During the 1950s, cardiologists began to investigate personality traits and its relationship with both stress coping responses and health factors associates. Currently, up to four personality patterns: A, B, C and D. If you want to know what type a personality is, keep reading this Psychology-Online article: Type A personality: traits and characteristics.
The classification of personality types and their relationship to stress it was developed by cardiologists Meyer Friedman and Raymond Rosenman. In their research, they observed that reactions to stress or stressful stimuli varied based on a pattern of identifiable personality traits in the subjects, so the responses to stress were similar in people who presented common or shared personality characteristics.
On the other hand, they also realized that the probability of developing certain types of diseases was related to the personality pattern; Depending on their psychological aspects, people were more or less likely to present a certain type of pathology. From longitudinal studies they suggested the existence of four personality patterns. The first of them, the
It is important do not confuse type A personality with type A personality disorder. The type A personality pattern refers to the classification proposed by Friedman and Rosenman on psychological traits and their impact on responses to external factors and diseases, on the other hand the type A personality disorder refers to a group of personality pathologies that include paranoid, schizoid and schizotypal personality disorders.
What is type A personality like? The type A behavior pattern It is made up of three personality traits and psychological aspects; competitiveness, hostility and sense of urgency. The main traits of people with personality type A are the following:
1. Competitiveness
Type A people have a tendency to competitiveness, they seek to achieve their goals and objectives and achieve success, in many cases only enjoying the result and not the process. The latter is due to his mental rigidity for challenges and a certain obsession with personal need for achievement, in which success fulfills a function of self-affirmation and protection of self-esteem. They want to be able to give the best of themselves and stand out in a positive way from other people. They are highly self-demanding, self-critical and perfectionist people. Here you will find more information about the perfectionist personality.
2. Hostility
In stressful situations, the type A personality pattern shows easy to feel irritability. This hostility surfaces especially in situations in which their objectives or plans are put at risk, or when other people do not act in the same way, making it difficult to achieve an achievement. Sometimes it can lead to lack of empathy, frustration or aggressive behavior.
3. Sense of urgency
Impatience is another characteristic of the Type A personality pattern. They have a hard time waiting and delaying and a tendency to impulsivity. They also present a need to strictly adhere to deadlines, schedules and rules. They live with a sense of lack of time that causes feelings of anxiety.
It is important to emphasize that although these personality traits are what characterize the type A personality, they are not fixed and immovable. That is, they are aspects of the personality that emerge in stressful situations or challenges, in the absence of demands or demands from the environment they do not have to be present in the same person. Therefore this pattern of behavior is contextual, depends on external circumstances, since the study focused on coping with stress.
The personality traits mentioned and explained above give rise to a series of defining characteristics in people with type A personality, some of them are:
- People with a strong achievement orientation, so they make great efforts and, sometimes, sacrifices to achieve what they have proposed.
- Personality disciplined, self-demanding and rigid with the rules and their own performance criteria.
- Personality style dominant and authoritarian.
- Tendency to getting excessively involved in the workplace, so they can neglect other areas of their life. In some cases there is a work addiction.
- Difficulties relaxing and disconnecting from work.
- They usually present extreme or exaggerated reactions before what they consider a failure.
- Reactive and proactive responses to stress.
- Another characteristic of the type A personality is reckless or impulsive decision-making. In the following article you will find how to work impulsivity.
- Personality perfectionist and ambitiousThese people tend to set goals that are too high and unrealistic, and they also consider any small failure a defeat.
- Intransigence with themselves and with other people, so social relationships can be affected.
- Hypervigilance or attention, excessive alertness to avoid mistakesas there is great concern about performance and productivity.
- Elevated need for a sense of control on the circumstances and low tolerance for uncertainty.
- Tendency to overload and take over responsibility.
- They prefer to work individually on stressful and demanding tasks, in the same way that they usually have difficulties with teamwork and to delegate.
- Sometimes your performance and productivity can be adversely affected by your propensity for speed.
- High tone of voice, rapid speech, gestures and fast movements with psychomotor agitation at times.
- Another characteristic of type A personality is the Low tolerance to frustrationSo they get angry if they don't get what they want or if things don't go as planned.
- Nervousness and agitation in general, which can manifest itself through nail biting, teeth grinding or frequent hair touching.
Friedman and Roseman studied the link between health and the type A personality pattern, concluding that the traits of this type of personality and the lifestyle resulting from these constitute a risk factor pfor certain diseases:
- Coronary pathologies: coronary artery disease is the most common heart condition. The hostility component present in type A personality would be the most detrimental for the development of this type of disease, this may be due to the cardiovascular hyperresponsiveness and increasing the level of activity of the sympathetic nervous system. Other common heart diseases in this group of people are heart attacks, ischemic heart disease, or narrowing of the arteries, and strokes.
- Hypertension: Type A personality characteristics are a predisposing factor for increased blood pressure levels, this may be due to high reactivity to stress.
- Higher levels of cholesterol, hypercholesterolemia, and triglycerides.
- Predisposition to suffer sleep disturbances, especially insomnia.
- Type A personality is also a risk factor for the development of anxiety problems, since there is a propensity to stress. In the following article you will find how to manage and regulate stress.
- Biggest trend for the smoking and substance use.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
