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If you’ve ever had a boss who valued structure, had clear expectations, and used rewards (and consequences) to get results, then you’ve probably worked with a transactional leader. Transactional leadership is a leadership style that utilizes rewards and punishments to motivate and direct followers.

Basic Assumptions of Transactional Leadership

Sociologist Max Weber first described this theory of leadership, and Bernard M. Bass further explored it during the early 1980s.

Transactional leadership, also sometimes referred to as managerial leadership, emphasizes the importance of structure, organization, supervision, performance, and outcomes. The group’s goals and tasks are highly structured, and members are rewarded when they achieve these goals and reprimanded if they miss deadlines.

The core assumptions of transactional leadership are that:

• People perform their best when the chain of command is definite and clear.
• Rewards and punishments motivate workers.
• Obeying the instructions and commands of the leader is the primary goal of the followers.
• Subordinates need to be carefully monitored to ensure that expectations are met.

Athletic teams also rely heavily on transactional leadership. Players are expected to conform to the team’s rules and expectations and are rewarded or punished based on their performance. Winning a game might mean accolades and bonuses, while losing might lead to rejection and verbal castigation. Players often become highly motivated to do well, even if it means suffering pain and injury.

Unlike transformational leaders who tend to be forward-looking, transactional leaders are interested in merely maintaining the status quo. Transformational leaders try to sell their ideas and vision to followers. Transactional leaders, on the other hand, tell group members what to do and when to do it.

How Transactional Leadership Works

In transactional leadership, rewards and punishments are contingent upon the performance of the followers.

• The leader views the relationship between managers and subordinates as an exchange – you give me something for something in return.
• When subordinates perform well, they receive a reward (such as a bonus).
• When they perform poorly, they will be punished in some way (such as getting a verbal warning or a poor performance review).
• Rules, procedures, and standards are essential in transactional leadership.

They do not, however, act as catalysts for growth and change within an organization. Instead, they are focused on maintaining this as they are and enforcing current rules and expectations.

These leaders tend to be good at setting expectations and standards that maximize an organization’s efficiency and productivity. They often give constructive feedback about follower performance, which allows group members to improve their output and obtain better feedback and reinforcement.

When Is Transactional Leadership the Most Effective?

Research has found that transactional leadership tends to be most effective when problems are simple and clearly defined. Transactional leaders don’t encourage group members to be creative or to find new solutions to problems.

It can also work well in crisis situations where the focus needs to be on accomplishing certain tasks. By assigning clearly defined duties to particular individuals, leaders can ensure that those things get done.

Transactional leaders focus on the maintenance of the structure of the group. They are tasked with letting group members know exactly what is expected, articulating the rewards of performing tasks well, explaining the consequences of failure, and offering feedback designed to keep workers on task.

Drawbacks of Transactional Leadership

Transactional leadership can also have some downsides that managers and organizations should consider. Some of these include:

• Reduced collaboration: The emphasis on completing individual tasks means that group members are sometimes less likely to work together to accomplish goals.
• Decreased creativity: Because this approach focuses on rewards and punishments, members are less likely to think outside of the box.
• Inhibited motivation: Relying solely on external rewards can often reduce intrinsic motivation.
• Lessened satisfaction: Team members often feel they are unable to grow creatively and professionally, which can lead to job dissatisfaction and burnout.

While transactional leadership can be helpful in some situations, it is often considered insufficient and may prevent leaders and followers from achieving their full potential.

Takeaways

Certain situations sometimes call for different styles of leadership. A transactional style might be the best choice when the task is straightforward or when time is of the essence. It allows leaders to create structure, enforce rules, and ensure that group members stay on track. But if the situation is less clear and creativity is needed, you might want to consider a different approach that allows team members more freedom to explore and contribute.

Once viewed as a groundbreaking treatment for mental health problems, lobotomies now stand as one of the most controversial and haunting procedures in medical history.

What Is a Lobotomy?

A lobotomy is a surgical procedure that involves severing the nerve pathways in the prefrontal cortex. The procedure is intended to help with psychiatric and neurological conditions, but it can have serious risks and unwanted outcomes.

In the mid-20th century, the lobotomy was a popular “cure” for mental illness. It was part of a new wave of treatments for neurological diseases, including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

Lobotomies were typically performed on people with the following three conditions:

This procedure aimed to sever nerve fibers in the brain that connect the frontal lobe, the area responsible for thinking, with other regions. While some saw it as a quick “cure” for serious mental health symptoms, it was soon clear that it often resulted in devastating and irreversible effects.

