Unit Eighteen
Type-A Personality and Heart Disease

　　If you're a classic "Type A" personality -- hard-driving, impatient, competitive, intense, easily irritated – you are far more likely than a calm, laid-back "Type B" to suffer a heart attack, right?
　　Wrong, says a Massachusetts General Hospital psychiatrist¹ who has studied more than 200 heart patients awaiting disgnostic tests and found virtually no correlation² between classic Type A personalities³ and subsequent heart disease.
　　What does appear to be a predictor of serious heart trouble, says Dr. Joel E.Dimsdale, director of the MGH Stress Physiology⁴ Laboratory, is a chronic⁵ inability to deal constructively⁷ with anger and hostility⁸.
　　He is now doing a study on anger and heart disease. The original insight that people could be classified into Type A and Type B personalities and that Type A's were more heart-attack prone⁹ grew out of research at the framingham Heart Study laboratories in the late 1970s.
　　Since the early studies, the A-B issue has been getting weaker. A large prospective¹⁰ study last year showed the A-B behavior distinction was not associated with coronary artery¹¹ disease. Now researchers are thinking in terms of "anger in " vs. "anger out" as the latest area of concern.
　　Behavioral epidemiologist Elaine Eaker at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, one of the nation's foremost scholars of correlations¹² between behavior and heart disease, agrees in principle.
　　Since holding anger inside may lead to heart trouble and since acting¹³ it out by having temper tantrums is highly antisocial, Faker says researchers now advocate maturely "discussing" anger – either with the person who makes you angry or with a friend -- as the most constructive⁶ method of dealing¹⁴ with explosive feelings.
　　Since the early Type A studies, researchers have been attempting to fine-tune the ways in which they can identify a person as Type A or Type B, not an easy task since people often deny or are actually unaware¹⁵ of some facets¹⁶ of
their personalities and hence cannot be asked point-blank if they are angry or impatient by nature.
　　Dimsdale used both pencil-and-paper questionnaires and a "semistructured" interview technique to identify Type A personalities among heart patients. In the interview, he explained, "you ask questions slowly and sometimes even in a stammer¹⁷ and then see how rapidly the person will finish the sentence for you." People who rush to answer are usually highly impatient and impatience¹⁸ has long been considered a major component¹⁹ of Type A behavior.
　　Yet, no matter whether he used the self-report questionnaires or the more subtle interview technique, people identified as Type A's did not fare worse than the others.

laid-back a.松弛的,悠闲的,懒散的

irritate vt.1.使恼怒,使烦躁 2.使(身体某部分)不适,使疼痛

psychiatrist n.精神科医生,精神病专家

diagnose vt.诊断,判断
diagnostic a.诊断的,用于诊断的
[联想词]               syndrome²⁰ n.综合病症,综合病状
               prescription²¹ n.1.处方,药方 2.开处方,开药方
               pharmacy²² n. 1.药房,药店 2.药剂学,配药

correlate vt.使相互关联 vi.相关,关联
correlation n.相互关系;联系

physiology n.1.生理学 2.生理,生理机能
physiological²³ a.生理学的

chronic a.1.慢性的,久病的 2.长久的,不断的 3.积习难改的

hostility n.1.敌对,敌意,对抗 2.抵制,反对 3.交战,战争
[联想词]               hospitality n.友好款待,好客
               hostage n.人质
               boycott²⁴ vt.抵制,拒绝参与

artery n.1.动脉 2.干线,要道
[联想词]               intersection²⁵ n.道路交叉口,交点
               junction²⁶ n.联结点,会合点,交叉口,枢纽

prone a.1.易于…的,很可能的 2.俯卧的
[联想词]    apt a.1.易于…的,有(做某事的)倾向的 2.恰当的,适宜的 3.聪明的

prospective a.预期的,未来的,可能的

epidemic²⁷ n.流行,流传,感染 a.流行性的,流传极广的
epidemiologist n.流行病学家

formost a.首要的,最佳的
[联想词]               optimum n.最合适的,最优的,最佳的

tantrum n.发脾气

questionnaire n.问卷,征求意见表

identify vt.1.认出,鉴定 2.把…等同于 vi.认同
indentification n.1.身份证明 2.鉴定,验明,认出 3.认同

stammer n.结巴,口吃

subtle a.1.微妙的,难于捉摸的 2.诡秘的,狡诈的 3.隐约的