ABSTRACT
Over three decades of empirical study suggest that certain behavior patterns place people at greater risk of developing coronary heart disease. In 1981 the Review Panel on Coronary-Prone Behavior and CHD (Cooper, Detre, & Weiss, 1981) concluded that people exhibiting a pattern of behavior called Type A were twice as likely to acquire premature CHD as those, called Type Bs, who did not exhibit this pattern. The Type A pattern is an environmentally provoked syndrome consisting of excessive competitiveness, impatience, and hostility. Actually, as many of the chapters in this volume indicate, the conclusions of the Review Panel may have been premature. More recent studies suggest that only certain components of the behavioral complex may be redictive of CHD. For example, data point to the importance of hostility (Dembroski, et al., 1985; Williams, Barefoot, & Shekelle, 1985) and self-involvement (Scherwitz, Berton, & Leventhal, 1978; Scherwitz et al., 1983; also see chapters by Dembroski, Scherwitz, & Williams in this volume).
