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In the present study, we investigated the associations between Type A behaviour pattern, depressive state, other psychological factors and biological factors, in particular lipid metabolism. Seventy Japanese medical college students (40 males and 30 females) were assessed for Type A behaviour pattern, depressive state and other psychological factors, and serum lipid concentrations were measured. By using Structured Interview, it was revealed that 21 (52.5 per cent) male students exhibited Type A behaviour pattern, whereas 8 (27.5 per cent) female students exhibited this pattern. Although there was no significant difference in terms of depressive state or serum lipid levels between students exhibiting Type A and non-Type A behaviour pattern, Type A students had significantly higher cynicism and lower levels of self-acceptance than non-Type A students after controlling for age and gender. These findings suggest that Type A behaviour pattern is more prevalent among male than female Japanese medical students. The pattern may be associated with a high degree of cynicism and low self-acceptance, but is not apparently related to serum lipid levels. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between individual differences in personality and susceptibility to stress in the workplace. Stress in lecturers employed by a computer training organization was assessed by means of self-report and measurement of salivary cortisol output during lecturing and non-lecturing weeks. Neuroticism, Type A behaviour pattern and locus of control were measured. Self-reported stress was found to be much greater during lecturing weeks, but cortisol levels were unaffected by working conditions. There was a significant positive correlation between neuroticism and locus of control and a negative correlation between locus of control and Type A behaviour pattern that approached significance. Multiple regression was employed to explore relations between personality and stress. Subjects with lower neuroticism scores yielded a bigger increase in reported stress, in the lecturing compared with the non-lecturing week, than subjects with high neuroticism scores...

This paper gives empirical treatment to the new theoretical Type E construct proposed by Braiker (1986) as an explanation for multiple role stress, by 1) documenting the prevalence of Type E behaviour In career women 2) Investigating the validity of the concept in relation to the Type A behaviour pattern 3) examining the relationship of type E stress to Illness symptoms and 4) studying any stress-buffering effects of social support. Women (N = 166) from the professions of nursing, teaching, business and management, medicine, accountancy, psychology and other helping professions answered a questionnaire relating to type E behaviours and cognitions, social supports available to them and prevalence of psychophysiological Illness symptoms. All women were Involved in multiple roles relating to work, marrlagelpal1nership and chlldrearing. Support was found for the type E construct being independent of the Type A construct, the only overlap occuring for the speed-impatience component or Type A. Type E personality was strongly related to illness symptoms, the cognitive aspect or the syndrome being an even better predictor of symptoms than type E behaviours. No stress-butTering effects of social support were found, though esteem support was found to have a beneficial effect on health independent of type E stress. Implications of the present findings for the family and helping professions are discussed.

Measures of actual and reported physiological functioning were obtained from 39 white-collar workers under rest and bogus ultrasound conditions, with the latter condition being designed to focus their attention on internal physiological functioning. The actual physiological measures consisted of changes in heart rate, respiratory rate, skin resistance, and peripheral temperature, and there were corresponding self-report measures, as well as an assessment of reported stress. There were only modest relationships between actual and reported changes in physiological functioning, and there were very few effects of Type A and neuroticism on actual physiological changes. The attentional manipulation had more effect on Type As than on Type Bs for changes in reported heart rate, respiratory rate, sweat, and stress; it also had more effect on those low in neuroticism than those high in neuroticism for changes in reported sweat and stress, and there were similar (but non-significant) effects in the reported heart rate and respiratory rate data. Theoretical accounts of these findings for Type A behaviour pattern and neuroticism are discussed.

Emotional styles and coping strategies related to Type A behaviour in 364 healthy young men were examined. It was found that a global index of Type A behaviour was not a useful concept but the psychological nature of Type A behaviour could be understood through its different dimensions. At least two different sets of Type A components were found. The first represented a person who scored high on the Engagement-Involvement factor of Type A behaviour. He was characterized by a positive attitude toward emotions and an ability to perceive and express them adequately. When faced with stress he used problem-focused coping. The other type scored high on the Hard-driving factor of Type A behaviour. He was characterized by high discomfort with emotions and a proneness to express emotions through somatic symptoms. In stressful situations he used withdrawal. Depression was strongly included in that combination. It may be that rather than tha whole Type A behaviour pattern the last mentioned combination represents coronary-prone behaviour.

