The Recent History of the Type A Behaviour Pattern (TABP) and Cardiovascular Predictability: A Case of the Baby and the Bathwater?

This paper is the second of two papers summing up the research history on the TABP construct. The emphasis is on the more recent history, using as a starting point, a number of important critical reviews and meta-analyses of the concept from the end of the 1980s – and concluding with summing up of empirical contemporary research in the new millennium. Extensive searches have been carried out using MEDLINE, PsychInfo and PubMed data bases, on employing a range of relevant keyword combinations reflecting the TABP and Cardiovascular Disease (CVD). The primary objective has been to evaluate the reasons for the strong decline in research employing the TABP construct. Questions addressing several (possibly overlapping) key issues have been posed: what are the theoretical reasons for the observed decline in research, what are the methodological reasons and what is the empirical evidence which might have contributed to this. On this basis, certain conclusions may drawn as to whether the TABP is a dead construct as a predictor of CVD, or whether it is a construct that needs theoretical or methodological resurrection. And if the latter holds true – that resurrection is indicated – where is it crucial to re-address the issues of valid and reliable measures. And in the final analysis, as the title “the baby and the bathwater” suggests, can it be concluded that the construct was abandoned too early and for the wrong reasons?