Type A behavior and normal habitual sleep duration

Abstract

The responses of 361 college students to the Jenkins Activity Survey and a self-report sleep questionnaire were used to demonstrate an inverse relationship between normal habitual sleep duration and level of Type A behavior. The possibility that patterns of sleep may be implicated in the development of Type A behavior in some individuals was considered. 185This paper reports a correlation between response to the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) and self-reported normal habitual sleep duration that may provide further insight into the processes underlying the development of Type A behavior. Our research was the outgrowth of an attempt to resolve an apparent conflict between the results of two sets of studies (Hartmann, Baekeland, & Zwilling, 1972; Webb & Friel, 1971) in which the relationships between extremes in normal habitual sleep duration (l.e., short and long sleepers) and certain aspects of personality had been correlated. To elaborate, Webb and Friel attempted to prove the null hypothesis for personality differences between short and long sleepers, with "personality" defined by a battery of tests that included the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the California Personality Inventory, the Zung Depression Scale, and the Cornell Medical Index.While, in their first study, Hartmann et al. (1972) did find differences between short and long sleepers on some of the subtests of the scales used by Webb and Friel (1971), that aspect of their data was not replicated in subsequent research (Spinweber & Hartmann, 1976) . However, in the aforementioned studies, Hartmann and his colleagues collected both interview and clinical behavioral rating data from their short and long sleepers. With those measures (i.e., with data not considered by Webb and Friel), Hartmann et al. found, and replicated, a fairly pronounced pattern of personality differences between short and long sleepers. Essentially, Hartmann et al. (1972) described the short sleepers as efficient, energetic, ambitious, but "preprogrammed," nonworriers who tended to "avoid problems by keeping busy and by denial which in We are grateful to David C. Glass for providing a copy of the JAS and the scoring key, to Signe Gary for her help in preparing the manuscript, and to the San Jose State University Foundation for providing funds for this research. Reprints may be obtained from

Sleep Problems and Type A-B Behavior in College Students

“…Our data (3,4,5 ) suggest that as the Type A pattern develops, sleep may be shortened to capture more tlme for wakeful activity. In these studies.…”

Habitual variable sleep and Type A behavior

“…Next, from appropriate pools of eligible individuals, three sleep groups were randomly selected: a group of 20 male and 20 female variable sleepers (defined as persons who reported at least a 2-h range in their regular duration of sleep), a group of 20 male and 20 female short sleepers (defined as persons who slept, without reported variation, 6 h or less each night), and a group of 20 male and 20 female long sleepers (defined as persons who slept, without reported variation, 9 h or more each night). It should be noted that the two extreme sleep groups were included as a means of duplicating the extremes of the continuum used by Hicks et al (1979). Thus, these groups provided the reference points that were necessary to tie the results of this research to that study .…”

“…As predicted, it was found that the variable sleepers showed significantly less Type A behavior than either of the other two groups. These data further elaborate the possible role of sleep behavior in the management of stress.Recently, the San Jose group (Hicks, Pellegrini, Martin, Garbesi, Elliott , & Hawkins, 1979) reported finding a significant inverse relationship between normal habitual sleep duration and level of Type A behavior as defined by score on the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) . In discussing the implications of this relationship, we speculated that the relatively higher stress susceptibility of Type A individuals might, in part, be a consequence of the relatively shorter sleep durations that tend to be characteristic of these individuals.…”

“…To elaborate, Hicks et al (1979) systematically excluded self-reported variable sleepers from consideration as subjects. Thus, their results may be somewhat misleading in the sense that stable sleep duration was emphasized as the sleep factor that seemed to be implicated in the formation of Type A behavior.…”

Type A-B Behavior and Caffeine Use in College Students

“…It has been demonstrated that Type A college students tend to sleep less ( 4 ) and are mice as likely to report sleep problems ( 3 ) than Type B students. In a comprehensive discussion of sleep.…”