Relationship of personality factors and some social habits to cardiovascular risk in submariners.

Correlational and contingency analytical techniques were used to investigate the relationship between subtest scores on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors in 1000 submariners. Groups of personality traits, both enhancing and protecting against risk of heart disease, were identified in these subjects. Personality trait patterns tending to be least associated with cardiovascular risk are tentatively identified by the three MMPI scales: psychasthenia, schizophrenia, and social introversion. On the other hand, the scales most strongly related to CHD risk in the submariner sample were denial of symptoms as measured by the K-scale, hypochondriasis, and hysteria. While the inherent inaccuracy in the prediction of CHD risk in young healty individuals limits generalization from these findings, the potential utility of the MMPI to assist in risk detection is indicated. Comparisons of cigarette smoking, coffee drinking, and alcohol consumption with personality characteristics identified by the MMPI yielded trait clusters associated with each addictive habit. Cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption tended to correlate with traits positively associated with CHD risk. The correlations between those addictive habits and MMPI subtest scores were most significant for the F-scale, which measures inordinate tendencies to exaggerated emotional symptoms, and for the psychopathic deviate and hypomania scales. Significant negative correlations were found between the amount of coffee consumed and those personality traits negatively associated wit CHD risk. These negative relationships were most significant for the MMPI scales schizophrenia and psychasthenia. Though the relationships were not necessarily construed to be causal, the contrasting modes through which these drug-associated habits appeared to relate to cardiovascular risk lend some support to the assumption that individuals with various specific sets of personality characteristics tend to incorporate these additive behaviors into their behavior repertoire in very different ways.