Relationship of the type A coronary-prone behavior pattern to achievement, power, and affiliation motives.

The present investigation examined the relationship of Pattern A as assessed by the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) and interview to measures of job involvement and a series of motivation constructs included because of their descriptive resemblance to Pattern A. The Type A scores were unrelated to achievement, power, and affiliation motives. Individuals high on resultant achievement motivation (high on nAch and low on test anxiety) scored as extreme Type A's on the JAS. Job involvement was also related to JAS Type A measures but was unrelated to the interview Type A. Evidently Pattern A, because of its multidimensional nature, is not strongly related to individual constructs. As our knowledge increases about the Pattern A characteristics that contribute to coronary-proneness, we can more adequately develop measures of those characteristics and individually relate them to current psychological constructs.