The relationship between the Type A Behaviour Pattern and heart-rate reactivity to the onset of a typical stressor was investigated with a sample of Australian boys and girls from three age-grade levels: preschool, middle-elementary, and upper-elementary. Behaviour Pattern was measured with the Matthews Youth Test for Health (Matthews & Angulo, 1980), and data were collected on children's second-by-second heart rate during rest and the stressor tasks. Reactivity to the onset of the stressor task (a puzzle game or mental arithmetic), was assessed. Results indicated that there were expected age differences in resting and stressor task heart rates, but that there was no significant difference in heart-rate reactivity between children classified as Type A or B Behaviour Pattern, either for the entire sample, for two extreme subsamples, or within each of the three age groups.

This exploratory study examined the characteristics of Type A behaviour pattern (TABP) among 341 undergraduates of three different faculties of a university in Singapore. It attempted to show if differences in faculty choice of males and females could be attributed to TABP. The findings of the article indicated that the choice of the faculty differs between male and female and that these differences are explained by the hostility trait of the TABP. The sample showed a high proportion of a Type A behaviour pattern. The tendency towards TABP was higher among females than males. It would appear that increased urbanization, such as in Singapore, is a Type A-promoting social contingency.

This investigation explored the conceptual and empirical linkages between the Protestant work ethic (PWE) and the Type A behaviour pattern (TABP). Considering the apparent similarities between these work-related variables, surprisingly little is known about the relationship between them. In one sample ( N = 214), a global Type A measure correlated significantly but weakly with the PWE, while in another ( N = 136) the nature of the PWE-TABP relationship depended on the particular TABP subscale under consideration; i.e. near-zero for “impatience-irritability” but positive for “achievement strivngs”. These findings are consistent with the earlier work of Furnham ( Psychological Reports, 66 , 323–328, 1990). Additional analysis suggests, however, that the overlap between these variables is attributable to the influence of the need for achievement. When the effects of this third variable are held constant, the PWE is orthogonal to the TABP.

Background: Studies of type A behaviour pattern suggest that it can be promoted as a whole by certain parental rearing styles. However, the association of the different components of the type A behaviour with specific rearing practices has not been clarified. Method: The relationship between parents' rearing style and the different type A behaviour components of their children was analysed in a sample of 312 university students. Parental rearing style was assessed with the EMBU, a Swedish measure originally designed to assess one's recollections concerning one's parents rearing behaviour. Type A pattern was measured by the JAS, a self-administered questionnaire that gives the global type A score and three of its components. Results: Hard Driving was related to Rejection and Favouring Subject in males. Speed-Impatience was related to Rejection and Control in both sexes, and Job Involvement was related to Control and Favouring Subject in females. In a discriminant factor analysis in males, Rejection, Control and Favouring Subject on the part of fathers classified correctly 80% of the subjects identified as having high or low Speed-Impatience and the variables of Rejection and Favouring Subject (also by fathers) classified correctly 69.23% of the subjects identified as high or low Hard Driving. In females, Control and Favouring Subject on the part of mothers and low Rejection by fathers classified correctly 70.37% of the subjects with high or low Job Involvement. Conclusion: These results suggest that different rearing characteristics are related to the various components of the type A behaviour pattern.

The Type A behaviour pattern is a well‐documented, if controversial, risk factor for coronary heart disease. Surprisingly, relatively little work has been reported on ways of modifying this behaviour pattern. Aerobic exercise, with its demonstrated benefits for both cardiovascular reactivity and psychological ‘well‐being’, is a promising treatment. The literature is reviewed and recommendations are made for practical applications and future research.

