Emotional Display Rules and Emotional Labor: The Moderating Role of Commitment.

The authors examined whether commitment to emotional display rules is a necessary condition for emotional display rules to affect behavior at work. Results using structural equation modeling revealed that display rule commitment moderated the relationships of emotional display rule perceptions with surface acting, deep acting, and positive affective delivery at work, such that the relationships were strong and positive when commitment to display rules was high and weak when commitment to display rules was low. These findings suggest that motivation plays a role in the emotional labor process in that individuals must be committed to display rules for these rules to affect behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antecedents and consequences of emotional display rule perceptions.

Central to all theories of emotional labor is the idea that individuals follow emotional display rules that specify the appropriate expression of emotions on the job. This investigation examined antecedents and consequences of emotional display rule perceptions. Full-time working adults (N = 152) from a variety of occupations provided self-report data, and supervisors and coworkers completed measures pertaining to the focal employees. Results using structural equation modeling revealed that job-based interpersonal requirements, supervisor display rule perceptions, and employee extraversion and neuroticism were predictive of employee display rule perceptions. Employee display rule perceptions, in turn, were related to self-reported job satisfaction and coworker ratings of employees' emotional displays on the job. Finally, neuroticism had direct negative relationships with job satisfaction and coworker ratings of employees' emotional displays. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Episodic processes in emotional labor: Perceptions of affective delivery and regulation strategies.

This study examined emotional labor processes from a within-person, episodic framework. The authors hypothesized that the influence of negative emotions on affective delivery would be lessened by regulation strategies for supervisor perceptions but not self-perceptions. In addition, difficulty maintaining display rules was hypothesized to mediate the relation between negative emotions and self-perceptions of affective delivery. Finally, the influence of surface acting strategies on these processes as well as correlations with individual differences was investigated. Hypotheses were tested using ecological momentary assessment of a sample of cheerleading instructors. Results suggest that surface actors can regulate emotions effectively on an episode-to-episode basis but find the episode more difficult. In addition, surface actors exhibit more general tendencies to devalue themselves and experience fewer positive emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variations of emotional display rules within and across cultures: A comparison between Canada, USA, and Japan.

This study investigates emotional display rules for seven basic emotions. The main goal was to compare emotional display rules of Canadians, US Americans, and Japanese across as well as within cultures regarding the specific emotion, the type of interaction partner, and gender. A total of 835 university students participated in the study. The results indicate that Japanese display rules permit the expression of powerful (anger, contempt, and disgust) significantly less than those of the two North American samples. Japanese also think that they should express positive emotions (happiness, surprise) significantly less than the Canadian sample. Furthermore, Japanese varied the display rules for different interaction partners more than the two North American samples did only for powerful emotions. Gender differences were similar across all three cultural groups. Men expressed powerful emotions more than women and women expressed powerless emotions (sadness, fear) and happiness more than men. Depending on the type of emotion and interaction partner some shared display rules occurred across culture and gender. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to cultural dimensions and other cultural characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion regulation in customer service roles: Testing a model of emotional labor.

The study used a time-sampling method to test aspects of A. Grandey's (2000) emotion regulation model of emotional labor. Eighteen customer service employees from a call center recorded data on pocket computers every 2 hr at work for 2 weeks. Participants completed ratings of emotion regulation, events, expressed and felt emotions, well-being, and performance on 537 occasions and completed questionnaires containing individual and organizational measures. Multilevel analyses supported many aspects of the model but indicated that it has to be implemented precisely in terms of regulating emotion for organizational goals. Results also showed that deep and surface acting had different consequences for employees. Overall, the study found that emotion regulation is a viable platform for understanding emotional labor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The ability to regulate emotion is associated with greater well-being, income, and socioeconomic status.

Are people who are best able to implement strategies to regulate their emotional expressive behavior happier and more successful than their counterparts? Although past research has examined individual variation in knowledge of the most effective emotion regulation strategies, little is known about how individual differences in the ability to actually implement these strategies, as assessed objectively in the laboratory, are associated with external criteria. In two studies, we examined how individual variation in the ability to modify emotional expressive behavior in response to evocative stimuli is related to well-being and financial success. Study 1 showed that individuals who can best suppress their emotional reaction to an acoustic startle are happiest with their lives. Study 2 showed that individuals who can best amplify their emotional reaction to a disgust-eliciting movie are happiest with their lives and have the highest disposable income and socioeconomic status. Thus, being able to implement emotion regulation strategies in the laboratory is closely linked to well-being and financial success. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: A meta-analysis of three decades of research.

