Type A vs Type B Personality
Why Type A and Type B are two ends of one behaviour spectrum, what the research really shows about health, and how it maps onto the research-backed Big Five.
The basics
What the Type A vs Type B Personality is
The Type A and Type B idea came out of cardiology, not personality psychology. In the 1950s the cardiologists Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman noticed that some of their heart patients seemed driven, competitive, impatient and easily provoked, and they called this cluster the Type A behaviour pattern, with the calmer, more relaxed contrast labelled Type B.
The original claim that drew so much attention was that Type A behaviour raised the risk of coronary heart disease. That claim is the part of the story that has not held up well. Later, larger and better-controlled studies failed to replicate the strong overall link between the broad Type A pattern and heart disease, and the early research is now known to have been influenced by funding from the tobacco industry.
What did survive scrutiny is more specific and more interesting: the genuinely health-relevant ingredient is not drive or ambition but hostility - chronic anger, cynicism and antagonism toward others. The rest of this page lays out the spectrum, then looks honestly at what the evidence does and does not support.
The model
One behaviour spectrum, not two types
Type A and Type B are best understood as the two ends of a single continuous behaviour pattern, not two fixed boxes. The Type A end bundles several distinct things - competitive drive, time-urgency and impatience, and hostility - and crucially these do not all carry the same weight. The research now points to hostility as the part that matters for health, while drive and ambition on their own are largely benign.
Driven, competitive, time-pressured and easily impatient; quick to feel hurried.
Relaxed, even-paced and patient; less reactive to time pressure and competition.
The magnet
What the Type A pattern actually bundles together
The popular Type A label mixes three fairly different things. Pulling them apart is what the research did, and it changes the health story completely: only one of these is reliably linked to poorer cardiac outcomes.
The evidence
What the science says
✓ Genuine strengths
- It named something recognisable. Most people can place themselves on a driven-to-relaxed continuum, which makes the idea an easy way into talking about pace, pressure and stress.
- It put behaviour and health in the same conversation. Even though the original link was overstated, the work helped open a now-thriving field on how personality and stress relate to physical health.
- It pointed, eventually, at something real. The careful follow-up research salvaged a genuine finding - that chronic hostility is bad for the heart - which remains useful and well supported.
- A low-threat, everyday vocabulary. Calling yourself more Type A or Type B is a gentle, common way to acknowledge differences in drive and tempo without sounding clinical.
⚠ Honest limitations
- The headline claim did not replicate. The strong original link between the broad Type A pattern and coronary heart disease was not confirmed by later, larger and better-controlled studies.
- The early evidence was compromised. Some of the foundational research was funded by the tobacco industry, which had an interest in attributing heart disease to personality and stress rather than to smoking.
- The label lumps unlike things together. Drive, time-urgency and hostility are bundled into one "Type A", even though only hostility carries the health risk - so the broad label is misleading about what actually matters.
- Two boxes for a spectrum. Sorting people into Type A or Type B imposes a hard boundary on a continuous pattern, discarding the difference between a slight lean and a strong one.
The comparison
Type A vs Type B Personality vs the Big Five
The Type A pattern is not a single trait; it is a bundle that maps onto several Big Five dimensions at once. Pulling it apart against the Big Five, the model used as the standard in personality science, shows clearly why only one piece of it is health-relevant.
| Framework dimension | Big Five trait | What it captures |
|---|---|---|
| Hostility (anger, cynicism, antagonism) | Low Agreeableness (with high Neuroticism) | Coldness, antagonism and a readiness to anger - the piece the research links to poorer cardiac outcomes. |
| Competitive drive & achievement-striving | Conscientiousness | Ambition, organisation and follow-through - largely benign, and often a strength. |
| Time-urgency & impatience | Neuroticism | Feeling hurried, tense and easily frustrated under pressure - the stress-reactivity facet. |
| The relaxed Type B end | Low Neuroticism (emotional stability) | Calm, even-paced and slow to anger - the opposite pole, reported on the same continuous scale. |
This is why the Big Five tells the story better. Type A and Type B sort you into one of two boxes and blur together drive, urgency and hostility; the Big Five reports where you fall on continuous, benchmarked scales and separates those ingredients - so you can see that healthy ambition (Conscientiousness) is not the same as the hostility (low Agreeableness with high Neuroticism) that the research actually flags. You keep the self-awareness the Type A idea gives, on a measure that pinpoints the part that matters and holds up to scrutiny.
Want the research-grounded version?
If the Type A and Type B idea helped you notice your own drive and stress, the Big Five measures the same territory on continuous, norm-referenced scales - and separates healthy ambition from the hostility that the research links to health.
Same five-minute curiosity, a result that holds up to research. No Type A or Type B box - a continuous profile matched to the population that fits you.
Frequently asked questions
Does Type A personality really cause heart disease?
The strong original claim has not held up. The link between the broad Type A behaviour pattern and coronary heart disease, proposed in the 1950s, was not confirmed by later, larger and better-controlled studies, and some of the early research was funded by the tobacco industry. What did survive scrutiny is narrower: chronic hostility - anger, cynicism and antagonism - is reliably associated with poorer cardiac outcomes. Drive and ambition on their own are largely benign.
What is the difference between Type A and Type B personality?
Type A describes a driven, competitive, time-pressured and easily impatient pattern of behaviour; Type B is the calmer, more relaxed and even-paced contrast. They are best understood as two ends of one continuous spectrum rather than two fixed types, since most people fall somewhere between. The important nuance is that the Type A label bundles several distinct things together, and only the hostility component is reliably linked to health.
How does Type A vs Type B map onto the Big Five?
The Type A bundle splits across several Big Five traits: its hostility maps onto low Agreeableness with high Neuroticism, its competitive drive maps onto Conscientiousness, and its time-urgency and impatience map onto Neuroticism. The relaxed Type B end is essentially low Neuroticism, or emotional stability. So the Big Five covers everything the Type A and Type B idea gestures at, on continuous scales that separate the healthy ambition from the hostility that actually matters for health.
What is the most accurate personality test?
No test is perfect, but for accuracy and research support the Big Five (Five-Factor Model) is the standard in personality science. It measures the same drive, impatience and hostility the Type A idea points at, but on continuous, norm-referenced scales rather than a two-type label, which makes the result both more precise and more informative - and it separates the part of the pattern that matters for health from the part that does not.
Related tests
- Friedman, M., & Rosenman, R. H. (1959). Association of specific overt behavior pattern with blood and cardiovascular findings. Journal of the American Medical Association, 169(12), 1286-1296.
- Miller, T. Q., Smith, T. W., Turner, C. W., Guijarro, M. L., & Hallet, A. J. (1996). A meta-analytic review of research on hostility and physical health. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 322-348.
- Petticrew, M. P., Lee, K., & McKee, M. (2012). Type A behavior pattern and coronary heart disease: Philip Morris's "crown jewel". American Journal of Public Health, 102(11), 2018-2025.