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)     

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)     

Emotional regulation in the workplace: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor.

The topic of emotions in the workplace is beginning to garner closer attention by researchers and theorists. The study of emotional labor addresses the stress of managing emotions when the work role demands that certain expressions be shown to customers. However, there has been no overarching framework to guide this work, and the previous studies have often disagreed on the definition and operationalization of emotional labor. The purposes of this article are as follows: to review and compare previous perspectives of emotional labor, to provide a definition of emotional labor that integrates these perspectives, to discuss emotion regulation as a guiding theory for understanding the mechanisms of emotional labor, and to present a model of emotional labor that includes individual differences (such as emotional intelligence) and organizational factors (such as supervisor support). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 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)     

Stress, affiliation, and emotional contagion.

Female participants were exposed to high or low threat in the presence of another person believed to be facing either the same or a different situation. In Study 1, each dyad consisted of 2 actual participants, whereas in Study 2, each dyad consisted of 1 participant and 1 confederate, trained to convey either a calm or a nervous reaction to the situation. Affiliation patterns in both studies, defined in terms of the amount of time spent looking at the affiliate, were consistent with S. Schachter's (1959) "emotional similarity hypothesis;" threat increased affiliation and did so particularly with affiliates believed to be facing the same situation. The authors also found evidence of behavioral mimicry, in terms of facial expressions, and emotional contagion, in terms of self-reported anxiety. The behavioral mimicry and emotional contagion results are considered from both primitive emotional contagion and social comparison theory perspectives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and depressive symptoms: Parents' sharing of instrumental and expressive tasks when their children are young.

The impact of division of labor, including emotional work, on levels of depressive symptoms was examined. A self-selected sample of 102 middle-class couples with at least 1 child under 5 years of age completed questionnaires. Women's depressive symptoms were predicted by emotional work, as well as by appraisal of conflict between a division of labor that would suit themselves and a division that would be best for the family. Men's depressive symptoms were predicted by their spouse's disagreement with their estimate of how much housework they performed. Depressive symptoms for both men and women were associated with discrepancies between premarital expectations and the current division of labor. Focus on division of labor, especially sharing of emotional work, is recommended for treating depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A trickle-down model of organizational justice: Relating employees' and customers' perceptions of and reactions to fairness.

This study developed and tested a trickle-down model of organizational justice that hypothesized that employees' perceptions of fairness should affect their attitudes toward the organization, subsequently influencing their behaviors toward customers. In turn, customers should interpret these behaviors as signals of fair treatment, causing them to react positively to both the employee and the organization. The model was tested on a sample of 187 instructors and their students. The results revealed that instructors who perceived high distributive and procedural justice reported higher organizational commitment. In turn, their students reported higher levels of instructor effort, prosocial behaviors, and fairness, as well as more positive reactions to the instructor. Overall, the results imply that fair treatment of employees has important organizational consequences because of customers' attitudes and future intentions toward key service employees. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Workplace emotions: The role of supervision and leadership.

In this experience sampling study, the authors examined the role of organizational leaders in employees' emotional experiences. Data were collected from health care workers 4 times a day for 2 weeks. Results indicate supervisors were associated with employee emotions in 3 ways: (a) Employees experienced fewer positive emotions when interacting with their supervisors as compared with interactions with coworkers and customers; (b) employees with supervisors high on transformational leadership experienced more positive emotions throughout the workday, including interactions with coworkers and customers; and (c) employees who regulated their emotions experienced decreased job satisfaction and increased stress, but those with supervisors high on transformational leadership were less likely to experience decreased job satisfaction. The results also suggest that the effects of emotional regulation on stress are long lasting (up to 2 hr) and not easily reduced by leadership behaviors. (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)     

Aspects of social and emotional competence in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Social and emotional competence were evaluated using self-report and behavioral measures in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and controls. Adults with ADHD viewed themselves as less socially competent but more sensitive toward violations of social norms than controls. Films depicting emotional interactions were used to assess linguistic properties of free recall and perceived emotional intensity. Although adults with ADHD used more words to describe the scenes, they used fewer emotion-related words, despite rating the emotions depicted as more intense than did controls. In contrast, no group differences for words depicting social or cognitive processes were observed. Overall, adults with ADHD appear more aware of their problems in social versus emotional skills. Findings may have implications for improving the psychosocial functioning of these adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cooperating when “you” and “I” are treated fairly: The moderating role of leader prototypicality.

We developed a model predicting that leaders are most effective in stimulating follower cooperation when they consistently treat all group members in a fair manner and are prototypical (i.e., representative of the group's values and norms). In support of this idea, we consistently found that group members cooperated most when prototypical leaders treated themselves as well as their coworkers fairly across a laboratory experiment and 3 cross-sectional field studies. These findings highlight the important role of others' fairness experiences and perceptions in influencing one's own reactions and also the role of leaders as representing the group's values and norms. We discuss implications for fairness theory and the leader prototypicality literature. (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)     

Embodied auditory perception: The emotional impact of approaching and receding sound sources.