This article provides a quantitative review of the link of emotional labor (emotion–rule dissonance, surface acting, and deep acting) with well-being and performance outcomes. The meta-analysis is based on 494 individual correlations drawn from a final sample of 95 independent studies. Results revealed substantial relationships of emotion–rule dissonance and surface acting with indicators of impaired well-being (ρs between .39 and .48) and job attitudes (ρs between ?.24 and ?.40) and a small negative relationship with performance outcomes (ρs between ?.20 and ?.05). Overall, deep acting displayed weak relationships with indicators of impaired well-being and job attitudes but positive relationships with emotional performance and customer satisfaction (ρs .18 and .37). A meta-analytic regression analysis provides information on the unique contribution of emotion–rule dissonance, surface acting, and deep acting in statistically predicting well-being and performance outcomes. Furthermore, a mediation analysis confirms theoretical models of emotional labor which suggest that surface acting partially mediates the relationship of emotion–rule dissonance with well-being. Implications for future research as well as pragmatic ramifications for organizational practices are discussed in conclusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Look before you regulate: Differential perceptual strategies underlying expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal.

Successful emotion regulation is important for maintaining psychological well-being. Although it is known that emotion regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, may have divergent consequences for emotional responses, the cognitive processes underlying these differences remain unclear. Here we used eye-tracking to investigate the role of attentional deployment in emotion regulation success. We hypothesized that differences in the deployment of attention to emotional areas of complex visual scenes may be a contributing factor to the differential effects of these two strategies on emotional experience. Eye-movements, pupil size, and self-reported negative emotional experience were measured while healthy young adult participants viewed negative IAPS images and regulated their emotional responses using either cognitive reappraisal or expressive suppression. Consistent with prior work, reappraisers reported feeling significantly less negative than suppressers when regulating emotion as compared to a baseline condition. Across both groups, participants looked away from emotional areas during emotion regulation, an effect that was more pronounced for suppressers. Critically, irrespective of emotion regulation strategy, participants who looked toward emotional areas of a complex visual scene were more likely to experience emotion regulation success. Taken together, these results demonstrate that attentional deployment varies across emotion regulation strategies and that successful emotion regulation depends on the extent to which people look toward emotional content in complex visual scenes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subjective responses to emotional stimuli during labeling, reappraisal, and distraction.

Although multiple neuroimaging studies suggest that affect labeling (i.e., putting feelings into words) can dampen affect-related responses in the amygdala, the consequences of affect labeling have not been examined in other channels of emotional responding. We conducted four studies examining the effect of affect labeling on self-reported emotional experience. In study one, self-reported distress was lower during affect labeling, compared to passive watching, of negative emotional pictures. Studies two and three added reappraisal and distraction conditions, respectively. Affect labeling showed similar effects on self-reported distress as both of these intentional emotion regulation strategies. In each of the first three studies, however, participant predictions about the effects of affect labeling suggest that unlike reappraisal and distraction, people do not believe affect labeling to be an effective emotion regulation strategy. Even after having the experience of affect labels leading to lower distress, participants still predicted that affect labeling would increase distress in the future. Thus, affect labeling is best described as an incidental emotion regulation process. Finally, study four employed positive emotional pictures and here, affect labeling was associated with diminished self-reported pleasure, relative to passive watching. This suggests that affect labeling tends to dampen affective responses in general, rather than specifically alleviating negative affect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Service with a smile: Do emotional intelligence, gender, and autonomy moderate the emotional labor process?

This survey study of 176 participants from eight customer service organizations investigated how individual factors moderate the impact of emotional labor strategies on employee well-being. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that gender and autonomy were significant moderators of the relationships between emotional labor strategies and the personal outcomes of emotional exhaustion, affective well-being, and job satisfaction. Females were more likely to experience negative consequences when engaging in surface acting. Autonomy served to alleviate negative outcomes for individuals who used emotional labor strategies often. Contrary to our hypotheses, emotional intelligence did not moderate the relationship between the emotional labor strategies and personal outcomes. Results demonstrated how the emotional labor process can influence employee well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional intelligence: An integrative meta-analysis and cascading model.

