Emotional labor

About: Emotional labor is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3948 publications have been published within this topic receiving 112110 citations. The topic is also known as: emotional labour.

The role of psychological flexibility in the demands–exhaustion–performance relationship

Abstract: Employees in the service sector deal with a variety of emotional job demands due to interactions with clients. Emotional job demands often result in heightened levels of emotional exhaustion and decreased levels of performance. The current study aims to explore whether the adaptive behavioural pattern of psychological flexibility diminishes the negative impacts of emotional job demands on emotional exhaustion and subsequent performance. Data were collected from 116 nonprofit service workers, using self-report questionnaires (i.e., baseline) and diaries (i.e., follow-up). The results suggest that psychological flexibility is negatively associated with emotional exhaustion and positively associated with performance. In addition, psychological flexibility is found to attenuate the negative effects of emotional job demands on emotional exhaustion and performance. Finally, the results reveal that the attenuating role of psychological flexibility diminishes if employees are already exhausted. The results suppor...

Psychophysiological effects of emotional dissonance in a face-to-face service interaction.

Abstract: Current research demonstrates that requirements to express emotions which are not genuinely felt in the particular situation (emotional dissonance) are associated with negative long and short-term effects. The aim of the present study was to investigate: (a) the psychophysiological short-term effects of emotional dissonance in a face-to-face service interaction and (b) the moderating role of gender and neuroticism. In total, 32 women and 27 men were instructed to play the role of a service employee, who had to interact with an angry and rude customer. Half of the sample was given information that the organization expected them to be friendly (emotional dissonance), the other half was told they were expected to act naturally and show their genuine feelings (no emotional dissonance). Subjective and behavioral responses revealed that participants in the “friendly” condition modulated their emotional expressions to a greater extent than those in the “naturally” condition. Participants in the “friendl...

The lady vanishes: women's work and affective labour

Abstract: Recently a new twist to the emotion work/emotional labour debate has been introduced in the shape of a conceptual device known as 'affective labour' (Hardt and Negri, 2000, 2005; Lazaratto, 2004). The argument presented here suggests that there are some tragic consequences of thinking about emotion work as affective labour and in terms of immaterial labour. This is because, fundamentally, it overlooks the fact emotion work is hard and productive work that is often unrewarded and unrecognised because of its association with the domestic sphere – in effect, women disappear from view as emotional labourers.

Customer Orientation and Sales Situations: Variations in Interactive Service Work:

Abstract: This article contributes to the discussion of effects of 'emotional labour', or work where the management of feeling to create a publicly observable display is a crucial part. Some authors stress detrimental effects like emotive dissonance and alienation. Others observe the joy and satisfaction people feel in this kind of work. Emotional labour is here presented as a form of acting, which is related to individual and organizational factors, and studied within a Swedish context. To investigate the different forms of service occupations in the private sector and the effect that this kind of work has on people, a qualitative interview study, an organizational study and a survey were conducted. The results reveal both positive and negative effects of emotional labour across different occupations. A typology with four types of service occupations is suggested: (1) 'Work First'; (2) 'Personalized Services'; (3) 'Routine Selling'; and (4) 'Persuasive Selling'.