Monday, February 25, 2008
TYPE A/ TYPE BCreative Stress
Type A's should steer clear of complex, creative jobs.
If you're a driven type A in a complex, creative job, scrap it for something simple. It'll do your heart good
Though you'd think creativity and intellectual stimulation on the job would be cathartic for type A's, seven years of interviews with police and firefighters told John Schaubroeck, Ph.D., the opposite. "The combination of type A's in complex jobs, like that of a detective, leads to cardiovascular problems," Schaubroeck, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Nebraska, reports in the Academy of Management Journal.
It's the easy-going, mellow folks -- your type B -- who should be in those coveted creative jobs. "Type B's in complex jobs are less likely to have heart trouble than type B's in less stimulating, mechanical jobs, like dispatchers," Schaubroeck finds.
But that's only the case for psychologically complex jobs -- those requiring reflection, multiple skills, and independence -- which shouldn't be confused with jobs that are only intellectually demanding, a different type of complexity. Just as exercise strengthens the heart, stimulating jobs may toughen the type B's autonomic nervous system -- the system that regulates the heart.
"Type A's should have fairly simple jobs that don't require a lot of independent reflection, skill variety, and autonomy -- the elements of job complexity," says Schaubroeck. "In a complex job, the type A becomes overstimulated and can't distance him or herself."
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