Research has shown the existence of perceptual and neural bias toward sounds perceived as sources approaching versus receding a listener. It has been suggested that a greater biological salience of approaching auditory sources may account for these effects. In addition, these effects may hold only for those sources critical for our survival. In the present study, we bring support to these hypotheses by quantifying the emotional responses to different sounds with changing intensity patterns. In 2 experiments, participants were exposed to artificial and natural sounds simulating approaching or receding sources. The auditory-induced emotional effect was reflected in the performance of participants in an emotion-related behavioral task, their self-reported emotional experience, and their physiology (electrodermal activity and facial electromyography). The results of this study suggest that approaching unpleasant sound sources evoke more intense emotional responses in listeners than receding ones, whereas such an effect of perceived sound motion does not exist for pleasant or neutral sound sources. The emotional significance attributed to the sound source itself, the loudness of the sound, and loudness change duration seem to be relevant factors in this disparity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cobalamin and folate deficiency: acquired and hereditary disorders in children

Two experiments examined the viability of several explanations for why majority group individuals process persuasive messages from stigmatized sources more than those from nonstigmatized sources. In each study, majority group participants who either were high or low in prejudice or were high or low in ambivalence toward a stigmatized source's group were exposed to a persuasive communication attributed to a stigmatized (Black, Experiment 1; homosexual, Experiment 2) or nonstigmatized (White, Experiment 1; heterosexual, Experiment 2) source. In both studies, source stigmatization increased message scrutiny only among those who were low in prejudice toward the stigmatized group. This finding is most consistent with the view that people scrutinize messages from stigmatized sources in order to guard against possibly unfair reactions by themselves or others.     

Willing and able to fake emotions: A closer examination of the link between emotional dissonance and employee well-being.

Emotional dissonance resulting from an employee's emotional labor is usually considered to lead to negative employee outcomes, such as job dissatisfaction and emotional exhaustion. Drawing on Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory, we argue that the relationship between service employees' surface acting and job dissatisfaction and emotional exhaustion is moderated by 2 aspects of a service worker's self-concept: the importance of displaying authentic emotions (reflecting the self-concept's self-liking dimension) and the employee's self-efficacy when faking emotions (reflecting the self-competence dimension). A survey of 528 frontline employees from a wide variety of service jobs provides support for the moderating role of both self-concept dimensions, which moderate 3 out of 4 relationships. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed from the perspectives of cognitive dissonance and emotional labor theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responding to threat: Hemispheric asymmetries and interhemispheric division of input.

This investigation examined how hemispheric asymmetry and interhemispheric processing contribute to attentional biases toward emotional information. Participants (n?=?88) named the color of lateralized squares presented concurrently with neutral, positive, or threatening words. A left-hemisphere advantage in color naming was reduced when distractors were emotional, suggesting right-hemisphere priming by emotional stimuli. Furthermore, the advantage of dividing the word and color across visual fields was increased for emotion words when they were frequently presented, indicating a strategic use of interhemispheric division of labor to reduce the distracting effect of emotional words. Finally, participants with high levels of anxious apprehension were most likely to make use of this interhemispheric processing strategy, supporting a processing efficiency theory of cognitive function in anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stigmatized sources and persuasion: Prejudice as a determinant of argument scrutiny.

Two experiments examined the viability of several explanations for why majority group individuals process persuasive messages from stigmatized sources more than those from nonstigmatized sources. in each study. majority group participants who either were high or low in prejudice or were high or low in ambivalence toward a stigmatized source's group were exposed to a persuasive communication attributed to a stigmatized (Black, Experiment 1; homosexual, Experiment 2) or nonstigmatized (White, Experiment 1; heterosexual, Experiment 2) source. In both studies, source stigmatization increased message scrutiny only among those who were low in prejudice toward the stigmatized group. This finding is most consistent with the view that people scrutinize messages from stigmatized sources in order to guard against possibly unfair reactions by themselves or others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Victim entitlement to behave selfishly.

Three experiments demonstrated that feeling wronged leads to a sense of entitlement and to selfish behavior. In Experiment 1, participants instructed to recall a time when their lives were unfair were more likely to refuse to help the experimenter with a supplementary task than were participants who recalled a time when they were bored. In Experiment 2, the same manipulation increased intentions to engage in a number of selfish behaviors, and this effect was mediated by self-reported entitlement to obtain positive (and avoid negative) outcomes. In Experiment 3, participants who lost at a computer game for an unfair reason (a glitch in the program) requested a more selfish money allocation for a future task than did participants who lost the game for a fair reason, and this effect was again mediated by entitlement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional self-disclosure and emotional avoidance: Relations with symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Research suggests that individuals with heightened symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders engage in diminished emotional disclosure. On the basis of emotion regulation theories, the authors hypothesized that this symptom–disclosure relationship would be mediated by the avoidance of emotional experience and expression. In Study 1, college students (N = 831) completed measures of depression and anxiety symptoms, measures of tendencies to avoid emotional expression, and measures of tendencies to self-disclose distress. Structural equation modeling revealed that anhedonic depression and anxious arousal were associated with lessened emotional self-disclosure tendencies as mediated by avoidance of emotional expression. In Study 2, participants (N = 153) completed new measures of depression and anxiety symptoms, reflected on the most significant emotional event experienced during the past week, and rated their avoidance of emotion about the event and their self-disclosure of the event. Depression (but not anxiety) symptoms were negatively related to the disclosure of a specific event, but avoidance of emotional experience did not mediate this depression–disclosure relationship. These findings extend emotion dysregulation theory and suggest that depressive symptoms in particular are associated with reduced emotional disclosure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions of intentions and fairness judgments regarding interracial peer encounters.

To investigate how adolescents interpret ambiguous actions in hypothetical interracial peer encounters, we conducted a study in which 8th- and 11th-grade students (N = 837) evaluated 4 interracial peer encounters in which the intentions of the protagonist were ambiguous. The sample was evenly divided by gender and included both African American and European American adolescents. European American students, male adolescents, and 8th graders were more likely to attribute negative intentions to the protagonist in interracial exchanges than were African American students, female adolescents, and 11th graders. Although all participants viewed peer and teacher accusations of wrongdoing in ambiguous situations as unfair, ethnic minority students as well as female adolescents rated accusations of wrongdoing as more unfair than did ethnic majority or male adolescents. Eleventh graders were more likely to view accusations of wrongdoing for protagonists with a prior history of transgression as fair than were 8th graders. The findings are discussed in light of efforts to reduce prejudice and to facilitate positive intergroup peer interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)