Women and men police officers : status, gender, and personality

Challenging traditional beliefs about gender, Gerber develops a new model for understanding gender--the status model of gender stereotyping. She examines how expectations about status and gender impact police offers who work together as partners. Her study includes same-sex police partnerships as well as partnerships in which a woman works with a man. Interviews with police officers highlight the findings from Gerber's large-scale study of police partnerships. She explores what underlies gender stereotyping--why men appear to have more assertive or instrumental personality traits and women appear to have more accommodating or expressive traits. According to Gerber's status model, instrumental traits are associated with high status, and expressive traits are associated with low status; therefore, men and women only appear to have different personality traits because men have higher status than women. The book provides a provocative analysis for scholars and researchers in gender studies, criminal justice, psychology, and sociology, as well as for those involved in the supervision and training of police. Title Page ......Page 1 Copyright Page ......Page 2 Dedication ......Page 3 Contents ......Page 5 Preface ......Page 7 Introduction: Women and Men in Policing ......Page 11 1. The Status Model of Gender Stereotyping ......Page 23 2. Status Characteristics Theory and the Gender-Stereotyped Personality Traits ......Page 39 3. Description of the Study: The Sample of Police Partners and Measures ......Page 51 4. Status and Personality: The Dominating, Instrumental, and Expressive Traits ......Page 61 5. Coping with Low Status: The Verbal-Aggressive and Submissive Traits ......Page 75 6. Police Officers Who Violate Gender Norms: The Bipolar Traits ......Page 87 7. Self-Esteem: The Impact of Status and Personality Traits ......Page 105 8. The Patterning of Traits Within Individual Personality ......Page 121 9. Status, Gender, and Personality: Toward an Integrated Theory ......Page 141 10. Implications for Policing ......Page 163 Appendix A. Procedure ......Page 177 Appendix B. Development of Measures ......Page 181 Appendix C. Further Statistical Analyses ......Page 189 Notes ......Page 207 References ......Page 223 Name Index ......Page 237 Subject Index ......Page 243 Challenges traditional stereotypes about gender and examines the impact of status and gender on police officers who work together.