History of Lobotomy as a Treatment

The history of lobotomy reflects much about the evolution of psychiatric treatments for mental illness. Originally introduced during the 1930s, the procedure was seen as a huge step forward in the treatment of psychiatric symptoms, particularly for those who had few other options.

The procedure grew in popularity, but eventually declined as the consequences became more apparent. Understanding the history of the procedure and the prominent types of lobotomies practiced during the mid-20th century offers context for why the lobotomy eventually fell from favor.

Egas Moniz’s “Leucotomy”

The world’s first lobotomy was performed in 1935 by a Portuguese neurologist by the name of António Egas Moniz. His original method involved drilling holes into the skull and pumping absolute alcohol into the frontal cortex, essentially destroying brain tissue.

He thought that damaging the connection between the front of the brain and other parts of the brain, would stop “abnormal” behaviors and distressing thoughts.

Later, Moniz began to use an instrument of his own design, called a leucotome, to remove chunks of tissue from the frontal lobes.

Moniz was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the prefrontal lobotomy as a radical therapy for mental disorders.

The “Ice Pick” Lobotomy

Within a year of Moniz’s procedure, neurologist Walter Freeman and neurosurgeon James Watts performed the first prefrontal lobotomy in the United States. Although Freeman found this procedure great, he wanted to develop a procedure that would be faster, more effective, and require fewer resources and specialized tools. 

However, Freeman wanted lobotomies to be a more streamlined process. So, in 1946—10 years after performing his first lobotomy in the U.S.—Freeman developed a new method called the transorbital lobotomy. 

Instead of drilling into the skull to sever the connections in the frontal lobes, Freeman used a hammer to drive an ice pick into his patients’ brains through their eye sockets.

Once the ice pick was inside, he literally wiggled it around, severing the nerves connecting the prefrontal cortex to the thalamus. This adapted procedure became known as an “ice pick lobotomy.”

While the prefrontal lobotomy took over an hour, Freeman’s transorbital lobotomy could be done in 10 minutes or less. Because it didn’t require anesthesia—patients were knocked out before the operation using ECT—it could be performed outside of the hospital.  

In 1942, Freeman and Watts wrote that of the 200 people they had treated at the time with lobotomies, 63% had improved, 23% saw no change, and 14% died or had severe complications.

How Common Were They?

Shortly after doing his first ice pick lobotomy, Freeman began traveling the country performing lobotomies on all who were willing.

About 50,000 people received lobotomies in the United States, most of them between 1949 and 1952. Freeman himself is said to have performed about 3,500 patients, including 19 children. The youngest was just four years old.

What Were the Effects?

What happens to a person after a lobotomy varies considerably. While the intention was to reduce mental health symptoms and improve functioning, the procedure did not always produce such effects. Such effects ranged from subtle changes in personality to severe cognitive and emotional impairments.

Early proponents often suggested that the procedure helped calm severely agitated people. However, the long-term effects told a different, much more troubling story. Many were left with reduced mental function, flat emotions, and difficulty living independently.

In other instances, people lost functioning and became emotionally numb and apathetic. Some people who were lobotomized became catatonic following the procedure. Lobotomies were also fatal in some cases.

Other serious risks included:

• Brain infections
• Changes in language abilities
• Cognitive impairment
• Loss of bladder and bowel control
• Muscle weakness
• Personality changes

As for what the procedure felt like, some reported experiencing severe pain, while others reported having no memory of the procedure at all.

Notable Lobotomies

Freeman reportedly felt that the lobotomy was “only a little more dangerous than an operation to remove an infected tooth.” Unfortunately, this was not the case for the majority of patients. In many instances, lobotomies had adverse effects on a patient’s personality, initiative, inhibitions, empathy, and ability to function on their own.

Here are a few people who underwent lobotomies and the impact the operation had on their lives.

Alice Hood Hammatt

Freeman and Watts performed the first lobotomy in the U.S. on Alice Hood Hammatt, a woman diagnosed with agitated depression. When Hammatt awoke postoperatively, she stated that she was “happy.”

Six days after the operation, Hammatt experienced transient language difficulties, disorientation, and agitation. Nevertheless, Freeman believed that the outcome of her procedure was a success.

Rosemary Kennedy

Probably the most notable person to have undergone a lobotomy is Rosemary Kennedy, sister of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

As a child and young adult, Kennedy had mild developmental delays that impaired her performance in school. As Rosemary got older, she reportedly began to experience violent seizures and temper tantrums, lashing out at those around her.

