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Crime Scene Investigation: The Chief Inspectors’ Display Rules

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Abstract

Television as one factor in the “cycle of role division” (Eagly 1987; Shields 2002) can aid to perpetuate traditional role attitudes as well as set new norms. The aim of the study is to examine gender differences in facial expression of emotion on TV as well as changes of these differences over time. A content analysis of 12 episodes of a prominent German crime series from two time samples (1979–1981 / 2005) was done by employing the Emotional Facial Action Coding System (EmFACS, Friesen and Ekman 1983). Results show that there are gender differences in stereotypically male emotions: Male actors express these emotions significantly more frequently than female actors, while the latter show more “social smiles”. These differences are reduced over time.

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The authors would like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 6, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Juliane Finger

  2. Media Psychology, Saarland University, PB 15 11 50, D-66041, Saarbruecken, Germany

    Dagmar C. Unz & Frank Schwab

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Finger, J., Unz, D.C. & Schwab, F. Crime Scene Investigation: The Chief Inspectors’ Display Rules. Sex Roles 62, 798–809 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-009-9722-5

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