IIn the 1950s, a secretary at a medical office in San Francisco noticed something strange: some chairs in the waiting room had to be reupholstered more often than others. She realized that patients with coronary artery disease were almost always on time and preferred hard upholstered chairs rather than comfortable sofas. They would then sit on the edge of the chair, fidget, and jump up aggressively when their name was called.
This understanding took on a life of its own. First, it helped inspire the cardiologists she reportedly told about it—Dr. Ray Rosenman and Dr. Meyer Friedman, who wrote a 1959 paper that essentially invented the idea of the “Type A” personality. It classified competitive, performance-obsessed workaholics as exhibiting “clear Pattern A behavior” and argued that they were more likely get heart attacks. Later they wrote a book Behavior and your heart, which became a bestseller. Familiar story, right? Woman has an idea which is then monetized by the two men.
Another familiar story: a corporation steps in to adopt this new popular idea. Tobacco industry soon advanced Friedman and Rosenman's results prove that smoking does not cause cancer. Rather, they argued, smokers are more likely to be Type A and What caused cancer.
Decades later, videos appeared about personality types going viral on TikTok. Okay, I'm like A(DHD) because I saw something recently Title about teenagers on TikTok and their obsession with personality classification, and they immediately went into procrastination mode. I stopped everything I was supposed to do, opened 1,200 different tabs, and obsessed over the problem, including a long search for the name of the secretary who had the original idea. But if she existed (some sources mention an upholsterer), her name is not easy to find. I even asked ChatGPT, who unsuccessfully hallucinated and told me her name was Mrs. Mabel Adams.
My conclusion after all this? Be it Humoral theory of Hippocrates, Myers-Briggs personality test, or type A/B, is a large part of the “science” of personality bunk. But we're all desperate for organizational systems to help us make sense of ourselves and the world, so this is compelling nonsense. However my main conclusion is that I need to fix my procrastination problem.
Arwa Mahdavi is a Guardian columnist and author Strong female role
