Personality implications of adaption-innovation: VI. Adaption-innovation as a predictor of disease proneness

There is a substantial phenotypic similarity between (a) the cancer-prone personality and the adaptor, and (b) the coronary heart disease-prone individual and the innovator. We investigated the potential relationship between cognitive style and the occurrence of these diseases. A total of 75 undergraduate students completed the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI; Kirton, 1976), a measure of cognitive style, and the Health Personality Test (HPT), a measure of proneness to cancer and coronary heart disease. The hypothesis that cancer proneness would be related to adaption and coronary heart disease proneness would be related to innovation was supported. This suggests that the KAI could potentially be used for the prospective identification of disease-susceptible individuals.