Abstract
Fifty-six healthy adult males were administered the Type A Structured Interview and assessed as exhibiting either Type A (N=42) or Type B (N=14) behavior pattern. They were monitored for systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) responses during a series of six challenging tasks: Mental Arithmetic, Hypothesis Testing, Reaction Time, Video Game, Handgrip, and Cold Pressor. The results indicated that Type A subjects exhibited greater cardiovascular responses than did Type B subjects during some (Hypothesis Testing, Reaction Time, Video Game and Mental Arithmetic) but not all (Handgrip and Cold Pressor) of the tasks. These results are discussed in terms of previously reported findings on conditions that do and do not produce differences in Type A/B cardiovascular stress responses.
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This research was supported by USPHS Grant MH-31269. We would like to thank Drs. Steve Manuck, David Krantz, Ted Dembroski, Curt Sandman, David Hothersall, and Gifford Weary for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
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Ward, M.M., Chesney, M.A., Swan, G.E. et al. Cardiovascular responses in Type A and Type B men to a series of stressors. J Behav Med 9, 43–49 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00844643
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00844643