6. 1. Pituitary-Adrenal System and
Sympathomedullary Pathway
2. The alarm stage (fight or flight); The
resistance stage (the body is coping);
Exhaustion (the body’s energy resources
are depleted) (Selye, 1956)
3. Females invest more in their offspring and
so inhibit the fight or flight response
4. Social Readjustment Rating Scale

7. Outline and evaluate research into
stress related illness and the immune
system

8.  To Provide an overview of
Personality Factors and Stress

9. By the end of the lesson you
will be able to:
 Recognise the key features of type A
behaviour
 Distinguish between type A and type
B behaviour

10. Key Research:
Type A Behaviour
 Always in a Hurry  Friedman and
Rosenman (1974)
 Multi-tasking
 Key finding
 Highly competitive
Compared to Type B, Type
 Easily Frustrated A were shown to have
Twice the rate of heart
Disease

11. Type A
 Always in a rush and rarely relax
 Over achievers - involved in lots of unrelated activities
with good performance.
 Biggest problem = stress - usually overwhelmed by the
amount of stuff they have to do - a huge list that they
planned for themselves.
 Usually competitive and have a high challenging spirit.

12. Type B Personality
 Almost the opposite of Type A
 Relaxed by nature and has no sense of time urgency
 No difficulty relaxing or sitting without doing anything
 May delay the work they have to last thing - usually
don't get stressed that easily
 Can achieve too, but his/her lack of sense of time
urgency helps him/her to not feel stressed while
completing tasks.

13.  To examine key research studies on links
between type A person
 To critically evaluate and discuss contributory
factors in developing Type A personality

14. By the end of the lesson you will be able to:
 Describe, discuss and evaluate key research
into Type A personality
 Appreciate the contributory factors in
developing Type A Personality

21. Use the following to interpret your score from the questionnaire you
completed on Tuesday. Record this on to a graph. Then
make a poster showing what you wanted to find out (aims), what
you did and how you did it (procedure), what you
found out (results – i.e. the graph), what did you conclude from
your scores (i.e. what personality category are you
As a group in?)
 If you scored 110 or more you have a Type A
personality (higher risk of CHD and other illnesses)
 If you scored 59 or below you have a Type B personality (you are coping
okay with stress)
 If you scored anything in-between these you are a mixture of Type A and
Type B (the healthier outcome, but watch you don’t creep up to Type A)

22.  Williams et al. (2003)
 15 year longitudinal research focusing on younger
individuals who exhibited Type A behaviour.
 Found Type A behaviour individual to be
unhealthier compared to others

23. Kirkaldy et al. (2002)
 Compared 300 managers with Type A behaviour who
also demonstrated an external locus of control (i.e.
likely to believe in fate, bad luck etc) with peers Type B
peers who demonstrated an internal locus of control
(likely to believe the were in control of own destiny)
 Findings suggested Type A had higher perceived levels
of stress, less job satisfaction and poorer physical and
mental health
 Evaluation – negative health consequences of Type A
behaviour, combined with an external locus of control,
may make Type A substantially less attractive

24.  Type A people tend to react more quickly and
strongly to stressful situations
 They do this both in terms of their behaviour
and physiological (bodily) responses, e.g. heart
rate and blood pressure rise
Because of This
 There is more wear and tear on their
cardiovascular system

25.  Research has not consistently supported
Friedman & Rosenman’s research
 Both prospective (questionnaire measurement
of type A behaviour with longitudinal follow-up)
and retrospective (looking at participant’s
previous behaviour)
 Overall significantly low correlations have been
found and many of which many have been
negative findings
 Research has questioned the concept of a
Type A behaviour (Evans 1990)

26.  Hostility is a key feature of Type A behaviour
 When it is combined with other high levels of
Type A behaviour this has resulted in a
significant increase in the prevalence of CHD
 Not expressing hostility but just feeling it (i.e.
repressing it) increases the likelihood of
developing CHD

27. This concept explains why some are more
vulnerable to stress than others
 Hardiness is a key factor in helping us to
combat the negative outcomes associated with
stress

28.  Control – you control what happens in your life not external
sources, like other people
 This is similar to Locus of Control and attributional style (attribute
causes of stress to yourself or attribute them to stuff you can’t
control)
 Commitment - A sense of purpose and involvement with your
environment
 Challenge - You view life changes as a challenge not a source of
stress

30. Kobasa & Maddi (1977) – A prospective study
 Rated people on the presence or absence of 3 key factors:
 Hardiness
 Social Support
 Regular exercise
 Physical exercise and level of social support help to protect us
from developing stress related illness
Key Finding:
 People with no social support or other protective factors scored
Higher on severity of illness scales than other people and it only took
2 or 3 protective factors to steadily decrease their illness score

31. Outline and Evaluate Type A and Type B
Behaviour (12 mark question)