Research and valid practice in emotional intelligence (EI) have been impeded by lack of theoretical clarity regarding (a) the relative roles of emotion perception, emotion understanding, and emotion regulation facets in explaining job performance; (b) conceptual redundancy of EI with cognitive intelligence and Big Five personality; and (c) application of the EI label to 2 distinct sets of constructs (i.e., ability-based EI and mixed-based EI). In the current article, the authors propose and then test a theoretical model that integrates these factors. They specify a progressive (cascading) pattern among ability-based EI facets, in which emotion perception must causally precede emotion understanding, which in turn precedes conscious emotion regulation and job performance. The sequential elements in this progressive model are believed to selectively reflect Conscientiousness, cognitive ability, and Neuroticism, respectively. “Mixed-based” measures of EI are expected to explain variance in job performance beyond cognitive ability and personality. The cascading model of EI is empirically confirmed via meta-analytic data, although relationships between ability-based EI and job performance are shown to be inconsistent (i.e., EI positively predicts performance for high emotional labor jobs and negatively predicts performance for low emotional labor jobs). Gender and race differences in EI are also meta-analyzed. Implications for linking the EI fad in personnel selection to established psychological theory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Display Rule "Regulators": The Relationship Between Supervisors and Worker Emotional Exhaustion.

This field study examined the effect of supervisory regulation of display rules--the rules about what kind of emotion to express on the job (R. Ekman, 1992; A. Rafaeli & R. I. Sutton, 1987)--on the emotional exhaustion of subordinates. On the basis of a sample of 940 call center employees, the authors found that worker emotional exhaustion varied across supervisors within jobs, suggesting that emotion work is influenced at the supervisory, rather than job, level. Moreover, the authors found that the importance supervisors place on interpersonal job demands of their workers was positively related to worker emotional exhaustion. Worker career identity moderated the interpersonal-job-demands--emotional-exhaustion relationship, but self-efficacy did not. Study conclusions and suggestions for future research are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Longitudinal effects of emotional labour on emotional exhaustion and dedication of teachers.

A great number of teachers find teaching fulfilling and are dedicated to it, but others feel emotionally exhausted, indicating that the interaction with pupils can be emotionally demanding. Emotional labor was shown to play an important role for the health of teachers. In a full two-wave longitudinal study over the period of 1 year, the effect of emotional labor on emotional exhaustion and dedication of 102 teachers was investigated. Teachers who were able to influence their emotions to feel the emotion appropriate in a situation (so called deep acting) felt significantly less emotionally exhausted after 1 year. From this result, deep acting can, thus, be characterized as health-beneficial. Once teachers felt emotionally exhausted, they used more surface acting. More dedicated teachers, on the contrary, did neither engage more in deep acting nor in surface acting at Time 2. This indicates that those teachers who are dedicated to teaching seem less likely to act. To prevent emotional exhaustion of teachers, the development of interventions to promote health-beneficial emotional labor is necessary. This can be achieved by fostering deep acting, which reduces emotional exhaustion over longer periods of time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When customers lash out: The effects of customer interactional injustice on emotional labor and the mediating role of discrete emotions.

Using affective events theory to integrate multifoci justice and emotional labor (EL), this lab study examined the effects of customer interactional justice on EL perceived by both the self and others. Participants played the role of customer-service representatives in a workplace simulation and were exposed to either interactionally fair or unfair customers. Results showed that unfairly treated participants engaged in higher levels of EL and found it more difficult to comply with display rules than did participants who were fairly treated. The above link was partially mediated by anger. Our findings suggest that customers are a viable source of justice, and customer behavior impacts the effort required of service workers to adhere to organizationally sanctioned emotional display rules. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Must "Service With a Smile" Be Stressful? The Moderating Role of Personal Control for American and French Employees.

Suppressing and faking emotional expressions depletes personal resources and predicts job strain for customer-contact employees. The authors argue that personal control over behavior, in the job and within the national culture, provides compensatory resources that reduce this strain. With a survey study of 196 employees from the United States and France, the authors supported that high job autonomy buffered the relationship of emotion regulation with emotional exhaustion and, to a lesser extent, job dissatisfaction. The relationship of emotion regulation with job dissatisfaction also depended on the emotional culture; the relationship was weaker for French customer-contact employees who were proposed to have more personal control over expressions than U.S. employees. Theoretical and research implications for the emotion regulation literature and practical suggestions for minimizing job strain are proposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emergent themes in the study of emotional development and emotion regulation.

