The Type A behavior pattern, an independent risk factor for coronary heart disease, has been characterized as a response style for coping with perceived threats to control. Recent research suggests that self-attributional biases may play a role in the Type A's sensitivity to loss of control. Attributional mediation of Type A's experience of stress was explored using Type A and B males (N=40) who performed a problem solving task and were led to believe that their correct responses would reduce the number of aversive noise bursts they heard. While all subjects heard the same amount of noise, half received contingent failure performance (Perceived Control, PC), and half received noncontingent failure performance feedback (No Perceived Control, NPC). While there were no differences in attributions that Type A's and B's made for their performance in the PC condition, in the NPC condition, Type A's made more extreme self-attributions, and perceived the noise bursts as more stressful than PNC B's. The results for performance revealed a possible trend of Type A's to manifest performance decrements on a similar task, whereas Type B's did not. Both Type A's and B's appeared to show facilitated performance in the NPC condition on a different task. The results suggest that attributional differences between Type A's and B's contribute to their differential responses to loss of control. (Author/JAC)