Type A and B Personality Theory (CultureCast #035)

Sorry for the hiatus and the lack of posting over the weekend. My down time was tremendously refreshing though, and I feel like one million bucks.

By which I mean, covered in trace amounts of drugs.

The terms “type A” and “type B” personality are thrown around a lot. But what do they mean? Where did they come from?

Find out by listening to the CultureCast above (by pressing the little blue play botton), or by clicking through and checking out the transcript and further sources.

Type A and B Personality Theory (CultureCast #035)

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Transcript

Hey culturecats, this is Joshua Hwang dropping another 90 Seconds to Culture podcast.

Type A and B personality theory

Aaahh, get out of my way, I have to get to my meeting!!
Chill out man, stop being so Type A.

The terms “type A” and “type B” personality are thrown around a lot, but what do they exactly mean and from where do they originate.

If you have heard the terms before, you will associate type A with a more stressed-out personality, the person with one eye on the clock and other straight ahead; always go, go, go to their next deadline. In short: a stressed-out workaholic. On the other hand type B personalities are more laidback and patient.

This typing system came from researchers in the 1950s who described the relationship between personality type and risk of coronary heart disease. As you might be able to guess, type A individuals were found to be at higher risk of heart disease. Ironically, giving them another thing to worry about.

This system of typing has been criticized for being overly simplistic, and the correlations drawn from these studies have also been disputed. However, the personality typing has gone far to increase research in health psychology, an area to see how mental state affects the physical body, while also giving us a quick and dirty term to describe how people act.

Interestingly there is also a type AB personality that is described as a mixture, for those who can’t be easily categorized. Of course this depends on if you are late for meeting or not.

Sources / Further Reading:
Wikipedia: Type A and B personality theory

[tags]personality theory, type A, type B, heart disease, psychology, medicine, culture, podcast[/tags]

(image from BrittneyBush via flickr)

Tagged as: heart disease, medicine, personality theory, Psychology, type A, type B