Does Type - A Moderate the Stress - Anger Relationship in Case of Managers

The study reported in this paper examines the moderating role of Type-A pattern of behavioural disposition on the relationship between role stress and state-trait anger. A set of three psychometric instruments, namely, ORS Scale (Pareek, 1983), Can You Type Your Behaviour (Gmelch, 1982) and State-Trait Anger Scale (Spielberger et al, 1983) were administered on 547 management professional for the information pertaining to role stresses, Type-A-B behaviour patterns and state-trait angers respectively. Peason’s product moment coefficient of correlation, subgrouping and hierarchical multiple repression analyses were used to analyse the data. Findings of the study revealed that Type-A pattern of behavioural disposition and state-trait anger associate positively and significantly with role stress variables. Further, more coefficients of correlation between state-anger and role stresses were found to be significant for Type-B managers than Type-As. Test of significance of difference revealed that relationship of state anger with six role stress variables, namely, interrole distance, role erosion, role overload, role ambiguity, resource inadequacy and overall role stress were significantly different and higher for Type-B managers. On the other hand, coefficients of correlation between trait anger and role stress variables were higher for Type-A managers as compared to Type-Bs. However, none of the relationship between the variables was found to be significantly different. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that form of relationship of two role stress variables (RS and REC) with state anger and of four role stress variables [RS, RE, RA and ORS(T)] with trait anger were significantly moderated by Type-A behaviour pattern.