed to examine the effect of components of the HPS on the total score in the ToM task. In the women's group, no subscales of the HPS were included in the model. Conversely, the analyses performed on men revealed that the mood vitality and excitement subscale was a significant predictor of ToM abilities. Our study is the first to show the impact of certain dimensions of hypomanic personality on performance in ToM in a male sample. This result supports the idea that deficits in ToM can be a trait marker of bipolar disorder in a healthy male population.

ERRATUM - Could Hypomanic Traits Explain Selective Migration? Verifying the Hypothesis by the Surveys on Sardinian Migrants

ERRATUM - Could Hypomanic Traits Explain Selective Migration? Verifying the Hypothesis by the Surveys on Sardinian Migrants

Could Hypomanic Traits Explain Selective Migration? Verifying the Hypothesis by the Surveys on Sardinian Migrants

Introduction: A recent survey put forward the hypothesis that the emigration that occurred from Sardinia from the 1960’s to the 1980’s, selected people with a hypomanic temperament. The paper aims to verify if the people who migrated from Sardinia in that period have shown a high risk of mood disorders in the surveys carried out in their host countries, and if the results are consistent with this hypothesis.Methods: This is systematic review.Results: In the 1970’s when examining the attitudes towards migration in Sardinian couples waiting to emigrate, Rudas found that the decision to emigrate was principally taken by males. Female showed lower self-esteem than male emigrants. A study on Sardinian immigrants in Argentina carried out in 2001-02, at the peak of the economic crisis, found a high risk of depressive disorders in women only. These results were opposite to the findings recorded ten years earlier in a survey on Sardinian immigrants in Paris, where the risk of Depressive Episode was higher in young men only.Discussion: Data point to a bipolar disorder risk for young (probably hypomanic) male migrants in competitive, challenging conditions; and a different kind of depressive episodes for women in trying economic conditions. The results of the survey on Sardinian migrants are partially in agreement with the hypothesis of a selective migration of people with a hypomanic temperament. Early motivations and self-esteem seem related to the ways mood disorders are expressed, and to the vulnerability to specific triggering situations in the host country.

Better Than I Thought: Positive Evaluation Bias in Hypomania

BackgroundMania is characterised by increased impulsivity and risk-taking, and psychological accounts argue that these features may be due to hypersensitivity to reward. The neurobiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here we examine reinforcement learning and sensitivity to both reward and punishment outcomes in hypomania-prone individuals not receiving pharmacotherapy.MethodWe recorded EEG from 45 healthy individuals split into three groups by low, intermediate and high self-reported hypomanic traits. Participants played a computerised card game in which they learned the reward contingencies of three cues. Neural responses to monetary gain and loss were measured using the feedback-related negativity (FRN), a component implicated in motivational outcome evaluation and reinforcement learning.ResultsAs predicted, rewards elicited a smaller FRN in the hypomania-prone group relative to the low hypomania group, indicative of greater reward responsiveness. The hypomania-prone group also showed smaller FRN to losses, indicating diminished response to negative feedback.ConclusionOur findings indicate that proneness to hypomania is associated with both reward hypersensitivity and discounting of punishment. This positive evaluation bias may be driven by aberrant reinforcement learning signals, which fail to update future expectations. This provides a possible neural mechanism explaining risk-taking and impaired reinforcement learning in BD. Further research will be needed to explore the potential value of the FRN as a biological vulnerability marker for mania and pathological risk-taking.

