Stress- Part 2

Aims

Friedman and Rosenman proposed that some individuals (Type A) are typically impatient, competitive, time pressured and hostile. Type B individuals lack these characteristics and are generally more relaxed. Friedman and Rosenman predicted that Type As would be less able to cope with stress and therefore more likely to experience CHD.

Method and Procedure

The study recruited 3154 healthy men aged between 39 and 59, living around San Francisco. This was a longitudinal study. The men were first interviewed in 1960, using a set of 25 questions to assess the way that a person typically responds to everyday pressures that would create feelings of impatience, competitiveness or hostility. For example, the participants were asked how they would cope with having to wait in a long queue or working with a slow partner. The interview was conducted in a provocative manner to try to elicit Type A behaviour. For example, the interviewer might speak slowly and hesitantly, so that a Type A person would want to interrupt. The researchers recorded the participants' answers and the way that the participants' responded. Participants were then classes as A1 (Type A), A2 (not fully Type A), X (equal amounts of Type A and B), and B.

Results

1. Eight and a half years later, 257 of the total sample had developed CHD: 178 of these had been assessed as Type A (69%), whereas half as many were Type B (31%).
2. Twenty-two years later, 214 men had died from CHD: 119 were Type A and 95 Type B, a rather less impressive difference.

Conclusion

This offers strong support for the idea that aspects of a person's temperament are associated with CHD. The key factor may be stress. This results from the follow-up study 22 years later suggest that personality type may not be as important as originally suggested. However, it might be that of some of the men took preventative measures after being diagnosed with CHD and that this altered the death rates later recorded.

Evaluation

Friedman and Rosenman's study was the first to show that a psychological trait could be a risk-factor in heart disease, just like smoking or a bad diet. It was a large-scale, well-designed study. However, the participants were all male, making it unclear whether results apply to women. Ivancevich and Matteson (1980) suggested that, rather than being a personality trait, type A behaviour depended on the fit between the person and the environment. A follow-up study 22 years later found a much smaller difference. However, it could be that in their later years, type A men stopped being so hostile and competitive.