Types of Personality: 'A', 'B', 'C'

Types of Personality

Type A Personality

The Type A personality generally lives at a higher stress level. Some of the factors related to their working at this level are given below:

1) They enjoy achievement of goals.

2) They enjoy achieving goals that are more difficulit.

3) They constantly keep working hard to achieve their goals.

4)Once they start to work they cannot stop, even when they have achieved goals.

5) They feel the pressure of time, as they have to reach their goals within the stipulated time period.

6) They work so hard that there is no rest that they take and thus are totally exhausted.

7) They are highly competitive and generally creates competition if there is none as it gives them great enjoyment and pleasure to compete and win.

8) They hate failures and work hard to avoid it.

9)They are well educated persons and successful too and physically they appear fine even though they are highly stressed out.

Development of Type A Behaviour

The question arises as to how the Type A behaviour develops. Is the person born with these traits? Or does he develop these traits in the process of socialisation?

There are evidences to show that such Type A behaviour can be seen even in children as young as 3 years of age. This is to an extent indicative of hereditary factors contributing to Type A behaviour. This in a way suggests a genetic contribution. Also, there have been a large number of studies on twins who have more or less the same heredity endowment, but yet show differences in Type A and Type B behaviour. It is not that if one of the twins has Type Apersonality the other onc also must have the same Type A personality. By providing these children different environment, it would perhaps be possible to develop them into Type Aor Type B personalities. At the same time some of these studies on twins have shown that at Icast some of the Type A characteristics are inherited. On the other hand, several theorists are of the view that if the parents have Type Apersonality, because of their behaviours, children would model their behaviours and thus tend to become Type A personality.

Dr. Karen Matthews, of the University of Pittsburgh, has noted striking parallels between the behaviour of Type A adults and Type A children. Type A children, like their parents who are TypeA adults, work at rapid rates (with and without deadlines), have high aspirations, and try to complete the tasks assigned on time. They would never take anything lightly and they would strive to achieve the highest and aspire for more and more and work hard towards the same.

Type A behaviour may also develop as a result of child-rearing practiccs in which parents and strangers alike urge children to achieve at higher and higher levels, but do not give them exactly what to achieve and which level to reach. Since children have worked hard to achieve the highest and have also achieved the same, they wonder what is meant by achieving more especially when the parents and strangers or teachers tell them that 'they are doing fine, but next time they should try harder. This kind of vague statements leave the children frustrated, as they are not sure what target they have to achieve.

Type B Personality

The Type B personality generally lives at a lower stress level.

1) They work steadily, enjoying achievements but not becoming stressed when they are not achieving or have failed to reach the target.

2) When faced with competition, they do not mind losing.

3) They may be creative and enjoy exploring ideas and concepts.

4) They are often reflective, thinking about the outer and inner worlds.

Criticism of Type A and Type B Theory

Type A and Type B personality theory: During the 1950s, Meyer Friedman and his co-workers defined what they called Type A and Type B behaviour patterns. As pointed out earlier Type A personalities had a higher risk of coronary disease. Type B people, on the other hand, were stated to be more relaxed, less competitive, and lower in risk. There was also a Type AB mixed profile which consisted of the striving type and the relaxing type of personality. However latter researches refuted Friedman's claim that Type A personalities ran higher risk of coronary heart disease. Current research indicates that only the hostility component of Type A may have some bearing on health. Psychologists have criticized the theory on the ground that it tended to oversimplify a number of personality dimensions.

Statisticians have argued that the original study by Friedman and Rosenman had serious limitations including large and unequal sample sizes, and less than 1 % of the variance in relationship explained by Type A personality.

Personality Type C

These personality typology is more prone to develop cancer. Every individual is well aware that smoking is related to cancer and that if one is a heavy smoker they must try to give it up in order to prevent developing cancer. Normally not that every one who smokes develops cancer, it is only some who are more prone to or have a predisposition to develop cancer, suffer from the disease. These persons who have a proneness to develop cancer and the behaviour patterns that they manifest are called Type C personality. Such people respond to stress by becoming depressed and/or by feeling helpless and hopeless. Such persons are also introverts dependent to an extent, obedient, respectful, eager to please others and always conforming to the norms and requirements. They are also passive individuals who do not have the fighting spirit in themsclves. Whether being of this type of personality contribute to the typical lifestyle that is related to devcloping cancer, is yet to be scientifically established. As for instance, a person who chews tobacco may do so whenever he is tense and later on even the slightest tension may make him resort to tobacco chewing which may eventually end up in the development of cancer. Cure from cancer or a person's lifespan increase could also be due to inculcating fighting spirit within themselves.

