Type A behaviour pattern and attentional bias in relation to anger/hostility, achievement, and failure

Type A subjects are characterised by dysfunctional cognitions related to themes of competitiveness, achievement, and hostility. The present experiment investigated attentional biases for words relevant to the content of these dysfunctional schemata in Type A individuals. After completing the MMPI-2 Type A Scale, subjects completed two alternative versions of a visual probe detection task (administered 4–12 days apart) which contained achievement, failure, and anger/hostility/aggression related words. Prior to testing at time 1, subjects were told that the purpose of the procedure was to collect normative data only. Prior to testing at time 2, subjects were told that performance on the test was known to be closely related to IQ and that they could compare their performance with that of other subjects following completion of the task. Type A subjects directed attention towards anger/hostility/aggression words under low performance motivation conditions but away from such words under high performance motivation conditions. Type A subjects also showed less selective attention to failure words than Type B subjects, and no group differences were detected for achievement related words. The results are discussed with reference to models of dysfunctional cognitive processing, and the role of anger/hostility, in particular, in Type A personality.