In the category of “WHAT?” we offer this piece on how the origin of Type A personalities has research funding origins from tobacco companies. As the old saying goes, “put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
Source: Science of US, August 22, 2016.
Detail-oriented as they are, the Type A’s among us may be interested to know three curious facts concerning the origin story of their personality type, which began showing up in academic-journal articles in the 1950s:
- When the Type A personality was introduced into the medical lexicon by a pair of cardiologists, it was considered a negative thing.
- From the 1960s through the 1990s, much of the research on Type A behavior was partially funded by two tobacco companies, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds.
- Given the previous two truths, this means that the Type A personality has no real definition.