Cognitive antecedents of coronary heart disease.

The purpose was to explore cognitive antecedents of CHD proneness in an attempt to avoid some of the problems besetting research focused on type A. The theoretical framework was the cognitive orientation theory by Kreitler and Kreitler which shows how cognitive contents, primarily beliefs about goals, norms, the self and reality guide human behavior and enable its prediction and change. The hypotheses referred to endorsement of beliefs orienting towards CHD-involved behaviors, inconsistencies among belief types and the relation of the beliefs to risk factors in CHD patients as compared to the controls. A self-administered questionnaire was constructed assessing endorsement of four belief types. Subjects were 92 males under 60: 44 with CHD, and two control groups: 28 orthopedic patients without CHD, and 20 healthy subjects. Results showed that CHD individuals scored higher than the controls on the overall beliefs measure, beliefs about norms and about self, had higher inconsistency scores, and had more correlations between belief measures and risk factors (e.g. blood pressure, cholesterol). Discussion centered on suggesting a definition of CHD-proneness as consisting of a sustained externally-maintained tension-producing cognitive-motivational conflict, and on the psychometric and practical implications of the findings.