Summary: "Cynicism and Mistrust Tied to Early Death", page 67

In the past, it was believed that Type A people, people under stress who work too hard and are always in a hurry, were twice as likely to suffer heart disease as relaxed people, but a series of studies conducted in the 1980s failed to prove that there was a connection between Type A personalities and heart problems. A researcher, Dr. William said, "Now we can claim that only those personalities of hostility and anger really lead to heart problems." Dr. William said that hostile and nonhostile people seem to have different nervous system. When nonhostile people become angry, their nervous system acts like a "stop switch" that calms them down. Hostile people, on the other hand, seem to have weak nervous system, which can't calm them down. There are also differences between their blood pressure. Hostile people also have higher blood pressure which is easy to damage the heart and blood vessels. There is no evidence that the Type A personality is likely to die young. But there is lots of evidence that people who are hostile and angry do.