Are You a Type-A?

This fine morning, Psychology Today’s website features a test for you to take to see if you’re a Type A personality, like (supposedly) Reese Witherspoon:

According to the scientific literature, the Type A Personality construct describes someone who is aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time. The defining characteristics of the Type A Behavior Pattern (TABP) are a strong drive to succeed, hostility, competitiveness, perfectionism, a desire for recognition, wealth and advancement, difficulty talking about feelings, and a sense of urgency and impatience.

I think of myself as a sloppy non-perfectionist, so let’s see what happens when I take the test …

Well, I was right. If 100 is a crazed, tempestuous Type-A person, I’m only at 23 on the impatience/irritability scale.

Your interactions with others, while characterized by warmth and tolerance the majority of the time, may occasionally be tinged with impatience and hostility. When you’re stressed or frustrated, you may lash out at others or end up stewing in anger or frustration, but this is very rare. Since you generally trust others, you are usually willing to open up emotionally and value relationships for the sake of the people involved, instead of what they can do for you.

This is fortunate because a high amount of this aspect of the Type A Behavior Pattern (TABP) can not only be extremely harmful to relationships, it is also very damaging to your health. While originally it was thought that global TABP was the culprit in coronary heart disease, research now shows that hostility, impatience, and other related traits are the real source of the problem. Based on your results here, you are likely not at a very elevated risk of heart disease, but keep in mind that there are other causes unrelated to the TABP, such as poor diet, lack of exercise, and smoking, among other things.

Say what you will about these tests, but you can learn a lot about yourself while taking them.

liz | 10:36 AM | random