Status and the Gender Stereotyped Personality Traits: Toward an Integration

This paper integrates research findings on status and the gender stereotyped personality traits and examines the extent to which women’s lower status than men can account for two components of gender stereotyping in the United States: the belief that women and men have different personality traits and the differences in men’s and women’s perceptions of their own personality traits. In addition, it examines the extent to which status affects the evaluations associated with both genders’ self-perceived traits. Personality traits include the instrumental-assertive and expressive attributes that have been the focus of most theory and research, in addition to the instrumental-dominating, complaining, submissive, and bipolar attributes. Formulations involving the link with status are presented for each of these personality attributes.