Type A behaviour and psychophysiological arousal

The "coronary prone" or Type A behaviour pattern, characterized by e.g., hard-driving competitiveness, impatience and aggressiveness, is associated with elevated systolic blood pressure and catecholamine secretion during challenge. In experiments at our laboratory, elevated psychophysiological arousal was found in Type A subjects during understimulation, but not during active performance on a self-paced reaction time task. Results suggest that differences in cardiovascular and behavioural reactivity between Type A and B persons tend to be related to the pace of the environment to which they are exposed. Studies of antecedents of Type A behaviour in children show that "Type A children" respond to challenge with a greater increase in sympathetic arousal than "non-Type As". This suggests the possibility that genetic dispositions and/or conditioned sympathetic reactivity play an important role in the development of the Type A behaviour pattern.