A comparison of Type A behaviour pattern, hostility and Typus Melancholicus (TM) was examined in a sample of 228 Japanese and 121 American college students. It was found that: the Japanese students expressed Type A, especially hostility, less strongly than American ones; TM was seen to the same degree in both Japanese and American students; Type A was related to hostility and TM in both groups of students; and compared with American students, the Japanese students displayed the defensiveness more frequently, and there appeared to be a strong relationship between defensiveness and hostility. These results suggest the possibility that hostility, a component element of Type A, is manifested under the influence of defensiveness, which is partially related to a variety of different sociocultural contexts.

40 adult subjects completed three measures of the Protestant Work Ethic and a multidimensional measure of the Type A behaviour pattern. The only consistent pattern of correlations was between the “hard-driving” subscale of the Type A measure and all three total PWE scores for Protestant Work Ethic. Results are discussed in terms of the constituent parts of both concepts.

Fifteen boys and eleven girls between three and six years of age were examined at a day-care center and at home as regards their catecholamine and cortisol excretion. Behaviour pattern was assessed by the MYTH-scale, which measures the competitiveness, impatience-anger and aggression components of the type A behaviour pattern in children (Matthews and Angulo, 1980). The boys obtained higher type A scores and excreted more adrenaline and noradrenaline than the girls, while cortisol excretion did not differ between the sexes. In view of previous findings, the results suggest that sex differences in catecholamine excretion in children are induced by sex related differences in behaviour. This relationship in childhood could be of relevance for sex differences in catecholamine responses observed in adulthood. In both sexes, adrenaline excretion was significantly elevated at the day-care center compared with the at-home levels, indicating that mental arousal was greater at the center. In a separate part of the study, eleven new children were tested while they were adjusting to the day-care situation; it was found that only noradrenaline levels during the first week at the center were significantly elevated.

The Type A behaviour pattern (TABP) has emerged as a predictor of reaction to stress in interaction with a range of task and environmental variables. This paper reports the results of two experimental studies to demonstrate that, in order to predict the role of the TABP, measured both by questionnaire and by structured interview in reaction to stress in demanding cognitive tasks, the influence of the nature of the feedback given to performers (success or failure at earlier stages of the task) and the degree to which the performers are aware of being observed directly (high versus low levels of manipulated self-awareness) need to be taken into account. The nature of the internal standards that people who, to a greater or less extent possess the TABP, must be known before predictions can be made about how performance will be affected.

This study investigated the hypothesis that mood moderates the illusion of control among Type As and Bs. A facial positioning procedure was used to induce either positive, negative, or neutral moods in Type As and Bs during a control judgment task where no objective control was possible. Type Bs induced to experience a positive mood perceived greater control than did Type Bs experiencing a negative mood. There was no effect of induced mood on judged control for Type As.

The Type A behaviour pattern has been associated with the onset of myocardial infarction (MI). So too, though independently, has the presence of stressful life-events in the period preceding illness. The present paper examines the notion that persons characterized by the Type A behaviour pattern organize life-styles in such a way as to increase the probability of encountering stressful life-events. Significant correlations were indeed found between a measure of Type A behaviour and both reported frequency of life-events and estimates of the emotional impact of these, for a sample of 120 survivors of MI. While such retrospective data do not provide casual evidence that Type A behaviour influences MI by way of stressful life-events, they point the way to a future prospective test of this hypothesis.

A questionnaire consisting of a subset of questions from the Jenkins Activity Survey was given to 135 male military personnel aged between 18 and 25, together with the EPQ and the AI3, an obsessionality scale. A factor analysis of the answers revealed a four-factor structure - impatience, hard-driving competitiveness, speed and emotional unrepression. Neuroticism was found to correlate positively with impatience and speed, but negatively with hard-driving competitiveness, which together with emotional unrepression correlated positively with extraversion. Impatience, speed and emotional unrepression also correlated positively with obsessionality. Obsessionality was the only personality measure to correlate significantly with the total Type A score. The nature of the relationships between the Type A behaviour pattern and the Eysenckian personality measures are discussed.

