Level of Aspiration in Coronary Prone and Noncoronary Prone Adults

Abstract

It was hypothesized that the competitive achievement striving of the Type A individual would result in his showing a consistent pattern of overaspiration on an experimental series of puzzles despite his early experiences with failure on this goal setting task. Subjects were classified as either Type A or Type B according to their respective placement in the upper or lower third of a JAS score distribution. Comparisons of goal setting behavior indicated that whereas Type As displayed no difference in total puzzle performance, they did maintain a significantly higher level of aspiration, attainment discrepancy and goal discrepancy than did the Bs. The experimental hypothesis implicating a pattern of inordinately high goal striving as a behavioral manifestation of the Type A coronary prone pattern was, therefore, confirmed. Implications of this goal setting preference for the general behavior of Type As are discussed.