Goal-setting behaviour and coronary heart disease.

In order to test Dunbar's (1943) theory about goal-setting behaviour in cardiovascular subjects, measures of performance and goal levels were taken on 25 coronary subjects, 25 hypertensive subjects and a control group of 25 fracture subjects. Ths hypertensive pattern of goal-setting behaviour appeared not significantly discriminated from that of control subjects, although the data were in the direction predicted by Dunbar, hypertensive subjects being higher for success and for low goals. For coronary subjects, the results were in complete agreement with the tested theory, these subjects showing a significantly higher rate of high goals than control subjects, and recording a higher rate of failure.