The personality of the cardiac responder: interaction of seriousmindedness and type A behavior.
Forty healthy university students were recruited from a larger sample to form subgroups of seriousminded and playful Type A and Type B individuals according to their responses to the Telic Dominance Scale and Jenkins Activity Survey. The experiment made use of a factorial design and tested the hypothesis that cardiovascular reactivity during a continuous perceptual motor task is highest in individuals who are characterized by a combination of seriousmindedness and Type A behavior pattern. Relatively low levels of sympathetic reactivity were expected in playful Type B individuals. Heart rate (HR) and pulse transit time (PTT) scores from baseline and task performance periods supported the conclusions that: (1) Cardiovascular activation appeared during task performance; and that (2) seriousmindedness and Type A behavior exerted particularly significant additive effects upon HR, whereas Type A behavior showed a stronger association than did seriousmindedness with PTT scores. Analyses using pre-task score as covariate to task-scores, indicated stronger reactivity for HR in Type A than in Type B subjects.
Svebak
S
S
Department of Somatic Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway.
Nordby
H
H
Ohman
A
A
D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D007439:Introversion, Psychological; D009042:Motivation; D010556:Personality Tests; D010988:Play and Playthings; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D014434:Type A Personality