There has been some evidence to suggest that a person's personality type may have some relationship to his chances of surviving cancer. Those who respond with a fighting spirit" or those who have a sense of denial seem to do better than the type C personalities who seem to accept their fate passively. A Stanford University (in the USA) professor named David Spiegel discovered that cancer patients who joined a support group which fostered a fighting spirit" had a tendency to live on average 18 months longer than those who were not in such a group.

However, there are many contradictory findings in research work and hence one not clearly and conclusively state that such personalities will develop cancer in course of time. Taken to an extreme, some individuals may even feel guilty in considering that their personality type may be responsible for their disease, which may only add to their problems. If personality type does have some effect on the disease process, it is probably related more to the weakening effect it has on the immune system, functioning through an individual's response to stress. This can then undermine the body's defenses and make an individual more vulnerable to infection However, much more research needs to be done to understand the effect of personality type on physical health.

The Type A persons keep struggling to overcome the real and imagined obstacles imposed by events, other people, and, especially, time. Their main struggle is actually against time as they try to finish their tasks on time. They are time bound and target oriented. They feel guilty if they do not complete the task within the given time. The struggle against time is so pervasive in them that they get heavily tensed up if they do not complete the task on time. Type A persons are frequently impatient, competitive easily irritated, quick to anger, suspicious, and hostile. They are often highly successful in their professions, but are dissatisfied with whatever they achieve. They try to do more than one thing at a time, like for instance talking on the phone while working on the computer, or eat while driving. They are constantly preoccupied with deadlines. They tend to speak rapidly and loudly, are impatient and often interrupt or finish others' sentences.

Type B individuals, in contrast, are described as patient, relaxed, and easy-going generally lacking an overriding sense of urgency. Because of these characteristics. Type B individuals are often described by Type A individuals as apathetic and disengaged. There is also aType AB mixed profile for people who cannot be clearly categorized. In fact in every individual there are aspects of Type A and Type B characteristic traits, but one of these is more dominant than others.

Type B individuals, in contrast, are described as patient, relaxed, and easy-going. generally lacking an overriding sense of urgency. Because of these characteristics, Type B individuals are often described by Type A individuals as apathetic and disengaged. There is also a Type AB mixed profile for people who cannot be clearly categorized. In fact in every individual there are aspects of Type A and Type B characteristic traits, but one of these is more dominant than others Type B people, as mentioned earlier are less driven and less competitive, more easygoing and usually as successful as or more successful than their Type A counterparts. In fact type B people represent behaviour characteristics just obverse of type A people. Friedman and Rosenman are of the view that that Type A behaviour represents an effort to diminish an underlying sense of insecurity or self-doubt.

Type A behaviour ends up in a kind of vicious cycle, which is self defeating in all respects. The person is driven towards a goal to complete, and there is a fear that he may not be able to compeite the same on time, this in turn causes stress and anxiety. Once he is stressed and anxious hc puts in more efforts to complete the task and gets all the more stressed and the anxiety and stress itself may not help in completing the task and thus more stress and more anxiety and non completion of task and the resulting guilt and anxiety. This vicious cycle has to be stopped before the person develops disorders like hypertension, cardio vascular heart discase etc. In some cases it has been seen that Type A personality persons also strive to not only achieve their targets but also aim to achieve more and at higher levels. As the complete one, they take up another challenging task and this kind of putting oneself on to a more and more difficult and challenging tasks lead to tension and fear of failure. All these in turn lead to different types of problems including hypertension
etc.

This aggressive striving leaves them in prolonged contact with the very situations that provoked feelings ofinsecurity in the first place, and the cycle is repeated. The reason for Type A persons being more vulnerable to ill health than Type B persons is that they have a substantially greater sympathetic nervous system which responds to stressful or demanding circumstances. This leads to secretion of more stress hormones, a faster heart rate, higher blood pressure, etc. Because Type A people tend to view a greater number of circumstances as demanding and also place themselves in many demanding circumstances, they experience heightened physiological responses for longer periods of time cach day. Many studies have found that Type À individuals tend to maintain high levels of stress hormones throughout the daytime hours and this level does not come down even after they have gone to sleep. Thus, the deleterious effects of stress hormones on the heart and the arteries (described previously) are greater for these persons as compared to persons who are not stressed out.