Personality self-perceptions of male heart patients and their wives: issues of congruence and "coronary personality".

This study examines personality self-ratings of 283 married men who had recently experienced a first myocardial infarction and who previously had been free from major disease. Similar data were collected from their "non-cardiac" wives. Results indicated that several traits often identified as descriptive of "coronary-prone" personality had high mean ratings in both husband and wife populations. In addition, factor analysis revealed a similar pattern of factors in each group. However, inspection of correlations showed for individual items, men with so-called "coronary-prone" personality traits did not generally have wives with these traits. Husbands and wives tended to agree regarding each other's personality self-ratings. Implications of these husband-wife data are discussed in regard to questions on the role of "coronary-prone" personality in heart disease.