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)     

Specifying emotional information: Regulation of emotional intensity via executive processes.

The degree of specificity at which emotional information is activated might determine evoked emotional intensity. However, the nature of this effect remains unclear. Four studies tested (a) whether people hold the na?ve theory that activating specific details of emotional information arouses acute feelings; (b) whether an emotionally distressed population (social phobics) also holds that theory; and (c) whether voluntarily focusing on specific aspects of a distressing situation reduces its emotional impact. Results indicate that control as well as emotionally distressed people hold a na?ve theory that specifying emotion increases its intensity. However, Studies 3 and 4 showed that voluntarily elaborating specific aspects of a distressing situation reduces distress. Results are discussed in terms of voluntary versus automatic processing of emotional information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An Episodic Process Model of Affective Influences on Performance.

In this article, the authors present a model linking immediate affective experiences to within-person performance. First, the authors define a time structure for performance (the performance episode) that is commensurate with the dynamic nature of affect. Next, the authors examine the core cognitive and regulatory processes that determine performance for 1 person during any particular episode. Third, the authors describe how various emotions and moods influence the intermediary performance processes, thereby affecting performance. In the final section of the article, the authors discuss limitations, future research directions, and practical implications for their episodic process model of affect and performance. (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)     

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)     

Episodic and semantic knowledge in emotional self-report: Evidence for two judgment processes.

Three studies involving 3 participant samples (Ns = 39, 55, and 53) tested the hypothesis that people retrieve episodic emotion knowledge when reporting on their emotions over short (e.g., last few hours) time frames, but that they retrieve semantic emotion knowledge when reporting on their emotions over long (e.g., last few months) time frames. Support for 2 distinct judgment strategies was based on judgment latencies (Studies I and 2) and priming paradigms (Studies 2 and 3). The authors suggest that self-reports of emotion over short versus long time frames assess qualitatively different sources of self-knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The unconscious regulation of emotion: Nonconscious reappraisal goals modulate emotional reactivity.

People often encounter difficulty when making conscious attempts to regulate their emotions. We propose that nonconscious self-regulatory processes may be of help in these difficult circumstances because nonconscious processes are not subject to the same set of limitations as are conscious processes. Two experiments examined the effects of nonconsciously operating goals on people’s emotion regulatory success. In Experiment 1, participants engaged in an anxiety-eliciting task. Participants who had a reappraisal emotion control goal primed and operating nonconsciously achieved the same decrease in physiological reactivity as those explicitly instructed to reappraise. In Experiment 2, the effect of nonconscious reappraisal priming on physiological reactivity was shown to be most pronounced for those who do not habitually use reappraisal strategies. The findings highlight the potential importance of nonconscious goals for facilitating emotional control in complex real-world environments and have implications for contemporary models of emotion regulation. (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)     

Mood regulation and emotional intelligence: Individual differences.

In 3 studies (Ns = 250, 83, 236), an examination of differences in how individuals experience their emotions (meta-emotion traits of clarity, attention, and intensity) led to the identification of 4 distinct types (overwhelmed, hot, cerebral, and cool). When mood was manipulated, the types differed in how they initially reacted to the emotional situation, how they regulated their mood and how they made judgments. In particular, one type of individual (the hot type) was more reactive to emotional situations than the others. Another type of individual (the overwhelmed type) regulated mood differently than the others, which led these individuals to make judgments that were also different. Overwhelmed individuals appeared unable or unwilling to avail themselves of critical affective information. (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)     

Review of Assessment and modification of emotional behavior.

Reviews the book, Assessment and Modification of Emotional Behavior edited by Kirk R. Blankstein, Patricia Pliner, and Janet Polivy ( 1980). This book brings together a collection of papers by participants at a symposium held at the University of Toronto's Erindale College. Although both assessment and modification are treated within each paper, the book can be divided into roughly two parts. Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 7 focus on assessment. Both Averill and Zuckerman raise the issue of why negative emotional terms occur more often in both psychology and the common vocabulary. Zuckerman argues convincingly that therapy removing unpleasant emotions is dealing with only one half of the problem and it might be useful to induce pleasant emotions since these may "innoculate" clients against future negative experiences. Plutchik reviews his theory on the evolutionary origins of emotions and extends it to the identification of traits and defense mechanisms. Meichenbaum's chapter on "cognitive ethology" discusses the two-way relationship between emotions and cognitions and reviews different procedures for studying cognitions accompanying emotional behaviour. The remainder of the book deals with modification of behaviour and includes chapters on depression, anxiety, and heart attack related stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Encouraging the perceptual underdog: Positive affective priming of nonpreferred local–global processes.

Two experiments examined affective priming of global and local perception. Participants attempted to detect a target that might be present as either a global or a local shape. Verbal primes were used in 1 experiment, and pictorial primes were used in the other. In both experiments, positive primes led to improved performance on the nonpreferred dimension. For participants exhibiting global precedence, detection of local targets was significantly improved, whereas for participants exhibiting local precedence, detection of global targets was significantly improved. The results provide support for an interpretation of the effects of positive affective priming in terms of increased perceptual flexibility. (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)     

Angry, guilty, and conflicted: Injustice toward coworkers heightens emotional labor through cognitive and emotional mechanisms.

This study drew on fairness theory and affective events theory to explain why individuals' emotional labor is impacted by injustice extended toward coworkers by their customers. Pairs of participants worked side by side as customer-service representatives for a simulated organization. They interacted with fair/unfair customers as well as observed face-to-face service encounters between their coworker and fair/unfair customers. Results indicated that participants' emotional labor increased both as a result of unfairness directed toward themselves as well as toward their coworkers. These effects were mediated by both discrete emotions and fairness-related counterfactual thinking and were significant even when the participants themselves had been treated fairly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using reappraisal to regulate unpleasant emotional episodes: Goals and timing matter.

