Type A Personality: Characteristics And Related Factors
Type A personality is a category used to describe a particular type of stress response. It is a proposal that arose in the 1950s, when two cardiologists wanted to study the relationship between some personality traits and the development of heart diseases.
Currently, type A personality is one of four personality patterns (there are also B, C and D) that have helped us describe how people relate to each other and how we react to external factors. Next We will see what a type A personality is like and what is its relationship with cardiovascular diseases, as well as the research that has related them.
The classification we know as “type A personality” was suggested by American cardiologists Meyer Friedman and Raymond Rosenman in the 50’s.
In very general terms, what they observed was that a set of stress responses, such as competitiveness, a feeling of constant urgency and hostility (which they called Type A Personality), are related to a greater likelihood of developing coronary heart disease and a high blood pressure.
Although they limited themselves to relating the response to stress and heart disease, their classification has currently been taken up and conceptualized as a set of behavioral responses known as the Type A Personality Pattern either Type A Behavior Pattern (TABP).
1. Competitiveness
TABP is characterized by a tendency towards competitiveness, which makes the person always self-critical and seeks to achieve their goals for the satisfaction of achieving them, rather than for the fact of enjoying the process.
That is, the competitiveness is related to constant experiences of success because it implies a disciplined personality and allows you to meet objectives, but it can also be a generator of permanent stress.
2. Sense of urgency
It is a personality that seems to always be “against the clock”, with an overload of work and a permanent need to comply with rules and schedules. They are people who do many things at the same time and always “on time”, therefore, moments that are not considered “productive” can generate a lot of anxiety.
For this reason, they tend to be impatient people who They are very involved in their work activities and that they tend to overreact on some occasions, for example, when things do not go as planned.
3. Hostility
The previous characteristic is related to the fact that the person frequently highlights the negative more than the positive in others and circumstances, developing constant frustration, and even a lack of empathy, or in the worst case, aggressive behavior. The consequence is that the person is almost always perceived as hostile or that she is always angry.
In sum, the type A personality involves a success orientation with a tendency toward competitiveness, a sense of urgency, and a low tolerance for frustration. They tend to be ambitious, extremely hard-working and demanding people who commit to several activities at the same time, which they consider urgent and therefore generate constant tension.
Other personality patterns: Type B, C and D
While investigating Type A personality patterns, Friedman and Rosenman found that not all Type A personalities were the same. So, they proposed that the type A personality could be A-1 or A-2; and it could also be type B which included subtypes B-3 and B-4.
To explain it better, let’s imagine a straight line in which one end has the letter A and the other end the letter B, and in the middle are the codes A-1, A-2, B-3 and B-4. We would find the type A personality, and the A-1 subtype at the first extreme, which is the most notable manifestation of the traits that we explained previously.
The A-2 personality is the next segment, and refers to people who are less distressed and less competitively oriented. On the other hand, if the person has a success orientation, but is more calm than overloaded then it is a type B-3 personality.
Finally, at the other end of the line we have the type B personality pattern, which is a person who is perceived as more serene and peaceful (those would be type B-4 personalities).
However, the research that followed after Friedman and Rosenman’s studies was not limited to studying Type A personality, so four personality patterns are currently recognized: type A, type B, C, and type D.
Type A personality and heart disease
Friedman and Rosenman conducted a longitudinal study with 3,154 healthy men between 39 and 59 years old to whom they applied a questionnaire that explored emotional dimensions and some lifestyles, from which they categorized the type A personality traits.
Eight years later, 257 of the participants had developed coronary heart disease, and by the end of the research, 70% of those who had developed it were men who had type A personality patterns.
They also found that the people who were at end A and end B They had very different blood pressure levels: very high values in the first extreme and more normal values in the second (250/130 mm. Hg and 155/95 mm. Hg. respectively).
Some limits in research on the type A personality pattern
Are They should not be understood as closed, fixed or immovable categories, but as a continuum. That is, we can find ourselves in type A or B at different times and depending on the demands of the environment.
For example, the same researchers realized that people who were at the end of the type A personality could be found more towards the end B during weekends or when very demanding routines were modified.
On the other hand, one of the limitations of the study is that it was only carried out with men, so its results cannot be fully applied to the female population (lifestyles, social demands and stress response are different).
Likewise, it has been found that There are other risk factors that are more decisive for the development of cardiovascular diseases such as smoking, a sedentary lifestyle or obesity.
Due to the above, and also due to the popularity it has gained in some sectors of both medicine and clinical psychology, type A personality is a theory that has been constantly researched and updated.