Seeking a treatment to ease her outbursts and fearing that Rosemary’s behavior would create a bad reputation for herself and the whole family, Rosemary’s father arranged a lobotomy for Rosemary when she was 23 years old.

Throughout the entire procedure, Rosemary is said to have been awake, speaking with doctors, and reciting poems to nurses. Doctors knew the procedure was over when she stopped speaking.

Following the procedure, she became severely disabled. She was unable to function independently, and was institutionalized for the remainder of her life.

Why Were Lobotomies Performed?

The lobotomy is considered one of the most barbaric treatments in the history of modern medicine. Even in the 1940s, lobotomies were the subject of growing controversy. But despite it’s ethical issues regarding the procedure, it gained widespread popularity for several reasons:

• Absence of effective treatments: Antipsychotic drugs were not available until the mid-1950s. was available. People were desperate to do something, anything to help those with severe mental illness.
• Overcrowded institutions: During the 1930s, approximately 1 in every 300 Americans was institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital. Lobotomies were used to calm unruly patients and make them easier to manage.
• Media: At this time, the media was able to influence surgical indications. One newspaper article hailed the procedure as constituting “one of the greatest innovations of this generation.”

Are Lobotomies Still Performed?

Performing lobotomies to address symptoms of mental disorders began to subside in the mid-1950s when scientists developed antipsychotic and antidepressant medications that were much more effective. They are rarely, if ever, performed today, and when they are you can rest assured that ice picks and hammers are not involved.

In rare cases, a procedure called psychosurgery may be used when other treatments have not been effective. However, this type of surgery is vastly different than a lobotomy and does not involve severing the prefrontal cortex.

Alternatives to Lobotomy

Today’s treatments for serious mental illness typically focus on the use of psychotherapy, medications, or a combination of the two. The specific type of treatment that is recommended depends on a number of factors, including the type of symptoms a person is experiencing, the nature of their diagnosis, and the severity of their symptoms.

Psychotherapy

Talk therapy can be an effective tool in the treatment of mental health problems. One of the most researched and recommended types of therapy is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which involves identifying negative thoughts and replacing them with more helpful and adaptive thought and behavior patterns.

Other types of therapy that might be used include psychodynamic therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, family therapy, and group therapy.

Medication

Medications are also often prescribed to help relieve symptoms of mental disorders. Such medications may include antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, stimulants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers.

Psychosurgery and Other Procedures

Moniz’ and Freeman’s work paved the way for other forms of psychosurgery, such as the anterior cingulotomy. Procedures such as deep brain stimulation are sometimes used to treat severe MDD and OCD, and neurological conditions like Parkinson’s disease.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), a procedure that involves inducing a seizure while a person is under anesthesia, is also sometimes used for treatment-resistant depression, bipolar disorder, and psychosis.

Does it ever seem like your shoulders start to creep up toward your ears whenever you’re feeling stressed? Or does a tough day at work always seem to end with a nagging tension headache? If so, then you’re definitely not alone. Neck and shoulder pain is quite common in the general population, especially among people who experience high levels of stress.

It’s no wonder that expressions like “carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders” came to be, or people tend to describe challenging situations or difficult people as “pain in the necks.” Many of us carry our stress directly in our necks and shoulders, which can lead to muscle tension, pain, and headaches.

The Stress Response

Why does mental and emotional stress tend to show up in the head and neck? To understand how stress is linked to neck and shoulder pain, it can be helpful to consider something called “the stress response.”

When we are under pressure, our bodies experience a series of reactions designed to help keep us safe. But it’s those same reactions that often lead to problems with muscle tension, poor posture, and chronic discomfort.

In essence, our neurological and hormonal systems are activated when we experience stress in life—whether work stress, relationship stress, money stress, stress about the state of the world, or other common contributors. Hormones like adrenaline and cortisol is released, causing a cascade of physical symptoms.

Stress Response Symptoms

Everyone experiences physical manifestations of stress differently, but stress can affect almost all of our bodily systems. For example, the stress reaction can cause:

• Rapid heartbeat
• Increased blood pressure
• Tense and labored breathing
• Gastrointestinal distress
• Trembling

Symptoms of Shoulder and Neck Stress

Stress manifesting in your neck and shoulders can cause a number of uncomfortable and disruptive symptoms. Again, each person will experience these symptoms in unique ways, but some of the possible symptoms include:

• An achy, tense feeling in the neck and/or shoulders
• A stiff neck
• Discomfort when the neck and shoulders are touched or when you turn your head
• A feeling of tightening in your neck or shoulders
• Jaw clenching or tension is also possible, as is back pain

Tension in the neck and shoulders can also contribute to headache symptoms. People with stress that goes to their neck and shoulders are prone to tension headaches and migraines.

