I was intrigued by meganr's recent posting regarding health, heart problems, and stress.
I am what you would call a "Type A" person. I am impatient, become frustrated easily, fast-paced (and intolerant of those who aren't and hold me up), have a low tolerance for things that annoy me, and am constantly stressed - most of the time, I am the one who creates all the stress. I strive to achieve as best I can. I get frustrated when I know I didn't do something up to my potential, and beat myself up from things like getting an A- in a class I knew I could've gotten an A in. Yes, I know... pathetic... If I could change, I would!!
Because Type A's are almost always stressed, there are many health concerns that accompany people with this personality. According to Elizabeth Scott's article (found at: http://stress.about.com/od/understandingstress/a/type_a_person.htm), the two most frequent and life threatening conditions that can develop from the stress a Type A has are hypertension and heart disease. In fact, it's pretty common for a Type A to have high blood pressure, and these people are 84% more at risk for hypertension.
In addition, there are other indirect conditions that can arise in conjunction with this personality type. For example, loss of sleep. Type A's frequently have a difficult time falling asleep or staying asleep because they feel they have too much to do, are obsessed with thinking about what they have to do, or are still upset with something that has occurred during the day. Not only do these few situations cause insomnia, but they can also be caused by or accompany conditions like Anxiety and OCD.
Dealing with this stress is difficult for Type A's to deal with or settle because the stress is never ending. According to Reeve (2005), self-efficacy is the "capacity in which the individual organizes and orchestrates skills to cope with the demands and circumstances he faces" (p. 228). Another problem with Type A's is that they always feel like a disaster is going to happen. To put this in perspective - I, for example, usually work ahead as far as possible, because I want to make sure that everything gets done in case something happens that would handicap my ability to get it done on time. Although self-efficacy can be a good thing to help deal with stress, I think that people with a Type A personality have too much self-efficacy, to a point that it actually hurts them more than helps.
Take this quiz: http://stress.about.com/library/Type_A_quiz/bl_Type_A_quiz.htm? to find out if you're a Type A personality. Most of you would know if you are, but maybe you are and you just didn't know... or maybe you'll disagree with your results.
I think while the quiz posted is a good general indicator of type A personality, I have trouble taking it too seriously because of the source. Though it wasn't extensive or seem like it had specific supporting research, it seems to be a decent overall picture of personality. My result said that I had some type A features and tendencies, but not a typical type A personality. I could generally agree with that assessment because while I'm sometimes competitive and often thinking about how to maximize my time, I'm definitely too relaxed to be fully type A.
The link between personality type and health issues is a very interesting relationship. I think research in this area is important to understanding the extent of the link, and also in discovering ways to educate people with different personality types how that factors into their potential health problems. Even though personality researchers find that personality is somewhat stable and unchanging over one's lifetime, other variables can be controlled and changed to prevent health problems for certain personality types.
I took the type A personality quiz. My results were: “You have some Type A features, but are not the 'typical Type A'. You can probably really benefit from the resources below. While your health and happiness aren't as threatened as some, your chances for improvement are that much greater than those with much stronger Type A tendencies. With some lifestyle changes and a few stress relief techniques, you may be in great shape!”
I would have to agree with Mikayla as to questioning the validity of the quiz because of the source. I would have to say, however, that I think the quiz was correct in how it evaluated if I had a Type A personality. I do have quite a bit of stress in life from my job and school, but it is not a constant stress. I am able to fall asleep quite easily at night, but when I awake I am constantly going over a check list in my head of all the things that I have to accomplish that day or in the near future. It is kind of scary knowing that this type of personality can lead to some very serious health concerns. I think that is important, that if you know that you have a Type A personality, there are things that can be done to help decrease those health risks. Linked to the quiz was this website http://stress.about.com/od/understandingstress/a/type_a_person_2.htm?once=true& which gives some tips on ways to try to “soften” your Type A personality.
I agree with the posts above. I thought some of the questions asked in the quiz were comical and not necessarily predictive of a type A personality. For instance, asking if you get annoyed by "idiots on the road" or have dark circles, these things could be attributes related to Type A personalities, however not actual indicators. I see as one of the main issues with regard to the original post would not necessarily be Type A personality, but possibly affect intensity. Reeve discusses this on page 381 of the text as "people's capacity to become aroused emotionally". Affect intense individuals experience their emotions strongly and show emotional reactivity across many emotion- eliciting situations. Affect stable individuals experience their emotions only mildly and show only minor fluctuations in their emotional reactions from event to event. These individuals differ psychologically, as affect intense individuals were more psychologically sensitive to changes in arousal. I think that this gives you an idea of why some people differ in their moods and attitudes toward events. I would not necessarily say that just because you have a high need for achievement that you are a Type A personality, I agree that Affect intense individuals would have a higher likelihood, but it is not the only factor.
Another issue I would like to point out is the idea of personality being a static characteristic of the individual. I think that realizing that some aspects of your personality can help anyone to become less irritable and "Type A like". For instance, when I started college I let everything get to me. If anything negative happened, such as a bad grade, too many tests in one week, a bad teacher etc I would become very stressed and it would affect my entire life. Now that I have realized that this behavior is ineffective and harmful to my health I make a concerted effort not to let myself become overly upset about things and take life one day at a time. I think that I did change my personality type once I realized that what I was doing to not working for me. So, keep in mind that labeling yourself as a Type A personality could lead you to accept these attributes as stable, instead of realizing that it is possible to work on being less stressed and agitated by everyday occurrences.