The Coronary-Prone Behavior Pattern in Employed Men and Women

Abstract The Coronary-Prone Behavior Pattern is a hard-driving, aggressive style of life which previous work has shown to be associated with a substantially increased risk of coronary heart disease. A questionnaire, the Jenkins Activity Survey, yields a Type A score which is a measure of the Coronary-Prone Behavior Pattern. A previous factor analysis of questionnaire responses given by older employed white men yielded three factors designated Speed-and-Impatience, Job-Involvement and Hard-Driving-and-Competitive. Factor analyses for our sub-samples of younger and older employed white men and women all yielded factors closely related to the three factors derived previously. Factor analyses for the subsamples of black men and black women yielded factors which were similar but suggested some cultural differences. For employed women, maximum values of Type A and Speed-and-Impatience scores were observed at ages 30–35. The scores for employed men did not show this peak. We hypothesize that women who are more Type A are less likely to leave their jobs when they have children, and thus the women who are still employed at ages 30–35 will tend to be the more Type A women. For the younger ages (18–25), average Type A scores were significantly lower for employed women than for employed men. At older ages sex differences were not significant, perhaps because more women are housewives at the older ages, so more women with low Type A scores may be at home and thus excluded from our sample. Higher educational status was associated with higher Type A, Speed-and-Impatience and Job-Involvement scores. Index Terms: Coronary-Prone Behavior PatternType A Behaviorsex differenceseducational differencesBlacksemployment