[Achievement motivation in essential hypertension: an empirical study]

The influence of achievement-motivation on hypertonia was investigated by a psychometric questionnaire for achievement-motivation with four scales: achievement-motivation, steadiness and diligence, positive examination-anxiety and negative examination-anxiety. The sample of 53 persons was drawn by chance out of an unbiased set of hypertonic patients. Mean by age: 45 years; part of female: 28 subjects; part of male: 25 subjects; vocational school: 16 subjects; high-school: 20 subjects; academics: 20 subjects. The sample of the hypertonic patients was compared with a matched sample of normotonics, concerning sex, age, and education and also with the sample for the construction of the questionnaire. There were significant differences (p = .05) of the hypertonics in the scales achievement-motivation, steadiness and diligence, and positive examination-anxiety but no difference in negative examination-anxiety. The results were discussed with regard to neurophysiological activation theory.