Personality type

• Type A personality (Friedman 1996) is characterised by a "high strung" competitive, impatient, and hostile personality
• research has linked type A personality (Friedman 1996) to cardiovascular disorders such as coronary heart disease
• Type B personality is considered to be laid back, relaxed and tolerant of others
• Type C personality is compliant, avoids conflict, and suppresses emotion
• Temoshok (1987) has linked type C personality to cancer
• Type A personality is more likely to experience cardiovascular disorders as their "high strung" personality makes them more likely to experience stress therefore they spend more time experiencing the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) response and the sympatho-medullary pathway (SAM)
• Friedman and Rosenman (1959) conducted the Western Collaborative group study on 3000 men living in California who were medically assed of being free of coronary heart disease
• Friedman and Rosenman (1959) weakness; gender bias as the sample only consisted of men opening the study to beta bias as it diminishes the differences between males and females by only studying men but generalising results to women
• Friedman and Rosenman (1959) weakness; culture bias as they only studied Americans living in an individualist culture while people in a collectivist culture may have a different experience as their difference in norms and values may change their experiences with stress making the study culturally relative
• Friedman and Rosenman (1959) assessed participants' personality types using a 25 question long structured interview concerning everyday stresses along with observing their behaviour during the interview EG their reaction to the interviewer reading slowly
• Friedman and Rosenman (1959) followed up on participants 8 years later and found that of 257 men who developed coronary heart disease after the study, 70% were assessed as having type A personalities
• Dattore (1980) studied 200 Vietnam war veterans, 75 of whom were cancer patients
• Dattore (1980) had participants complete questionaires to assess their repression of emotion in the years leading up to the study
• Dattore (1980) established a correlation between those who had a history of repressing emotions (typical of type C personalities) and cancer
• Dattore (1980) weakness; uses retrospective data involving repressing emotion which is likely to be partially incorrect especially considering if emotions are repressed likely to are the events associated with them
• Personality type strength; research support for type A from Friedman and Rosenman (1959) who found men with type a personalities were 70% more likely to develop coronary heart disease
• Personality type strength; research support for type C as Dattore (1980) found a correlation between repressing emotions and cancer HOWEVER this is only correlational
• Personality type strength; real world application as if people can identify if they are likely to experience high stress due to their personality type they can take preventative measures such as stress inoculation therapy to prevent cardiovascular disorders developing due to their higher level of stress
• Friedman and Rosenman (1959) weakness; does not consider how individual factors such as diet, smoking and drinking contribute to coronary heart disease meaning the study is unstandardised opening it up to extraneous variables lowering the validity of the study
• Personality type weakness; does not consider genetic factors in developing cardiovascular disorders meaning it would be rejected by a biological approach
• Personality type weakness; could be seen as overly deterministic as individuals are not given freedom and choice over how they behave