Abstract. In the ballistic regime where k B T / 1, the temperature dependence of the metallic conductivity in a twodimensional hole system of gallium arsenide, is found to change non-monotonically with the degree of spin polarization. In particular, it fades away just before the onset of complete spin polarization, but reappears again in the fully spinpolarized state, being, however, suppressed relative to the zero magnetic field case. The analysis of the degree of suppression can distinguish between screening and interaction-based theories. We show that in a fully polarized spin state, the effects of disorder are dominant and approach a strong localization regime, which is contrary to the behavior of 2D electron systems in a weakly disordered unpolarized state. It was found that the elastic relaxation time correction, depending on the temperature, changed significantly with the degree of spin polarization, to reach a minimum just below the start of the spin-polarized integer, where the conductivity is practically independent of temperature.