Emotional labor
Encyclopedia
Emotional labor is a form of emotional regulation wherein workers are expected to display certain emotions as part of their job, and to promote organizational goals. The intended effects of these emotional displays are on other, targeted people, who can be clients, customers, subordinates or co-workers.
Example professions that require emotional labor are that of nurses and doctor
s, waiting staff, actor
s (e.g. in a movie kiss, or porn stars who have to display
several emotions related to sexual intercourse), as well as escort
s who provide what is called a girlfriend experience
(or boyfriend experience).
The term "emotional labor" was first defined by the sociologist
Arlie Hochschild
as the
persists, but each conceptualization has in common the general underlying assumption that emotional labor involves managing emotion
s so that they are consistent with organizational or occupational display rules, regardless of whether they are discrepant with internal feelings.
According to Hochschild, jobs
involving emotional labor are defined as those that:
(1) require face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with the public;
(2) require the worker to produce an emotional state in another person;
(3) allow the employer
, through training and supervision, to exercise a degree of control over the emotional activities of employees.
Display rules refer to the organizational rules about what kind of emotion to express on the job.
which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions.
There are two kinds of Emotion regulation:
out the emotion. Such acting can take two forms:
Though both forms of acting are internally false, they represent different intention
s. That is, when engaging in deep acting, an actor attempts to modify feelings to match the required displays, in order to seem authentic
to the audience
("faking in good faith
"); in surface acting, the alternative strategy, employees modify their displays without shaping inner feelings. They conform to the display rules in order to keep the job, not to help the customer or the organization, ("faking in bad faith
").
Deep acting is argued to be associated with reduced stress
and an increased sense of personal accomplishment; whereas surface acting is associated with increased stress
, emotional exhaustion
, depression
, and a sense of inauthenticity
.
In 1983, Arlie Russell Hochschild
, who wrote about emotional labor, coined the term emotional dissonance to describe this process of "maintaining a difference between feeling and feigning".
In past, emotional labor demands and display rules were viewed as a characteristics of particular occupations, such as restaurant workers, cashier
s, hospital
workers, bill collectors, counselors
, secretaries
, and nurses. However, display rules have been conceptualized not only as role
requirements of particular occupational groups, but also as interpersonal job demands, which are shared by many kinds of occupations.
s are encouraged to create good cheer in passengers and bill collectors promote anxiety
in debtors.
Research
on emotional contagion
has shown that exposure to an individual expressing positive or negative emotions can produce a corresponding change in the emotional state of the observer.
Accordingly, a recent study
reveals that employees' display of positive emotions is indeed positively related to customers' positive affect.
Positive affective display in service interactions, such as smiling and conveying friendliness, are positively associated with important customer outcomes, such as intention to return, intention to recommend a store to others, and perception of overall service quality.
There is evidence that emotion labor may lead to employee's emotional exhaustion
and burnout
over time, and may also reduce employee's job satisfaction
. That is, higher degree of using emotion regulation on the job is related to higher levels of employees' emotional exhaustion, and lower levels of employees' job satisfaction.
There is empirical
evidence that higher levels of emotional labor demands are not uniformly rewarded with higher wages. Rather, the reward is dependent on the level of general cognitive demands required by the job. That is, occupations with high cognitive demands evidence wage returns with increasing emotional labor demands; whereas occupations low in cognitive demands evidence a wage "penalty" with increasing emotional labor demands.
Example professions that require emotional labor are that of nurses and doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
s, waiting staff, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
s (e.g. in a movie kiss, or porn stars who have to display
Affect display
In psychology, affect display or affective display is a subject's externally displayed affect. The display can be by facial, vocal, or gestural means . When displayed affect is different from the subjective affect, it is incongruent affect...
several emotions related to sexual intercourse), as well as escort
Escort
-Protection:*Police escort, a feature offered by law enforcement agencies to assist in transporting individuals.*Safety escort service, a service provided on and around many college and university campuses to help ensure the safety of students and staff....
s who provide what is called a girlfriend experience
Girlfriend experience
The girlfriend experience is a type of service a female sex worker offers which includes acting like a girlfriend to the client.If the service provider is male, the service is called boyfriend experience....
(or boyfriend experience).
Definition
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
Arlie Hochschild
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Arlie Russell Hochschild is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of several prize-winning books and numerous articles on the balancing acts of modern two-job couples at home and at work...
as the
Following her piece in which she coined this term, several conceptualizations of emotional labor have been proposed. Some conceptual ambiguity
"management of feeling to create a publicly facial and bodily display".
