ABSTRACT
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a leading cause of death in the United States. Attempts to understand and control this disease have traditionally focused on the relationship between CHD and risk factors such as advancing age, gender, elevated levels of blood cholesterol and fats, hypertension, cigarette smoking, diabetes mellitus, family history of heart disease, obesity, and physical inactivity (e.g., Brand, Rosenman, Scholtz, & Friedman, 1976; Dawber & Kannel, 1961). Each of these factors contributes to enhanced risk. However, even the best combination of these risk factors fails to identify most new cases of CHD before they occur ( Jenkins, 1971). As a part of the broadening search for antecedents of CHD, researchers have begun to focus on a psychological/behavioral variable: the so-called Type A behavior pattern.
