Type A behavior involves struggle for achievement, chronic time-urgency, and hostile aggression as opposed to Type B behavior, which is the absence of these behaviors. Type A behavior has been associated with the prevalence, recurrence, and future incidence of coronary heart disease. The attributions and achievement-relevant cognitions of 50 Type A and Type B male undergraduates, in response to success and failure, were assessed using a method for studying Articulated Thoughts in Simulated Situations. Subjects listened to two tapes and then verbalized their thoughts. One tape dealt with the subject imagining himself in an academic failure situation, the other in an academic success situation. The Jenkins Activity Survey was used to classify subjects as Type A or Type B. While expected A-B differences in self talk were not revealed, a pattern of relationships emerged for Type A's between causal attributions for success and failure and positive success expectancies. Significant positive correlations wre observed, for Type A's, between the frequencies of effort attribution for failure and positive success expectancies. Attributions to task difficulty and chance factors were negatively correlated with frequency of emission of positive success expectancies in response to failure. With regard to the success situation, frequencies of ability attributions and positive success expectancies were highly correlated. Analyses of the self talk of Type B's showed no relationships between these cognitions, suggesting that the mediating role of causal attribution may be of greater significance for Type A's than for Type B's. (Author/ABL)