Exam 3: Personality types Flashcards
personality
individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving
Fairly stable over time and make us unique
- People around us, environments we choose, and health
Type A personalities relating to CVD were studied by which cardiologists?
Friendman and Rosenman
- were studying cholesterol and heart disease in mid 20th century ⇒ ran a clinic where they saw patients and gathered data with interview with patients and wives
what did Friendman and Rosenman do in their study?
- a patient’s wife suggested the real cause of the heart attack was work stress => Thought this was what put their husbands at risk
- Clinic chairs worn down by patients faster than expected => Not due to structural but because arms and sets were being rubbed ragged
- Compares stress and personalities of patients and non patients => There is a psychological factor in patients heart diseases
- Patients were more likely to have type A personalities
type A personalities (4 components)
- Competitive achievement orientation
- time urgency
- Anger
- hostility
Competitive achievement orientation
a focus on achieving or winning
time urgency
someone who is always hurrying and rushing from one activity to the next
- everything they do should be quick and they get impatient
- May engage in multiple activities at once to get through more things in lest time
anger
frequent emotional experience ⇒ frustration and angry feelings
hostility
anger directed socially ⇒ problems are due to other people, specific people, or other people in general or directing anger at people
what is the link between Type A and heart disease?
Link between type A and heart disease is not apparent but hostility is linked to negative health outcomes
type B personality (3)
- Opposite type A
- Laid back: don’t let things get to them and take time to do things for enjoyment
- relaxed, and non reactive
structures interview
used to assess type A personality characteristics and questions are planned in advance which get used to all participants ⇒ content of response and style
- Consistent questions
- Content and response style
- Videotapes ⇒ behaviors observed and measured
self report (type A related)
done via questionnaire to tap the 3 aspects of type A
provocative interviews
interviews that are structured and can help classify type A because hostility is particularly salient
evidence of types A and B with CVD (3)
- early studies ⇒ Type A 6.5x more likely to have a heart attack
- meta analysis ⇒ Type A 2x more likely to have heart disease
- study of methods could distinguish CV patients from non patients based on type A with a structured interview
- Method of classifying type A is important ⇒ hostility is the key component
why are type A and CVD evidence not consistent? (3)
- Different methods ⇒ also different study designs like cross sectional, longitudinal, etc.
- Different CVD (cardiovascular) outcomes
- Different stages of disease for patients
physiology/behavior of hostile people (13)
- Higher sympathetic reactivity
- Higher heart rate
- Higher blood pressure
- More blood clotting
- Higher cholesterol
- More self reported stress symptoms
- More likely to smoke and drink
- Less exercise
- More disrupted sleep
- More social conflict
- Present in childhood ⇒ due to genes and early environment
- Stabile in boys
- More frequent in men
expression of hostility
is most linked to CVD rather than felt
experienced hostility
feelings of anger or hostility are less related to CVD
what does hostility lead to? (4)
- Greater stress response ⇒ higher heart rate, increased blood pressure, release of stress hormones
- More stressful events ⇒ conflict at home, at work, or in society, or leisure activities (such as dinner)
- Less social support ⇒ due to impact on hostility of relationships
- Poorer health behaviors ⇒ people who are hostile like smoking or less physical exercise
who worked on type c and cancer?
Lydia Temoshok
- directing behavioral medicine research program at UCSF in a cancer clinic (1970s) ⇒ just after explosion in type A and CVD
what did Lydia Temoshok do?
- Some of her research looked at personality and cancer
- Wrote a popular book called the Type C connection
- She concluded that type C people have poorer cancer outcomes
type C characteristics (5)
- Cooperative
- Appeasing
- Unassertive
- Putting others needs and opinions above their own
- Expressive negative emotions
3 type C self assessment components
- Emotions experiences
- Emotions expressed
- Social desirability: tendency to present themselves in a favorable light
→ assessment has not been consistent
type C and cancer evidence
Temoshok feels that her results suggest that type C strains the body’s ability to fight cancer and can speed progression
- Results from others at the time were very mixed
why were type C evidence results mixed?
Different methods
Different types of cancer
Different stages of disease
→ Contemporary research has not supported a link ⇒ growing consensus that there is not relationship and no type C personality
what did Limoges et al do?
- 16 year prospective study of nearly 14,000 people including an emotional suppression assessment
- Cancer was measured and there was no greater cancer for those who had high emotional suppression
lack of negative emotional expression was though to what?
was thought to produce the threat to health ⇒ suppressed emotion is of considerable interest to psychoanalysts
70s and 90s emotional suppression and cancer studied often related to what?
most often related to progression rather than incidence
- there were many that found no relationship
- contemporary, large and prospective, studies with better methodology, have failed to support a connection
who studied type D and CVD connections?
Johan Denollet
- working as a clinical psychologist at a University hospital in Belgium in a cardiac clinic ⇒ 1990s
- Doing research on personality and coping with heart disease
- Published several papers on type d and heart disease