Tips for Relieving Stress in Shoulders and Neck

Stress in the shoulders and neck can lead to serious pain, so managing your stress is one of the most powerful ways to decrease your symptoms. Thankfully, there are many effective ways to reduce stress in life. Let’s look at a few.

Physical Exercise

Physical exercise of any kind is known to reduce stress. Regular exercisers may have lower heart rates than sedentary individuals and often have more balanced, stable moods.

Studies have shown that yoga specifically can decrease stress levels. As a bonus, many yoga poses allow you to stretch your neck and shoulder muscles to release tension.

Meditation

Practicing mindfulness and meditation can help you learn to recognize stressful thoughts so that you can let them go and not let them dominate your life. This, in turn, can reduce stress in your body, and reduce stress-related symptoms like neck and shoulder pain.

Research backs up the power of meditation on stress relief. For example, a 2021-study found that people who participated in a 6-week mindfulness program experienced decreased levels of perceived stress, as well as increased engagement at work.

Getting Enough Sleep

You are probably aware that getting enough sleep increases your energy levels and ability to concentrate. You are also probably cognizant of the fact that increased stress levels can make it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. But what you may not know is that lack of sleep in and of itself can contribute to elevated levels of stress.

So, simply making it a strong habit to go to sleep on time can blunt some of the stress in your life.

Therapy

Therapy can help you deal with serious mental health conditions and help you work through traumas. But it can also help you better manage the common life stresses that all of us experience.

Most types of therapy that help you manage stress work by making you become more mindful of your thoughts and how they affect your feelings and physical reactions to stress.

When You Need Immediate Relief

As you wait for your stress levels to decrease, you might be looking for more immediate pain relief. Besides managing your stress levels, you can speak to your healthcare provider for medication options for relieving neck and shoulder pain.

You can also consider using hot or cold packs to provide relief. Gentle neck stretching can also be helpful. But for some people, resting the neck and shoulders and decreasing physical activity for a few days works best.

When to Call Your Healthcare Provider

It’s important to distinguish between neck and shoulder pain or tension related to stress and symptoms that may be signs of a serious medical condition.

Concerning symptoms may include:

• A stiff neck and headache accompanied by a fever, which could be a sign of meningitis
• Neck or shoulder pain, along with loss of bladder or bowel control, indicating possible pressure on your spinal cord
• Signs of a physical injury, such as instability in your joints, or an unusual ability to move your head back and forth more than expected
• Neck pain along with swollen neck glands, indicating a possible infection or tumor
• Neck pain accompanied by chest pain or pressure, which are possible signs of a heart attack

Takeaways

Experiencing neck and shoulder pain due to stress can be extremely uncomfortable and even debilitating at times. The good news is that neck and shoulder pain due to stress responds well to basic stress management techniques such as exercise, therapy, and meditation. You’ve got this.

Alcohol is often seen as a quick fix when you can’t sleep. Many people think a nightcap can take the edge off and help ease the mind into sleep. The problem is that while it might sometimes help you fall asleep faster, the long-term relationship between alcohol and sleep is a lot more complicated.

Many people with alcohol use disorders also have sleep problems. If you drink to excess, even occasionally, you have probably experienced sleep problems.

Such problems can persist for some time even after you decide to quit drinking. Difficulty sleeping is one of the most common alcohol withdrawal symptoms and one that causes many to relapse. Alcohol can create havoc when it comes to getting a good night’s rest by disrupting sleep cycles and increasing your risk for insomnia.

Types of Alcohol-Related Sleep Problems

Studies estimate that 36% to 91% of people with alcohol use disorder experience sleep troubles. The more prevalent, disruptive effects include:

• More frequent awakenings
• Worse sleep quality
• Reduction of deep sleep
• Earlier-than-usual waking times

The result? People often feel like they didn’t get enough sleep. They wake up exhausted and then drag through the day with daytime sleepiness, reduced concentration, irritability, and other symptoms.

Studies have found that sleep problems can last for weeks, months, or even years after quitting drinking. In many cases, people recovering from alcohol use typically have more problems with sleep onset than with sleep maintenance. In other words, while they can often stay asleep all night, they have significant problems actually falling asleep.

Unfortunately, recovery and abstinence are more challenging if you aren’t able to get enough good-quality sleep. Difficulty sleeping, particularly when a person feels that they can’t sleep sober, may increase the risk that they will relapse.

