How Companies Sold us the Personality-Disease Myth

The notion that our personality leads to disease is an extremely compelling narrative that's widespread from "Type A" stress advice at the office to health products on shelves promising to avert sickness based on temperament. But as a scientific concept or piece of common sense, this hasn't got it quite right. What it actually is in large part is the result of sophisticated marketing and covert corporate agenda, particularly from tobacco companies.

By the middle of the 20th century, with heart disease on the rise, physicians Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman presented the "Type A Behavior Pattern." Friedman and Rosenman characterized Type A individuals as competitive, impatient, and hostile, and recommended that these tendencies placed individuals at increased risk for heart attacks and other illnesses. The concept quickly took hold, moving from scientific articles to books of self-help and the burgeoning wellness industry. Businesses latched onto the concept because it was simple to market: if you could simply "cure" your personality, you would never get ill.

Less well understood is the role the tobacco business played in shaping this narrative. Tobacco firms in the 1960s and 1970s were anxious to deflect growing evidence that smoking led to heart disease and cancer. Thus, companies such as Philip Morris spent millions of dollars on sponsoring rival explanations for these issues. One of their chief strategies was sponsorship of research and public campaigns asserting that our personality (not tobacco) was at fault. Journalists and academics discovered that Friedman's institute, where the concept of Type A originated, received nearly $11 million from Philip Morris by 1997. The specifics of this money were frequently obscured or minimized.

Tobacco-industry front groups produced movies, composed press releases, and appeared before legislators, promulgating the thesis that stress from being a Type A (not tobacco) was illness-inducing. They tended to assert that "smoking was merely a symptom" of some deeper personality, and that your "disposition" was the actual risk factor.

So, what does objective research really reveal? Although initial research reported some correlation between Type A personality and heart disease, subsequent independent research revealed the findings were weak or simply did not stand. Reviews concluded that only three of twelve large studies experienced a high correlation, and they were all largely funded by the tobacco industry. With other illnesses like diabetes, meticulous investigation has established that personality can influence one's ability to cope with illness or stress, but there's no actual evidence that personality directly causes anything. Diet, physical activity, genetic susceptibility, and environment are the primary drivers instead.

With decades of research funded by industries making the headlines, the myth lingered in the public consciousness, awaiting exploitation by wellness businesses, supplement companies, and app developers in marketing their products. Contemporary marketers continue to offer "personalized" programs based on your personality, playing to our need for easy, tailored solutions. They have slogans such as "lower Type A stress to save your heart" or "transform your personality to conquer diabetes," appealing to people's fears, irrespective of what science indicates.

Ultimately, the disease-personality myth isn't just a confusion between facts about health. It's a powerful demonstration of how such dominant industries can manipulate what we think, defending their own bottom lines in the bargain. The tobacco industry's campaign still resonates today whenever a product or service touts its potential based on your personality type. 

Understanding that history can allow us to cut through the marketing, search for reliable research, and concentrate on actual, proven disease prevention through lifestyle, environmental, and medical risks, rather than attacking our personality.