The Prevalence of Type ”A" Behavior and its Relationship With Some Variables Among Sultan Qaboos University Students

Abstract

The current research aims to Investigate the prevalence of type "A" behavior among Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) students and to show how the average of spread in type “A" is affected by some variables (gender of student, type of college, age, number of male brothers and number of female sisters, family income, type of father’s personality, type of mother's personality). In order to achieve that, a scale to measure type A" behavior has been designed. This scale consists of 37 items, divided between four dimensions of type “A“ behavior (hostility and aggressiveness, body physiology and movements, urgency, impatience, competition energy and ambition). This scale has acceptable psychometric indicators such as: face validity, factorial validity, item discrimination and reliability. The scale has been administered to 734 male and female students from seven different colleges in Sultan Qaboos University. The results in general showed low rate of type “A” behavior among SQU students, which was 5.18% (5.0896 for male, and 5.2596 for female). In the demographic variables the results showed that the gender; of students in the first dimension (hostility and aggressiveness) has a significant level for the males, while the third (urgency and impatience) was significant for the females, and the variable of college type in the second dimension (body physiology and movements) was significant for the students of Humanities colleges, and the number of male brothers in the third dimension (urgency and impatience) was significant for the less number of brothers). The type of father's personality in the second dimension (body physiology and movements) and the third (urgency and impatience) and in type “A “was generally significant for the strict type. Other variables (age, number of female sisters, family income and mother's personality) had no effect on type “A “ behavior or any of its dimensions.