Hypomanic Personality, Stability of Self‐Esteem and Response Styles to Negative Mood

This paper aims to study dysfunctional self-schematic processes, abnormal coping styles, over-responsiveness to reward stimuli (indicative of an over-sensitive behavioural activation system) and stability of self-esteem in relation to subclinical hypomania. Three cross-sectional studies were conducted on selected students on the basis of their scores on the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS) (study 1) and on elevated HPS and Dysfunctional Attitude Scale scores (studies 2 and 3). In studies 1 and 2, participants completed questionnaires and kept a self-esteem diary for 6 days. In study 3, the experience sampling method was used to assess momentary self-esteem, emotion and use of different coping styles over a 6-day period. Study 1 demonstrated that hypomanic traits are associated with high fluctuations in self-esteem. In study 2, high scores on both the HPS and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale, but not the HPS alone, were associated with bipolar spectrum symptoms. These participants showed more evidence of alcohol and substance abuse, greater self-esteem fluctuation and dysfunctional coping styles (rumination and risk-taking) compared with controls. Changes in self-esteem were related to the use of these strategies. Vulnerability to bipolar disorder is associated with a combination of depression-related and reward-related processes.

Is Mood Affected by Interactions With People at Risk for Affective Disorders?

The interpersonal behavior of individuals who have affective disorders can increase the likelihood of interpersonal conflicts. A related issue is whether vulnerability for developing affective disorder expresses itself in social interactions that affect the mood of interaction partners as well. Adolescents (n = 119) have been divided into subgroups: "mania risk" (scoring high on "Hypomanic Personality"); "unipolar risk" (scoring high on "Rigidity"); and a control group (scoring low on both scales). Interviews were conducted by raters blind to risk status. Interviewers provided ratings of their own mood before and after the interview. Negative mood of the interviewers did not change. Interviewers' positive mood decreased when interacting with individuals at risk for unipolar disorder as well as when interacting with the control subjects, but not when interacting with people at risk for mania. It seems that individuals high in hypomanic traits keep the interaction partner longer engaged and interested.

Sense of hyper-positive self, goal-attainment beliefs and coping strategies in bipolar I disorder

There is some evidence that cognitive therapy (CT) is beneficial in reducing relapses in bipolar disorder. However, not all bipolar patients benefit from it. A previous study found that a group of non-responders to CT shared common characteristics: they value some of the high goal-attainment beliefs and characteristics associated with being in a state of mild hypomania - a high 'sense of hyper-positive self' (SHPS). To promote of our understanding of this group of patients, the present study investigated the relationship between SHPS, preferred internal state, dysfunctional attitudes and coping with hypothetical manic prodromal scenarios. Fifty-four bipolar I patients filled in self-report questionnaires that assess preferred mood state, coping with scenarios, dysfunctional attitudes and SHPS. The Sense of Hyper-positive Self Scale Ideal score (SHPSS-Ideal) predicted patients' preferred internal state of mania. Coping with hypothetical scenarios was predicted by Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS) goal-attainment scores: the higher the goal-attainment score, the higher the participant's tendency to identify with self-descriptors linked to hypomania and to engage in stimulating behaviours that may escalate the prodromal stage to mania. Clinicians should check and modify goal-attainment beliefs, particularly of those who exhibit features of SHPS. These patients' tendency to identify with hypomanic traits as self-descriptors should be dealt with by psychological techniques such as cognitive restructuring.

Rasch analysis and item reduction of the hypomanic personality scale

The aim of the current study was to reduce the number of items in the 48-item hypomanic personality scale (HPS) and determine whether a unidimensional scale of the hypomanic trait could be derived. Previously collected HPS data from University students ( n = 318) were applied to the Rasch model (one-parameter item response theory). Overall scale and individual item fit statistics were used to judge fit to the model and item maps employed to determine coverage of the trait. Cronbach’s Alpha and correlations with other questionnaires pre- and post-item reduction were evaluated. Rasch analysis indicated that the original HPS was not unidimensional, had significant redundancy and differential item functioning by age and gender. An iterative process of item reduction produced a 20-item HPS (HPS-20) that retained the concepts of the original HPS and had excellent fit to the Rasch model (χ 2 p = 0.27). Unidimensionality of the HPS-20 was confirmed. The traditional psychometric properties of the HPS-20 and coverage of the underlying hypomanic construct were similar to the original. It was possible to derive a unidimensional measure of the hypomanic trait. Further use of the HPS-20 is encouraged as it may increase understanding of the risk factors for affective disorders.