person. indioid. LXfl: Vol. 5, No. I. pp. 27-34. 1984 Printed in Great Britain. 0191~8869/84 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press Lrd TYPE A PERSONALITY: CORRELATIONS WITH PERSONALITY VARIABLES AND NONVERBAL EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIONS DURING INTERPERSONAL COMPETITION zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWV DAVID G. GILBERT* and JOHN H. REYNOLDS R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Winston-Salem, NC 27102, U.S.A. (Received 19 May 1983) Summary-Facial and other nonverbal behaviors of 52 male and female participants in an interpersonal anagrams competition were correlated with a variety of self-report personality measures. Facial expressions suggestive of negative affect were significantly positively correlated with the Framingham Type A scale and the Job Involvement and Hard-Driving subscales of the Jenkins Activity Survey. A composite nonverbal index correlated significantly with Framingham Type A, Jenkins Job Involvement and the Extraversion scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The pattern of correlations between the nonverbal and personality measures supported the view that Type A individuals are characterized by both self-reports of and facial expression of more anger/hostility than are Type B individuals. INTRODUCTION The Type A behavior pattern has been established as an independent factor predicting a greater risk of developing coronary heart disease (Friedman and Rosenman, 1974; Review Panel, 1981). This pattern has been defined as “an action-emotion complex that can be observed in any person who is aggressively involved in chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less time, and if required to do so, against the opposing efforts of other things or other persons.” (Friedman and Rosenman, 1974, p. 67) The overt manifestations of the complex include explosive and accelerated speech, impatience, a competitive orientation, commitment to vocational goals and free-floating hostility (Matthews, 1982). In spite of large-scale prospective studies supporting the predictive power of this pattern, criticisms have been made of the Type A construct (Eysenck and Fulker, 1983; Review Panel, 1981). Eysenck and Fulker (1983) have noted that the implications of a U-shaped population distribution or even a categorical distinction between two types (A and B) is unlikely, given that virtually all personality traits are continuous dimensions, rather than all-or-none phenomena. A second basic criticism of the construct is that different measures of the construct [Structured Interview, Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) and Framingham Type A Scale (Fram-A)] correlate with each other to only a slight degree (Matthews, 1982). Furthermore, factor analyses of the self-report measures reveal 3 factors (Job Involvement; Hard-Driving/Competitiveness; Speed-Impatience) ‘supporting the view that certain aspects of Type A behavior may be related to coronary heart disease (CHD), while others may not be related (Eysenck and Fulker, 1983). Recent major reviews have also noted that there is a need for a more comprehensive view of the type A syndrome than exists today (Eysenck and Fulker, 1983; Matthews, 1982; Review Panel, 1981). There is a need for it to be related to other, better-established personality constructs, for it to be related to modem theories of emotion, as well as to new indices of emotional processes. Studies to date that have evaluated the relationship of the construct to well-established personality measures have generally been limited in number and weak in design. Irvine, Lyle and Allon (1982) recently found significant correlations between Eysenck’s measure of neuroticism and both the Type A scale and the Speed-Impatience scale of a modified form of the JAS in a small sample *To whom all reprint requests and correspondence should be addressed. 27