Environmental demand and demand engendering behavior: An observational analysis of the Type A pattern.

In a prospective, observational study, we examined Type A behavior as a predictor of source of work demands, volume of work and nonwork activity, whether work begun was finished, and attention to more than one activity at a time. Police radio dispatchers (N?=?72) were observed throughout one work shift, and half of the sample was observed on two additional work shifts. Behavioral categories showed substantial stability between observation occasions. Hierarchical regression revealed that two components of the broader Type A pattern, Hard-Driving Competitiveness and Job Involvement, were better predictors of work demands and behavior than was the global A score. Results support an interactional personality perspective in that Type As, relative to Type Bs, received more externally imposed demands from particular sources such as superiors or peers. However, these same Type As also generated more demand by simultaneously initiating work tasks for themselves and attending to multiple tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping with competing demands: Interruption and the Type A pattern.

Interruption and Type A behavior as causes of overload in police radio dispatchers were examined in this observational study. All of the dispatchers (N?=?72) were observed throughout one work shift, and about one half of the sample were observed for two additional shifts. For each work activity, observers recorded whether it was finished before the next activity was begun (sequential processing), left unfinished so that the dispatcher could attend fully to a new demand (preemption), or processed but ultimately left unfinished while the dispatcher simultaneously attended to one or more new demands (simultaneity). Analysis revealed that subjects who more often had their activities preempted or who handled demands simultaneously appraised their work as more overloading and took more coping actions. The effect of objective work volume on appraisal was indirect, mediated by interruption. Regardless of the level of interruption, Type A subjects proved to have lower thresholds for appraising demands as overloading and taking coping actions than did Type B subjects. These findings implicate interruption as a critical factor in job stress among human service professionals and also demonstrate the importance of measuring objective work demands in studies of this phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)