Although the concept of arousal has led to the development of various psychological constructs, and instruments for measuring them, few attempts have been made to investigate the relationship between more than two of these measures in a moderately large heterogeneous population. This study set out to compare measures of extraversion, sensation seeking, stimulus screening and the Type A behaviour pattern. Subscale, as well as total scale, scores were intercorrelated. The results showed that all the measures correlated significantly positively but that the highest correlations were between the subscale scores on the various tests. The implications for individual-difference measurement are considered.

The assertiveness patterns of Type A coronary‐prone subjects were compared with those of Type B subjects in negative and positive situations. Type As were found to exhibit high assertiveness in both negative and positive situations. Type Bs responded as assertively as Type As in positive situations but less assertively in negative situations. The implications of the results are discussed.

This study examines the possibility that Type A behaviour is related to physique, and thus, is secondary to physique as a risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD). Scores on a modified version of the 1966 Jenkins Activity Survey were correlated with a number of physical parameters. Age was found to have the highest correlation of -0.177. When the effects of age were adjusted for, only 7.1% of variation in JAS scores was explained by the body measurements used to define physique. In addition, when high and low scorers on the JAS were compared, no significant differences were found between the groups on any of the body measurements. Since this study found no significant relationship between JAS scores and physique, the results do not controvert the supposition that Type A behaviour is an independent risk factor for CHD.

Early views of the Type A behaviour pattern (TABP) sought to disengage it from either neuroticism or emotional distress. Recent evidence challenging these views has, however, recommended a reevaluation of the area. Data arising from the present study indicate the TABP to be statistically related to measures of both neuroticism and emotional distress, though whether this association extends to a conceptional similarity, particularly with the former, is a matter for further discussion.

Sixty male subjects, all under age 60, taken consecutively from a cardiologist's referral practice were studied in terms of A Behaviour pattern using the Rosenman-Friedman Stress Interview. Subsequently they all underwent personality, temperament and life stress assessment by questionnaire using the MMPI, Thurstone Temperament Schedule, Holmes-Rahe Schedule of Recent Experience, Rosenman Life Satisfaction Questionnaire and a number of demographic measures. They were examined medically and divided into coronary heart disease (CHD) and non-coronary heart disease (NCHD) groups. There were many more A Behaviour subjects reflecting the sampling bias from the cardiologist's practice. There were significantly more A subjects found in the group with CHD than in the NCHD group. A Behaviour subjects were more dissatisfied with their marriages and attainment of life goals and preferred respect and recognition to love and affection. The A Behaviour subjects were considered more open, self-critical, dissatisfied and passive than the non-A cohorts as interpreted from the L, K and Mf scales of the MMPI. The finding of an association between A Behaviour and CHD validates the research of others. The greater dissatisfaction in certain areas of the A subjects’ lives fits in with other research evidence and is discussed in this vein. The passive, aesthetic interests of A subjects although difficult to explain in the light of the contrasting behaviour style, is discussed with reference to earlier psychoanalytic theories. The lack of psychopathology and personality differences in A subjects points up the difficulty of recognizing the A pattern using personality tests and points to the need of improved behavioural measures.

SynopsisEvidence is summarized suggesting that existing self-report questionnaires for the assessment of Type A behaviour pattern suffer from major methodological shortcomings. Type A individuals may be unwilling or unable to accurately self-report. The female spouse of the male patient can potentially provide a more objective, accurate ‘trait’ description less contaminated by ‘state’ variables such as diagnosis of illness or medication. The development of a spouse-report questionnaire is described and pilot data from 41 couples are presented, including comparison of the self-report and spouse-report responses on 46 questionnaire items and five scales. Unexpectedly high levels of agreement were found between self and spouse reports. Possible explanations of such agreement are critically examined.

SynopsisNearly one hundred subjects completed two Type A behaviour questionnaires twice. First, they were asked to complete them honestly, reporting accurately on their behaviour patterns. Half of the subjects were then asked to fake good, presenting themselves in a positive light, and half to fake bad, presenting themselves in a negative light. There was only a marginal difference on one questionnaire's total score, with fake good subjects having lower Type A (i.e. higher Type B scores) yet nearly every individual question revealed large significant differences. The subjects' own A/B classification did not effect the way in which they faked the questionnaires. The results are discussed in terms of the literature on faking, lay concepts of psychological phenomena and the multidimensionality of the Type A concept.

