Personality Types - A versus B

Wanted: Bright, ambitious, hard-driving executive to work for growing young company. Salary competitive. Opportunity for advancement unlimited for the right person.

Many of the readers will find this advertisement attractive, either because they fit the description of the sought-for employee or because this is the type of individual they want working for their company. However, during the past two decades, psychologists have completed a tremendous amount of research that indicates that individuals answering the description in my advertisement are walking time bombs for this nation’s #1 killer – heart disease.

Let me back up a minute and explain something to you about psychologists. Psychologists love to categorize or pigeonhole people, preferably into dichotomies. That’s why we have introverts vs. extraverts, internally controlled people vs. externally controlled individuals, and obsessive-compulsives vs. hysterics. In keeping with this tradition, in 1964 Friedman, Rosenman, and Byers invented the Type A vs. Type B personalities.

The Type A personality is the individual often eulogized by industry. She/he is prone to excessive competitiveness and impatience. Such people struggle all the time – always feeling pressure to meet some sort of deadline imposed by themselves, if not their boss. They work overtime a great deal and seldom take vacations. A subset of these individuals, often labeled “workaholics”, focus much, it not all, of their mental energy on their jobs. Type A individuals are usually insecure but very achievement-oriented. Their insecurity, results in an irresistible urge to constantly remind themselves and others of their previous achievements. Awards, diplomas, and trophies are common fixtures in their homes and offices. Moreover, these people tend to be very angry individuals, although this hostility may well be at an unconscious level, perhaps only surfacing, like the tip of an iceberg, in their cut-throat business tactics. These individuals are quite concerned about numbers, e.g., number of customers, amount of money earned, number of cars owned. They manifest a great deal of tension constantly, with tight musculature and perhaps more than occasional tics or muscle cramps. They have more adrenalin pumping though their bodies than Type B personalities. The daily caffeine intake of Type A personalities is 50% greater than that of Type B persons.

Very simply put, Type B individuals have the inverse characteristics. They are not concerned with time or numbers or awards. They do poorly under stress. They are more sociable. Whereas Type A’s want to be included and liked by others, they will often not include other people in their own activities, as will Type B folk. The Type B person finds it easier to express and receive affection.

Researchers have concluded that 50% of the individuals in our American society fall into the Type A category, 40% into the Type B category, and 10% are indeterminate. More importantly, the results of a ten-year longitudinal project on 3,500 men indicated that Type A men have at least three times as much coronary heart disease as Type B’s. The importance of this statistic can be reflected best by the finding that smoking cigarettes, eating foods rich in cholesterol, and little or no exercise made very little difference in elevating the risk of heart disease, if the person had a Type B personality. This study concluded that the risk associated with developing heart disease decreased by 31% when the A-B factor was eliminated. Those people you see occasionally in newspapers and on television who have smoked three packs of cigarettes a day for fifty years and are now celebrating their 104 birthdays are Type B personalities. That is their secret.

More statistics. One-third of all coronary heart disease victims die as a result of their first heart attack. The other two-thirds are at greater risk for another myocardial infarction. The three variables of Type A behavior patterns, cigarette smoking, and high serum-cholesterol levels were more successful than another other combinations of variables at predicting recurrent myocardial infarctions.

To summarize, the idealized executive-type answering the description in my advertisement is a high risk candidate for coronary heart disease in his/her 50’s, 40’s, and, yes folks, even 30’s.

The Type A personalities reading this article will probably dispute my conclusion, in concordance with their strong control needs. “Surely I can avoid this fate,” they are saying to themselves. “This couldn’t happen to me.” I am generally pessimistic about Type A person’s ability and motivation to totally turn over a new leaf and become a Type B personality. However, I can offer a few suggestions, based on my work with similar individuals, which may aid them in joining the 10% in the middle. And these suggestions do not involve extensive (and expensive) psychotherapy.

Different types of relaxation training can be utilized with Type A people, quite successfully. Biofeedback is one of my favorite methods of relaxation training for Type A individuals. In biofeedback training, auditory and/or visual feedback for their muscle tension, body temperature, brain waves, etc. is provided to the trainee. In fact, studies have shown that Type A people learn biofeedback faster and enjoy the results longer after the training is completed, when compared to Type B individuals. My overall favorite kind of relaxation training involves hypnosis. However, Type A people tend to resist being hypnotized, due to their strong needs to be in control of the situation at all times. Usually, 2-3 sessions are needed to convince them of the truth, which is that they are hypnotizing themselves. I am merely the catalyst for the process. After 2-3 sessions, Type A’s can usually achieve a deep enough trance state to reap benefits that they can begin to use in their everyday activities.

Finally, Type A people can force themselves into situations in which their behaviors will resemble that of Type B’s. That is, Type A people can take off their wristwatches and teach themselves to indulge in laid-back, non-goal oriented activities on a regular basis. They need to learn to discriminate between appropriate behaviors for the office and appropriate behaviors for home.