Do race and gender matter in police stress? A preliminary assessment of the interactive effects Ni He a, * , Jihong Zhao b , Ling Ren b a College of Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115-5000, United States b Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182, United States Abstract The interactive effects of race and gender in a multi-dimensional assessment of police occupational stress were examined in this study. The sample from a large urban police department was divided into four subgroups: White males, African-American males, White females, and African-American females. Comparisons were carried out to assess group differences in three major domains of stress process: stressors, coping mechanisms, and multiple psychological manifestations of stress. Specific attentions were paid to observe any similar or dissimilar interactive effects of race and gender on the stress process. The results showed that dynamic factors such as measures of work environment and coping mechanisms contributed more in explaining police stress than static factors such as race and gender. Additionally, destructive coping and work-family conflict (spillover ) were the most stable correlates of police stress across all subgroups included in the analysis. The impacts of negative exposure and camaraderie on police stress were conditional on the subgroup statuses. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed. D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Although it was argued that racism and sexism remained deeply embedded in police culture (Martin, 2004; Walker, 1985), increased diversity in American police force became one of the most noticeable changes in the past decades. For both minority and female officers, the road leading to their full acceptance in police force seemed long and uncertain (Martin, 1991; Steel & Lovrich, 1987; Warner, Steel, & Lovrich, 1989; Zhao & Lovrich, 1998). The police profession, not unlike other traditional bAnglo male sex-typed occu- pationsQ (Haarr & Morash, 1999), presented a rather challenging or even outright hostile work environment for women and minority officers. Martin (2004) suc- cinctly described how White male officers often fit African-American officers into their devalued social status while seeing women officers in gender defined roles. Understandably, a potential outcome of such racial and/or sexual discriminations could be the ma- nifestations of heightened psychological stress on the part of the minority and women officers. In spite of the plethora of literature on the relation- ship between police work and job-related stress, there was a paucity of empirical evidence pertaining to the interactive effects of race and gender on the police stress process. Three domains of the stress process included: stressors, stress mediators, and stress out- comes. Researchers argued that social stratifications such as those based on race and gender could provide insights to better understand an individual’s stress pro- cess (Pearlin, 1989). 0047-2352/$ - see front matter D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2005.08.003 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 617 373 2622; fax: +1 617 373 8998. E-mail address: n.he@neu.edu (N. He). Journal of Criminal Justice 33 (2005) 535 – 547