Predictive associations between Type A behavior of parents and their children: a 6-year follow-up

This study examined over a period of 6 years whether or not Type A behavior in parents predicts Type A behavior in their children. The subjects comprised 1,116 originally randomly selected 12-, 15-, and 18-year-old adolescents and their parents. Type A behavior of the adolescents was self-rated, using two different methods: the Type A Behavior Questionnaire for the Finnish Multicenter Study (Keltikangas-Järvinen & Räikkönen, 1990) and the Hunter-Wolf A-B Rating Scale (Wolf, Sklov, Wenzl, Hunter & Berenson, 1982). Parents already had rated their Type A behavior with the Framingham Type A Scale (Haynes, Levine, Scotch, Feinleib, & Kannel, 1978) 6 years earlier. The results indicated that children are subject to the influence of both parents. However, the study found parent-child interactions to be dimension-specific and dependent on the sex of the parent. Therefore, the findings emphasize that in studying the parent-child Type A similarity, the multi-dimensionality of Type A behavior and the conjoint influence of parental behaviors should not be forgotten.