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.

Emotional labor and leadership: A threat to authenticity?

Abstract: Building on the emotional labor and authentic leadership literatures, we advance a conceptual model of leader emotional displays. Three categories of leader emotional displays are identified: surface acting, deep acting and genuine emotions. The consistency of expressed leader emotions with affective display rules, together with the type of display chosen, combines to impact the leader's felt authenticity, the favorability of follower impressions, and the perceived authenticity of the leader by the followers. Emotional intelligence, self-monitoring ability, and political skill are proposed as individual differences that moderate leader emotional display responses to affective events. We also look at followers' trust in the leader and leader well-being as key outcomes. Finally, we explore the influence on leader emotional labor of contextual dimensions of the environment, including the omnibus (national and organizational culture, industry and occupation, organizational structure, time) and discrete (situational) context. Directions for future research are discussed.

Employee experience of aesthetic labour in retail and hospitality

Abstract: Interactive service job growth in the UK is significant.Analysis of labour within these services has tended to focus on employee attitudes, framed through emotional labour. Such analysis is not incorrect, just partial. Some employers also demand aesthetic labour, or employees with particular embodied capacities and attributes that appeal to the senses of customers. Reporting survey and focus group data, this article explores aesthetic labour as it is experienced by interactive service employees in the retail and hospitality industries. Issues examined are recruitment and selection; image and appearance; uniforms and dress codes; skills and training. By extending awareness of aesthetic labour so that both employee attitude and appearance are empirically and conceptually revealed, the article extends understanding of the job demands made of employees in interactive services.

Emotional labour and stress within mental health nursing.

Abstract: For many within the nursing profession, the work role involves a great deal of emotional work or ‘emotional labour’. Such emotional work can be performed through ‘surface acting’ in which the individual simply feigns an appropriate emotion, or through ‘deep acting’ in which they actually try to feel the required emotion. The current study aims to aid understanding of the complex relationship between components of emotional labour and stress within the mental health nursing sector. Thirty-five mental health nurses completed questionnaires relating to a total of 122 nurse–patient interactions. Data were collected in relation to: (1) the duration and intensity of the interaction; (2) the variety of emotions expressed; (3) the degree of surface or deep acting the nurse performed; and (4) the perceived level of stress the interaction involved. Nurses also completed Daily Stress Indicators. Results suggest that: (1) emotional labour is positively correlated with both ‘interaction stress’ and daily stress levels; (2) the deeper the intensity of interactions and the more variety of emotions experienced, the more emotional labour was reported; and (3) surface acting was a more important predictor of emotional labour than deep acting. Implications for mental health nurses are outlined.

ALIENATING AND LIBERATING EMOTIONS AT WORK Supermarket Clerks' Performance of Customer Service

Abstract: Hochschild's 1980s study of flight attendants found them estranged from their emotions. Using evidence drawn from interviews and observations of supermarket clerks' performance of customer service, this study replaces Hochschild's concept of emotional labor with new definitions of emotion as work-autonomous emotion management and regulated emotion management-making control rather than exchange value central to understanding emotion at work.

Police Force or Police Service? Gender and Emotional Labor

Abstract: Police work involves substantial emotional labor by officers, who must control their own emotional displays and those of citizens, who often are encountered at their worst—injured, upset, or angry. Although policing often is viewed as masculine work that focuses on fighting crime, it also requires that officers maintain order and provide diverse services, which officers tend to disdain as feminine activities. This article explores the varieties of emotional labor, the rules regulating emotional displays in policing, and the role of gender in shaping these occupational and organizational norms. It identifies variations in the norms regulating emotional labor across policing assignments, interactional situations, and the gender of both the officers and the citizens in an encounter. It also reviews coping mechanisms for regulating emotions—including socialization, organizational rituals, humor, and off-duty social activities—and the dilemmas that norms related to emotional labor pose for women officers.