Alcohol and Non-Restorative Sleep

People in alcohol recovery take a long time to fall asleep, have problems sleeping through the night, and feel that their sleep is not restorative.

Sleep problems are often viewed as one of the last things to improve among people in alcohol recovery. It is also a symptom that poses a significant risk for relapse.

In fact, 12-step recovery programs often refer to the factors that increase a person’s risk for relapse as HALT, standing for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. Sleep disruptions may increase the risk that a person will feel tired, which might cause a person to reach for a drink if they feel like they can sleep sober.

Alcohol and Insomnia

Insomnia is a common problem for many adults, but it is not uncommon to experience it in the short term and long term after quitting drinking. It is characterized by difficulty falling or staying asleep, which can lead to daytime drowsiness, trouble concentrating, and other negative health effects.

Insomnia is also common among people who have an alcohol use disorder, but the problem can persist or even begin during recovery. However, it is also important to note that many people experiencing insomnia during withdrawal and recovery also had insomnia before they became dependent on alcohol.

Treatment for Insomnia

The first treatment for insomnia in recovery is sobriety, and many patients will see improvement. For the specific treatment of insomnia, behavioral therapies are the preferred treatment (rather than medications), as they are effective and they won’t interfere with sobriety.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)

The goal of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is to change sleep habits as well as any misconceptions about sleep and insomnia that may perpetuate sleep difficulties.

Sleep Restriction

This type of behavioral therapy works to improve your sleep efficiency, or the time you spend asleep divided by the time you spend in bed. The idea behind sleep restriction is that by limiting the amount of time you allow yourself to sleep and stay in bed, you’ll increase your desire to sleep (called sleep drive) and sleep less fitfully and more efficiently.

Medication

There are many medications used to treat insomnia, including benzodiazepine and nonbenzodiazepine medications. If you’re in recovery, your healthcare provider will need to weigh the risks and benefits of prescribing these medications for insomnia. There are also some relapse-prevention medications that can help promote sleep.

Complementary Therapy

Numerous complementary therapies have been used to treat insomnia in people in recovery, including:

Coping With Alcohol-Related Sleep Problems

Working on your sleep hygiene is another way to help prevent or reduce insomnia. Sleep hygiene refers to healthy habits and changes you can make to your environment and routine to help promote sleep.

• Develop a relaxing bedtime routine. Whether you write in a journal, use a meditation app, or wind down with a warm bath, doing something calming before lights out will help set the tone for solid slumber.
• Keep your room dark, cool, and comfortable. Avoid using televisions, cell phones, computers, or e-readers in your bedroom. The blue light from these electronic devices can suppress the body’s sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and interfere with your internal body clock. The National Sleep Foundation recommends keeping your room cool (around 65 degrees Fahrenheit) and using light-blocking curtains, shades, or blinds to keep your bedroom dark.
• Keep a regular sleep/wake schedule. This will enable your body to get used to a certain bedtime and then be ready to sleep at that time.
• Avoid napping. Naps decrease your overall amount of sleep debt, making it more difficult to fall asleep again at night at the proper time. 
• Refrain from stimulants in the evening. Stimulants that disrupt sleep include caffeine (coffee, tea, soft drinks, chocolate) and nicotine. Research has found that people who smoke have more sleep problems, including sleep disordered breathing, sleep apnea, and worse sleep quality.

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Takeaways

Alcohol can have a detrimental impact on sleep, but these problems can also persist once you decide to stop drinking. Finding ways to cope with insomnia and other sleep issues is important since poor sleep can be a risk factor for alcohol relapse.

Fortunately, there are treatments and coping techniques that can help you get better rest, which can help you feel better during alcohol recovery. If you are experiencing sleep problems, be sure to talk to your doctor about your options.

Blood type personality is a Japanese concept called ketsueki-gata that posits that blood type shapes one’s temperament.

Ketsueki-gata is considered a pseudoscience, a body of thought that appears to be based on scientific principles but is not actually rooted in fact. Although there’s no real proof that blood type influences personality, the belief is widespread in Japan and other Asian nations. It is also increasingly garnering interest in Western countries such as the United States.

Become more familiar with the theory of ketsueki-gata with this overview of its history, principles, influence on society, and potential pitfalls.

History of Ketsueki-gata

In 1930, Japanese professor Tokeji Furukawa published a report in the Journal of Social Psychology called “A Study of Temperament and Blood-Groups.” In this paper, he argued that establishing a link between personality and blood type “might prove a useful basis for the objective study of temperament.”

