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Mohamad Aboufoul
Professor Blandford
UWRT 1103
14 October 2015
Writing to Understand Others Reflection
When I first began thinking about how I wanted to research the Type B personality type
(because I had strongly identified as Type A and didnt understand much about the Type B
personality and those who identified as such) in order to come up with a better definition and
comprehension of it, I had a fairly straightforward inquiry. It revolved around the classifications
of Type B personality, how they were developed, how one developed such a personality (and the
ensuing nature vs nurture debate), differences in health between Type A and Type B individuals,
and how Type B individuals really behaved in terms of reactions to events and goals (did they
contradict the generalizations made for Type B individuals?). These questions had originally
been formed on the assumption that everyone identified as having one personality type or the
other and didnt take into account those who hadnt agreed with such categorizations. I had to
then reformat my research to focus more on individuals who did identify as having Type B
personality while still addressing the controversies of the two categorizations.
Because much of my inquiry was quite subjective, I had to find and use opinion-based
sources and analyze them rhetorically along with the factual sources that I had found. The
main subjective sources that I had used were an opinion based article of someone who had
identified as being Type B, Lindsay Holmes, and her views on what Type B individuals were
really like, as opposed to the generalizations made by the categorizations of both personality
types and a personal interview with a close friend who identified as Type B. Originally, I had

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planned on asking my friend the questions in my proposal that were applicable to his opinions,
which largely involved how he responded to stressors and whether or not he had many
aspirations as well as whether or not he believed the development of his personality type was
environmental, genetic, or both. This, however, limited the discussion and didnt really allow me
to find out more about the Type B personality and Type B individuals (or rather, those who
identified as such) from someone who considered himself to be Type B. This lead to an extended
series of questions in which we also discussed his aspirations, how he was competitive and did
worry about certain things even as a Type B person, and how he felt that he had adopted some
the characteristics of the Type A personality such as stressing more than he used to over his work
and future as he grew older. When I decided to ask for his views on the categorizations and the
generalizations made for each personality type, he responded by saying that he didnt agree with
them entirely and gave examples of how some may contradict with the categorizations (e.g.
Individuals who are relaxed personality-wise can still strive for perfection and how some people
who are messy can still be fairly productive). Looking back on this interview, however, I realize
that I should have asked him about where he would draw the line as to what traits were
quintessential for one to be considered as having one personality type or the other, assuming he
believed that there was a line.
In order to look at the history of the categorizations and how they were developed as well
as research relevant to differences in characteristics and health patterns between the two
personality types, I began by referring to the original source of the categorizations, Meyer
Friedman and Raymond Rosenmans research. This extended to articles that other researchers
wrote assessing their claims with newer research on the characteristics and a research article by
the University of Michigan that opposed Friedman and Rosenmans claims that heart disease was

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linked to personality type. When looking through these three sources (Friedman and Rosenmans
book, a book that included the newer research articles about the characteristics of the two
personality types, and the University of Michigans research article), the new ideas that stood out
to me were the claims by Friedman and Rosenman that Type B personality was a norm for
society and that with external pressures from changing cultures that pushed for greatness, Type A
individuals became more common as more and more people tried to do more and, as a result,
stressed more and became more impatient. Such claims hadnt come across my mind as I thought
the two had developed the categorizations in an attempt to describe others during their time. My
other research that surprised me was the reasoning used by the University of Michigan
researchers who believed that personality type and heart disease werent linked. Because they
had performed a study on an isolated island with thousands of people, in which the genetic pool
was fairly similar, they were able to look at genes that influenced personality and those that
influenced heart disease and found no link between the two. Regarding the factual aspect of my
research, it hadnt changed from what I had planned in my proposal as it wasnt quite subjective.
It did however force me to look at different types of sources aside from the common website that
would otherwise have everything prepared for me. Even with the opinion-based sources that I
had used; because I had so many new questions after my proposal to which I couldnt find
answers online, I had to conduct an interview for the first time, which gave me newer
perspectives on the Type B personality as well as on personalities in general.
After gathering information for the essay, figuring out how to write it wasnt quite
difficult. I mostly jotted down notes and made an outline for how it was to be structured and for
what I would include in each section, including how I would analyze each part rhetorically.
When the time came for peer reviews, I gained some particularly helpful insight about how to

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reduce the wordiness in my work and how to pay attention to the different biases of the rhetors
for each source. This did force me to think back to how we had looked at rhetorical elements and
how to use them when analyzing my sources. In addition, I was forced to think about how apply
them to sources that were different from the examples that I had been shown throughout the
semester. For example, with my personal interview, I had to think before coming to the
conclusion that there were two rhetors and two audiences; when I was asking questions, I was
the rhetor and the interviewee was the audience, when he responded, it was the opposite. With
newfound knowledge in the analytical sense and in how I conducted research, I have been able to
write and communicate in a more critical manner as well as assess everything I read, hear, or see
(as a member of the given audience) through a new scope.