The hypothesis that cognitive reappraisal will have different effects on emotion as a function of regulatory goal and the timing with which reappraisals are enacted within an emotion episode was tested. Forty-one participants reappraised situations depicted in unpleasant pictures by imagining those situations getting worse (increase), staying the same (maintain), or getting better (decrease). Reappraisal instructions were delivered 2 s before (anticipatory) or 4 s after (online) picture onset. Measures of rated unpleasantness, expressive behavior (corrugator muscle activity), heart rate (HR), and electrodermal activity (EDA) were collected. Increase reappraisals produced higher rated unpleasantness, corrugator muscle activity, HR, and EDA relative to maintain reappraisals. For corrugator muscle activity and EDA, the effect of increase reappraisals was only apparent when enacted online. Decrease reappraisals produced lower rated unpleasantness relative to maintain reappraisals but had no effect on expressive behavior or autonomic physiology. The effect of decrease reappraisals did not depend on when reappraisal was enacted. These data underscore the importance of regulatory goals and the impact of regulatory timing as a moderator of emotion regulatory success within an emotion episode. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental drinking problems and children's adjustment: Vagal regulation and emotional reactivity as pathways and moderators of risk.

Children's emotional regulation (as indexed by vagal suppression) and children's emotional reactivity during an argument were examined as moderators and mediators of parental problem drinking and children's adjustment in a sample of 6- to 12-year-olds. Cardiac vagal tone was assessed during both a baseline condition and exposure to an audiotaped argument. Vagal suppression was calculated by subtracting vagal tone during the baseline from that recorded during the argument, with a higher number representing increased suppression of vagal tone during the argument. Emotional reactivity was based on both observations of overt behaviors of children and their reported feelings during the argument. A higher level of vagal suppression was a protective factor against children's externalizing, internalizing, and social problems associated with exposure to parental problem drinking. Emotional reactivity was a vulnerability factor, and children's increased anger and fear, and to a lesser degree sadness, each moderated and exacerbated the effects of parental problem drinking on child outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and emotional memory: The forgettable nature of negative images for older adults.

Two studies examined age differences in recall and recognition memory for positive, negative, and neutral stimuli. In Study 1, younger, middle-aged, and older adults were shown images on a computer screen and, after a distraction task, were asked first to recall as many as they could and then to identify previously shown images from a set of old and new ones. The relative number of negative images compared with positive and neutral images recalled decreased with each successively older age group. Recognition memory showed a similar decrease with age in the relative memory advantage for negative pictures. In Study 2, the largest age differences in recall and recognition accuracy were also for the negative images. Findings are consistent with socioemotional selectivity theory, which posits greater investment in emotion regulation with age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional display rules as work unit norms: A multilevel analysis of emotional labor among nurses.

Emotional labor theory has conceptualized emotional display rules as shared norms governing the expression of emotions at work. Using a sample of registered nurses working in different units of a hospital system, we provided the first empirical evidence that display rules can be represented as shared, unit-level beliefs. Additionally, controlling for the influence of dispositional affectivity, individual-level display rule perceptions, and emotion regulation, we found that unit-level display rules are associated with individual-level job satisfaction. We also showed that unit-level display rules relate to burnout indirectly through individual-level display rule perceptions and emotion regulation strategies. Finally, unit-level display rules also interacted with individual-level dispositional affectivity to predict employee use of emotion regulation strategies. We discuss how future research on emotional labor and display rules, particularly in the health care setting, can build on these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of written emotional expression: The role of positive expectancies.

Objective: Writing in an emotional way about stressful or traumatic experiences has beneficial effects on emotional well-being and physical health. Yet the mechanisms that underlie these effects still need to be explored. Integrating research on the effects of positive expectancies, the authors suggest that positive effects of written emotional expression may, in part, depend on expectancies induced by writing about emotional experiences. Design: Two studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. In both studies, participants wrote about either an upsetting event or trivial issues. After the writing period, participants rated their expectancies that the writing intervention would improve (or impair) their emotional well-being over time. Main Outcome Measures: Study 1 assessed the emotional impact of an upsetting event, whereas Study 2 assessed subjective reports of physical symptoms. In both studies, outcome variables were collected both before and 6 weeks after the writing intervention. Results: The results showed that (a) writing about upsetting experiences induced higher positive expectancies than writing about trivial issues and (b) expectancies associated with written emotional expression were related to a reduction in the emotional impact of an upsetting event (Study 1) and to a reduction in physical symptoms (Study 2). Conclusions: There may be 2 alternative ways to render written emotional expression effective in reducing negative emotions: (a) by rendering an emotional experience more meaningful and (b) by inducing positive affect regulation expectancies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tobacco withdrawal and negative affect: An analysis of initial emotional response intensity and voluntary emotion regulation.

This report used emotion-modulated startle to refine theoretically critical claims about negative affect during tobacco withdrawal. Forty-eight dependent smokers (assigned to either a 24-hr nicotine withdrawal condition or a continued smoking condition) and 48 nonsmokers participated in this study. Participants viewed a series of neutral and unpleasant photographic images and were instructed to enhance, suppress, or maintain their emotional response during specific trials. Participants' startle response was measured before and after this regulation instruction to index 2 components of emotional response: initial negative emotional response intensity and emotion regulation. Compared with the nonwithdrawn groups (continuing smokers and nonsmokers), withdrawal significantly increased self-reported negative affect. However, startle response indicated that emotional response intensity and emotion regulation success were not affected by withdrawal. These results are important because they constrain interpretation of the predominantly self-report literature on the affective consequences of tobacco withdrawal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)