It's not all about that bas: trait bipolar disorder vulnerability weakly correlated with trait bas and not predictive of risky decision-making

The behavioural activation system (BAS) theory of bipolar disorder proposes that abnormalities in reward sensitivity are involved in the onset and maintenance of bipolar disorder. Three studies were conducted within the overall thesis project. The first study investigated the BAS theory using questionnaire responses to assess personality traits; the second study utilised three risky decision-making tasks; and the third study applied a mood induction to manipulate mood state during a risky decision-making task. The findings across the three studies were inconclusive regarding the BAS theory of bipolar disorder, but generated ideas for methodological improvements implementable in future.