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Abstract

For years, participants at conferences such as this one have reported that persons characterized as Type A are at higher risk for coronary artery disease (CAD) than are others not so unfortunately endowed. These informants readily acknowledge that the two major tests of Type A, the structured interview (SI), and the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS), do not correlate well with one another (MacDougall et al. 1979; Chesney et al. 1981; Matthews et al. 1982). However, they argue that that discrepancy is because the two instruments measure different components of Type A. That truism is usually followed by the assertion that the SI is better than the JAS because it is based on behavioral observations that are not possible with the JAS. At the same time, it is acknowledged that the JAS is better for scientific purposes because it yields quantified, scaled scores which provide finer means of relating Type A to other, quantified scores.

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© 1986 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Engel, B.T. (1986). Type A: Behavior or Trait?. In: Schmidt, T.H., Dembroski, T.M., Blümchen, G. (eds) Biological and Psychological Factors in Cardiovascular Disease. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-71234-0_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-71234-0_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-71236-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-71234-0

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