Self-involvement, self-attribution, and the Type A coronary-prone behavior pattern.

Abstract

Various conceptualizations of the coronary-prone behavior pattern have at their core the idea that Type As and Type Bs differ in the ways in which they evaluate themselves. In this study the relationship between self-references in speech indicative of self-involvement and self-attributional biases was examined. Twenty Type A and 20 Type B men and women completed the Attributional Style Questionnaire, an instrument that requires subjects to make attributions for and to describe six positive and six negative events. The responses were coded for attributions and frequency of self-references. Results indicated that for positive events, both Type A and Type B subjects attributed causality to themselves. However, for negative events, Type As made self-attributions and Type Bs made situational attributions. In addition, compared with Type Bs, Type A subjects used a greater percentage of self-references in their event causes, but not in the event descriptions. The implications of these findings for a self-evaluative model of Type A behavior are discussed.