He compared this effort to the ancient Greek physician Hipporcrates’ classification of temperaments as sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic, which stem from the concept known as humorist.

According to this concept, four bodily fluids influence personality and behavior, but Furukawa asserted that modern classifications of temperaments typically fell into two groups: physiological and psychological. The concept of blood type personality blends the two categories together, using physiology to explain the psyche.

In his paper, he included detailed charts to argue that blood type corresponds with temperament, but his research has been criticized for relying heavily on questionnaires and providing no empirical evidence. Other researchers began challenging Furukawa’s claims about blood type personality just six years after he published his report.

Despite these critiques, the concept of ketsueki-gata never disappeared, as multiple books on blood personality types hit the shelves in the 1970s. Together, they drew attention to the subject once more.

From 1984 to 1985, more than 200 publications printed papers on blood type personality, resulting in the concept’s enduring popularity in countries such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan and milder interest outside Asia.

Is There Any Evidence for Blood Type Personality?

Studies about ketsueki-gata have continued well into the 21st century all over the world, including Australia, Taiwan, and the United States.

While there isn’t much research supporting the idea that blood type has a direct impact on personality, there has been some research that looks at how blood type may influence genetics. This may have an indirect impact on certain traits.

One 2015 study suggested that there is a weak link between blood types and the personality trait persistence. This is likely due to a genetic link between blood type and a gene that influences the production of dopamine. Because dopamine impacts things like sensation-seeking and impulsivity, it can impact persistence. It’s important to note that this connection is small, and more research is needed.

What Ketsueki-gata Believers Think About Personality

Ketsueki-gata believers maintain that each of the four blood types corresponds with distinct personality traits, making different blood types more compatible with some than others. Here’s how the blood types purportedly break down by temperament. 

• People with type A blood is purportedly associated with positive traits such as creativity, cleverness, and cooperativeness, whereas their supposed negative traits include stubbornness and uptightness. Type A individuals are reportedly more common in Japan than people with other blood types.
• Individuals with type B blood are supposed to be strong, passionate, empathetic, and decisive, but they have also been associated with selfishness and erratic behavior. People with this blood type are said to clash with those with type A blood.
• The purported strengths of those with type AB blood include rationality and adaptability, but their weaknesses are indecision, criticalness, and forgetfulness. This blood type is primarily viewed as having the characteristics of type A and type B individuals. Because this blood type is rare, the people who have it are highly valued in Japan.
• Type O people have been linked to characteristics such as confidence, determination, resilience, and intuition, but they are also supposedly self-centered and unstable. They are said to appear selfish to individuals with Type A blood especially. 

Blood Type and Health Conditions

Meanwhile, in the U.S., blood type has not been linked to personality so much as it has been tied to specific diseases. One study suggested that blood types may be connected to as many as 49 different health conditions. For example:

• Type A individuals have been found to have an increased risk of stomach cancer and heart disease
• Type B people also have an increased risk of heart disease and ovarian cancer
• Type AB individuals have an increased risk of heart disease, and pregnant women with this type may be more likely to develop preeclampsia
• Type O individuals may be more likely to develop ulcers, attract mosquitoes, and have Achilles tendon injuries.

The Pitfalls of Blood Type Personality

Since blood type personality is widely accepted as reality in Japan, it does have some pitfalls. It has been linked to discrimination in both the workplace and in the singles scene. While positive and negative characteristics are associated with each blood type, some blood types are perceived to be better or worse than others.

On the other hand, type AB individuals enjoy workplace advantages. In 1990, Japanese newspaper The Asahi Daily reported that Mitsubishi Electronics hired a team composed mostly of type AB people because of their purported knack for planning.

In the dating scene, someone might reject a potential partner purely based on fears of incompatibility due to blood type. Fortunately, the question “Ketsuekigata nāni?” (血液型なあに? What’s your blood type?) is typically asked in the very early stages of dating, so no one is likely to truly get their heart broken over a purported blood type mismatch.

The Appeal of Blood Type Personality 

Although no legitimate scientific research linking blood type to personality has been published, people continue to believe in ketsueki-gata. Why? Psychologists have said that many simply enjoy the topic and use it as a way to break the ice with others. Moreover, in an uncertain world, the blood type personality theory can give people confidence about where they fit in and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

As with astrology, people often consult blood type personality because they believe it provides clues about their future. So, believers in ketsueki-gata aren’t primarily focused on what the science says about blood type personality, they’re largely focused on better understanding their own lives.