Female physicians outscore male physicians and the general public on Type A scales in Denmark.

The Jenkins Activity Survey was used to measure four components of coronary-prone behaviors in large random samples of Danish male and female physicians and of men and women in the general public. As expected, men in the general public tended to score higher than women in terms of coronary-prone behavior. In contrast, female physicians scored higher than male physicians on several components of coronary-prone behavior related to career goals, ambitiousness, job involvement, and time urgency. The findings suggest that female physicians in Denmark may be influenced by psychosocial factors that make them particularly prone to develop and/or express coronary-prone behaviors.