Abstract

Most of the researches conducted in search of a coronary prone personality has focused on the TABP(Type A behavior pattern), a collection of behaviors that seems predictive of CHD(coronary heart disease). The two primary methods of assessing TABP are the SI(Structured Interview) and JAS(Jenkins Activity Survey). JAS is more convinient but has a weaker predictive value than SI. The hostility is the one that JAS does not measure but SI measures. The higher predictive value of SI may be ascribed to the measurement of the hostility. The hypothesis was that type A and hostility might be additive effect to predict CHD. In this study, seventy two persons were divided by 4 groups, type A with high hostility(HA), type A with low hostility(LA), type B with high hostility(HB), and type B with low hostility(LB)). It was expected that the type A and the hostility had additive effect on the HA group, but the additive effect was appeared only in anxiety of the HA group. Instead, the effect of the hostility was significant on depression, anxiety, and FBV(finger biood volume). The high hostile(HH) group had significantly higher scores of depression and anxiety than the low hostile(LH) group. The baseline HR(heart rate) was higher and the baseline FBV of the HH group was lower than the LH group in the rest period. It can be interpreted that the HH group is watchful even in the rest period. But in the task period, the HH group had shown less decrease of FBV than LH. Much decrease of LH group can be interpreted as energy mobilization to cope well, too. The HH group had higher depression and anxiety scores, that is, the group is psychologically less healthier than the LH group. The FBV of the HH group showed that their arousal level was higher in the rest period but lower in the task period than LH group. These facts suggested that the HH group was not efficient in energy use. It seems that they has the maladaptive strategy of the energy use and their maladaptiveness reflects their unhealthness. This study has found that the hostility does not have interactive effects with type A, the hostility has its own effect on CHD. The results indicate that even if JAS and the hostility are used together, the predictive value of JAS will not be raised.