The type A coronary-prone behavior pattern and reactions to uncontrollable stress: an analysis of performance strategies, affect, and attributions during failure.

The present study examined the ongoing experience of Type A and Type B undergraduates during prolonged exposure to unsolvable discrimination problems in which the cue signaling failure was highly or moderately salient to subjects. Subjects were asked to think out loud while solving the problems that were presented in a manner to permit monitoring of their problem-solving strategies. Results revealed that the problem-solving strategies of high-salience A's deteriorated across failure trials. At the same time, they commented on their lack of ability and, to some extent, on the task's difficulty as accounting for their failure. They expressed annoyance and anger at themselves and at their circumstances. On the other hand, B's did not use ineffectual strategies; they continued to perform appropriately during failure. However, they did comment on task difficulty (during the experiment) as well as on chance and the experimenter (at the conclusion of the experiment) as playing critical roles in their failure to do well. The results suggest that deficits in performance of A's and of B's in previous investigations are the outcomes of different processes: A's may be helpless, whereas B's may be pseudohelpless. The findings support Pattern A as a specific coping style aimed at maintaining and asserting control over stressful aspects of the environment. Implications for the reformulated models of learned helplessness are discussed.