Relinqishment of Control and the Type A Behavior Pattern: Causal Role of Performance Evaluation.

Previous research has indicated that Type A's have a higher need to control their environments, and respond more reactively to control loss than Type B's. To clarify the role of information processing in the control relinquishment decisions of Type A's and B's, 147 male and female college students took part in a problem solving experiment. Pairs of subjects worked independently on an initial 25 trial task and received feedback indicating that their partner had performed at a comparable or superior level. On a second task subjects combined their efforts, but only one could work on a given trial, necessitating a decision concerning how many trials each would attempt to solve. One third of the subjects made this decision prior to completing an evaluation of the initial performances. Another third completed the evaluation first without knowing they would subsequently make a control decision. The final third of the subjects comleted their evaluations knowing that a control decision would follow. Results indicated that when the evaluations were completed last, or, when the evaluations were completed first but without knowledge of the impending decision, Type A's relative to Type B's failed to relinquish control to a superior partner. When the evaluations were completed with knowledge of an impending control decision, Type A's and B's did not differ in their decisions. These results suggest that, under appropriate conditions, Type A's engage in an automatic or mindless decision strategy with potentially maladaptive consequences. (Author/JAC)