Type A Personality Test
A confidential self-assessment informed by the classic Type A behavior pattern research of Friedman and Rosenman and the Framingham Type A Scale. You get an instant, plain-language result, a breakdown across time urgency, achievement striving, and hostility, and a professional PDF report you can keep or bring to a therapist.
Type A Personality Test is a free, confidential 16-question self-assessment, informed by classic Type A behavior research. It takes about 5 minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and gives you a plain-language score across 4 interpretation bands plus a downloadable PDF report. It is an educational screening, not a diagnosis.
Type A is a pattern with three parts, and they matter differently
The original cardiologists who described Type A saw one hard-driving package. Later research took it apart and found the pieces are not equal: some are tied to achievement, and one, hostility, carries most of the health risk. This screener measures all three separately so you can see which parts actually describe you.
Time urgency
The feeling of racing the clock: impatience, hurrying others along, doing several things at once, and finding it hard to wait, slow down, or do nothing.
Achievement striving
The competitive, hard-driving side: setting demanding standards, measuring yourself against others, and tying your sense of worth to output. Research links this part to accomplishment more than to illness.
Hostility & irritability
Being easily annoyed, quick to frustration with people who move or think slowly, and prone to irritation in everyday friction. In modern research this is the component most consistently associated with health risk.
| Feature | Typical free quiz | Psychology.com |
|---|---|---|
| Separates the three Type A components | Rarely | Yes, scored separately |
| Grounded in the original research literature | Sometimes | Yes, cited |
| Honest about being an adaptation | No | Yes, clearly labeled |
| Notes which component carries health risk | No | Yes, hostility flagged |
| Clinician-reviewed interpretation | Rarely | Yes, clinician reviewed |
| Downloadable PDF report | No | Yes, branded & shareable |
| Confidential (no data sent) | Often tracked | Runs in your browser |
How scoring works
Answers are scored 0–64 in total. Your result falls into one of 4 bands:
| Score | Band | What it suggests |
|---|---|---|
| 0–15 | Strong Type B lean | Your responses suggest a clear Type B pattern: a relaxed relationship with time, competition, and frustration. That is an easy pattern on the body and on the people around you. |
| 16–31 | Balanced pattern | Your responses suggest a balanced mix: some drive and urgency, but not a dominant Type A pattern. Most people land somewhere in this range. |
| 32–47 | Type A leaning | Your responses show a meaningful Type A lean. The drive likely serves you in places, and it likely costs you in others. This is a good moment to look at which is which. |
| 48–64 | Strong Type A pattern | Your responses show a strong Type A pattern across the components. Running at this intensity usually produces results, and it usually collects a toll. Both things are true. |
Methodology & sources
The Type A behavior pattern was first described by cardiologists Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman (1959), who noticed a cluster of time urgency, competitiveness, and easily triggered hostility in their cardiac patients. Later work, including the Framingham Type A Scale used in the Framingham Heart Study (Haynes et al., 1980), turned the pattern into self-report questionnaires. The best-known measure, the Jenkins Activity Survey, is a proprietary, copyrighted instrument, so this screener does not reproduce it. Instead it is an honest educational adaptation: 16 original agreement statements written to reflect the three components the research literature describes, scored 0 to 4 each.
A higher total reflects a stronger Type A lean, with the full range from 0 to 64 divided into four broad bands. The interpretation deliberately follows where the science landed rather than the original all-or-nothing picture: achievement striving is linked to performance and is not itself a health problem, time urgency is uncomfortable but changeable, and hostility is the component meta-analyses tie most clearly to cardiovascular risk. This is a tool for self-reflection, not a validated clinical instrument and not a diagnosis of any kind.
References
- Friedman M, Rosenman RH. Association of specific overt behavior pattern with blood and cardiovascular findings. JAMA. 1959;169(12):1286–1296. doi.org/10.1001/jama.1959.03000290012005
- Haynes SG, Feinleib M, Kannel WB. The relationship of psychosocial factors to coronary heart disease in the Framingham Study. III. Eight-year incidence of coronary heart disease. Am J Epidemiol. 1980;111(1):37–58. doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a112873
- Chida Y, Steptoe A. The association of anger and hostility with future coronary heart disease: a meta-analytic review of prospective evidence. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2009;53(11):936–946. doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2008.11.044
- Jenkins CD, Zyzanski SJ, Rosenman RH. Progress toward validation of a computer-scored test for the type A coronary-prone behavior pattern. Psychosom Med. 1971;33(3):193–202. doi.org/10.1097/00006842-197105000-00001
Type A Personality Test FAQ
What is a Type A personality?
Type A describes a behavior pattern first observed by cardiologists in the 1950s: a strong sense of time urgency, a competitive and hard-driving approach to work, and a tendency toward irritability and hostility. It is a pattern of behavior, not a mental-health condition, and most people show some of its traits some of the time.
Is this the Jenkins Activity Survey?
No. The Jenkins Activity Survey is a proprietary, copyrighted instrument, so we cannot reproduce it. This screener is an honest educational adaptation built on the same research tradition, including the Friedman and Rosenman work and the Framingham Type A Scale. It is for reflection, not a validated clinical score.
Is being Type A bad for your health?
Not in the blanket way early headlines suggested. When researchers separated the components, hostility and anger showed the clearest link to cardiovascular risk, while achievement striving on its own did not. A strong Type A result is most useful as a prompt to look at which component drives your score, especially if it is irritability.
Is Type B better than Type A?
Neither is better. Type B tends to mean a more relaxed relationship with time and competition, which is easier on the body, but Type A striving fuels real accomplishment for many people. The useful question is not which letter you are but whether your pattern is costing you in stress, relationships, or health.
Can a Type A pattern change?
Yes. Type A is a set of habits and reactions, not a fixed trait. Research on behavior modification, and modern work on stress management and anger, shows that time pressure habits and hostile reactions can both be reduced without giving up ambition. Therapy is one well-studied route.
Is the test really confidential?
Yes. It runs entirely in your browser. Your answers are never sent to a server, never stored, and never linked to you. No account is needed, and the optional PDF is generated on your own device.
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