Both the Type A Behaviour Pattern (TABP) and the presence of stressful life-events have been independently established as precursors to the onset of coronary heart disease (CHD). The thematic character of the TABP suggests, however, that the two phenomena might be linked, to the extent that features of the TABP may place an individual in social, occupational and personal circumstances which enhance the probability of encountering stressful life-events. Evidence from survivors of clinical CHD gives some support to this idea. The present study extends the hypothesis to a large sample of healthy males, screened for CHD risk factors. These results, too, support the idea that the TABP and encounters with stressful life-events are not entirely independent phenomena. Associations between the TABP and a range of measures of life-events were most evident in the occupational aspects of the latter, though not exclusively so. The data do point to the need, in future epidemiological studies of CHD risk, to treat the TABP and stressful life-events as related measures of CHD risk.

This paper is concerned with how Type A and B subjects perceive themselves. Subjects first completed a unidimensional A type measure, then rated themselves and their ideal selves on various personality traits. As expected, Type A was associated with negative self-ratings and high actual-ideal self-discrepancy scores. However, it is argued that self-evaluation in negative terms by Type As is not necessarily synonymous with low self-esteem. Negative self-ratings may be an important factor in the aetiology and maintenance of the Type A behaviour pattern.

Definitions of the Type A behaviour pattern (TABP) hold that it arises out of the interaction between the individual and the environment1. For those in active employment, the occupational environment provides a setting of great potential for the facilitation of this interaction. Reference to descriptions of the TABP2,4 reveals the prominence of such occupation-related attributes as ambition, competitiveness, personal striving and achievement orientation. Moreover, there is clear support for the view that the Dresence of the TABP is positively associated with occupational status5,7. Yet, exploration of the Type A/occupation nexus beyond a tacit acceptance of an association has been curiously sparse. In view of an emerging interest in the unique risk of Coronary Heart Disease (C.H.D.) endowed by the TABP and the occupational environment acting in concert8, this gap must be seen as regretable.

The demonstration of modest statistical associations between measures of the Type A behaviour pattern (TABP) and some measures of authoritarianism has given rise to a view that the TABP represents little more than an attempt by some individuals to exercise the personality attribute of dominance. The present study examined this view with regard to a wide selection of measures of the authoritarian personality and found that measures of the TABP related only to measures of authoritarianism reflecting authoritarian behaviours. While such correlations indicate a facet of the TABP resembles the attribute of dominance, they do not amount to conceptual equivalence of the TABP and authoritarianism. The conceptual complexity of the TABP demands a more multidimensional view of this explanatory notion in medical psychology.

This paper reports on two studies of how Type A and B subjects perceive themselves. Both studies investigated differences in self-ratings of personality by Type As and Bs, and differences in the recall of positive and negative personality information. As predicted, a modest significant positive correlation was found in both studies between Type A scores and number of positive traits remembered, suggesting that Type A behaviours are associated with a tendency to process information about the self in such a way as to bolster self-esteem. Self-ratings of positive and negative personality traits showed that Type As tended to rate themselves much more negatively than Type Bs. This provides support for a self-evaluative model of Type A behaviour. The results are discussed in terms of the paradoxical nature of the Type A behaviour pattern.

The “coronary prone” or Type A behaviour pattern, characterized by e.g., hard-driving competitiveness, impatience and aggressiveness, is associated with elevated systolic blood pressure and catecholamine secretion during challenge. In experiments at our laboratory, elevated psychophysiological arousal was found in Type A subjects during understimulation, but not during active performance on a self-paced reaction time task. Results suggest that differences in cardiovascular and behavioural reactivity between Type A and B persons tend to be related to the pace of the environment to which they are exposed. Studies of antecedents of Type A behaviour in children show that “Type A children” respond to challenge with a greater increase in sympathetic arousal than “non-Type As”. This suggests the possibility that genetic dispositions and/or conditioned sympathetic reactivity play an important role in the development of the Type A behaviour pattern.