Makes explicit a reconceptualization of the nature of emotion that over the past decade has fostered the study of emotion regulation. In the past, emotions were considered to be feeling states indexed by behavioral expressions: now, emotions are considered to be processes of establishing, maintaining, or disrupting the relation between the organism and the environment on matters of significance to the person. When emotions were conceptualized in the traditional way as feelings, emotion regulation centered on ego-defense mechanisms and display rules. The former was difficult to test; the latter was narrow in scope. By contrast, the notion of emotions as relational processes has shifted interest to the study of person/environment transactions in the elicitations of emotion and to the functions of action tendencies, emotional "expressions," language, and behavioral coping mechanisms. The article also treats the importance of affect in the continuity of self-development by documenting the impressive stability of at least two emotional dispositions: irritability and inhibition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The primacy of perceiving: Emotion recognition buffers negative effects of emotional labor.

There is ample empirical evidence for negative effects of emotional labor (surface acting and deep acting) on workers' well-being. This study analyzed to what extent workers' ability to recognize others' emotions may buffer these effects. In a 4-week study with 85 nurses and police officers, emotion recognition moderated the relationship between emotional labor and work engagement: Workers with high emotion recognition engaging in emotional labor did not report lower work engagement after 4 weeks, whereas those with low emotion recognition did. These effects pertained to both surface and deep acting. The results suggest that emotional labor be not necessarily detrimental to workers' engagement. Instead, the impact of emotional labor hinges upon workers' ability to correctly identify interaction partners' emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

An index of self-regulation of emotion and the study of repression in social contexts that threaten or do not threaten self-concept.

This research tests a model of repression (M. Mendolia, 1999; M. Mendolia, J. Moore, & A. Tesser, 1996) which specifies that the interaction of individual differences in emotional responsiveness and situational threats to self-concept contributes to one's tendency to regulate emotional responsiveness. This research demonstrates that (a) individuals regulate their autonomic activity, facial muscle activity, cognitive attention, and subjective experience during isolated and repeated exposures to self-threatening negative and positive emotional events and (b) repressive behavior can be predicted by the Index of Self-Regulation of Emotion, which complements and extends conventional categorical measures of dispositional repression. This model provides a more detailed understanding of basic mechanisms in emotion by identifying how individual differences in emotionality and particular social contexts contribute to self-regulation of emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal abuse from outsiders versus insiders: Comparing frequency, impact on emotional exhaustion, and the role of emotional labor.

Research on aggression from organizational outsiders (customers, clients or patients) has ignored insider-instigated aggression, and has been limited to employees in emotional labor jobs (e.g., social work and customer services). The authors argue that customer-employee interactions have distinct characteristics from organizational insider interactions, and provide two studies to compare the frequency and strain of verbal abuse from customers, supervisors and coworkers. Furthermore, they assess whether customer verbal abuse is only a critical issue for employees in jobs requiring emotional labor, measured with both O*NET job codes and self-reported display rules. With a national random sample of U.S. employees (n = 2446) and a convenience sample of U.S. employees who have customer contact (n = 121), the authors find that verbal abuse from outsiders (1) occurs more frequently than insider verbal abuse, particularly for those with higher emotional labor requirements, and (2) predicts emotional exhaustion over and above insider verbal abuse, regardless of emotional labor requirements. The authors conclude that better integration of customer aggression and insider aggression research is needed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion.

At the heart of emotion, mood, and any other emotionally charged event are states experienced as simply feeling good or bad, energized or enervated. These states--called core affect--influence reflexes, perception, cognition, and behavior and are influenced by many causes internal and external, but people have no direct access to these causal connections. Core affect can therefore be experienced as freefloating (mood) or can be attributed to some cause (and thereby begin an emotional episode). These basic processes spawn a broad framework that includes perception of the core-affect-altering properties of stimuli, motives, empathy, emotional meta-experience, and affect versus emotion regulation; it accounts for prototypical emotional episodes, such as fear and anger, as core affect attributed to something plus various nonemotional processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)