A Review on the Validity of Type-D Personality: From the Aspect of Construct and Predictability

Abstract

Nearly 30 years after typeD personality was proposed as a psychological risk factor for cardiovascular disease, issues have been raised in the aspects of its validity. By reviewing the results of the existing major studies, this paper first outlined and summarized what the issues have been raised regarding the validity of typeD personality, and then proposed the future direction of research to resolve them. As a result of reviewing the main studies on the validity of the typeD personality, it can be concluded that the main issues raised so far converged in two aspects. One issue was about the validity of the psychological construct itself, whether the construct of typeD personality itself has its own sound ground. The other issue was whether the construct of typeD is really directly related to cardiovascular disease or whether it is an independent variable that can significantly predict the onset or prognosis of the disease. Although these two aspects of the issue exist, for now, the crucial rationale for the typeD personality to deny its validity appears to be weak. It is also expected that many of the current issues could be resolved if key factors in mediating(or moderating) between typeD personality and cardiovascular disease are identified in the future.