Ambiguity
Ambiguity of words or phrases is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision contained or available in the information.Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity...
persists, but each conceptualization has in common the general underlying assumption that emotional labor involves managing emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
s so that they are consistent with organizational or occupational display rules, regardless of whether they are discrepant with internal feelings.
According to Hochschild, jobs
Job (role)
A job is a regular activity performed in exchange for payment. A person usually begins a job by becoming an employee, volunteering, or starting a business. The duration of a job may range from an hour to a lifetime . If a person is trained for a certain type of job, they may have a profession...
involving emotional labor are defined as those that:
(1) require face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with the public;
(2) require the worker to produce an emotional state in another person;
(3) allow the employer
Employment
Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as:- Employee :...
, through training and supervision, to exercise a degree of control over the emotional activities of employees.
Display rules refer to the organizational rules about what kind of emotion to express on the job.
Emotion regulation
Emotion regulation refers to the process of modifying one's own emotions and expressions. That is, the processes by which individuals influenceInfluence
Influence may refer to:In science and technology:*Sphere of influence , the region around a celestial body in which it is the primary gravitational influence on orbiting objects...
which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions.
There are two kinds of Emotion regulation:
- antecedent-focused emotion regulation, which refers to modifying initial feelings by changing the situation or the cognitionCognitionIn science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
s of the situation; - response-focused emotion regulation, which refers to modifying behaviorBehaviorBehavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
once emotions are experienced by suppressingSuppressionThe term suppression may refer to:* Oppression, the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner, also an act or instance of oppressing...
, fakingFakeFake means not real.Fake may also refer to:In music:* Fake , a Swedish synthpop band active in the 1980s*Fake?, a Japanese rock band* Fake , 2010 song by Ai featuring Namie Amuro...
or amplifying an emotional response.
Forms of emotional labor
Employees can display organizationally-desired emotions by actingActing
Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....
out the emotion. Such acting can take two forms:
- surface actingActingActing is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....
, involves "painting on" affective displays, or fakingDeceptionDeception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, bad faith, and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth . Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, and sleight of hand. It can employ distraction, camouflage or concealment...
; Surface acting involves an employee's (presenting emotions on his or her "surface" without actually feeling them. The employee in this case puts on a facade as if the emotions are felt, like a "persona"). - deep acting wherein they modify their inner feelings to match the emotion expressions the organization requires.
Though both forms of acting are internally false, they represent different intention
Intention
Intention is an agent's specific purpose in performing an action or series of actions, the end or goal that is aimed at. Outcomes that are unanticipated or unforeseen are known as unintended consequences....
s. That is, when engaging in deep acting, an actor attempts to modify feelings to match the required displays, in order to seem authentic
Authenticity (reenactment)
In historical reenactment, authenticity is a measure of how close an item, prop, action, weapon, or custom is, to what would actually have been used or done in the time period being depicted....
to the audience
Audience
An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...
("faking in good faith
Good faith
In philosophy, the concept of Good faith—Latin bona fides “good faith”, bona fide “in good faith”—denotes sincere, honest intention or belief, regardless of the outcome of an action; the opposed concepts are bad faith, mala fides and perfidy...
"); in surface acting, the alternative strategy, employees modify their displays without shaping inner feelings. They conform to the display rules in order to keep the job, not to help the customer or the organization, ("faking in bad faith
Bad faith
Bad faith is double mindedness or double heartedness in duplicity, fraud, or deception. It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self deception....
").
Deep acting is argued to be associated with reduced stress
Stress (medicine)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
and an increased sense of personal accomplishment; whereas surface acting is associated with increased stress
Stress (medicine)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
, emotional exhaustion
Emotional exhaustion
Emotional exhaustion is a chronic state of physical and emotional depletion that results from excessive job demands and continuous stress. It describes a feeling of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work...
, depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
, and a sense of inauthenticity
Authenticity (philosophy)
Authenticity is a technical term in existentialist philosophy, and is also used in the philosophy of art and psychology. In philosophy, the conscious self is seen as coming to terms with being in a material world and with encountering external forces, pressures and influences which are very...
.
In 1983, Arlie Russell Hochschild
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Arlie Russell Hochschild is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of several prize-winning books and numerous articles on the balancing acts of modern two-job couples at home and at work...
, who wrote about emotional labor, coined the term emotional dissonance to describe this process of "maintaining a difference between feeling and feigning".
Emotional labor in organizations
Cashier
Cashier is an occupation focused on the handling of cash money.- Retail :In a shop, a cashier is a person who scans the goods through a machine called a cash register that the consumer wishes to purchase at the retail store. After all of the goods have been scanned, the cashier then collects...
s, hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
workers, bill collectors, counselors
Licensed Professional Counselor
Licensed professional counselor is a licensure for mental health professionals. The exact title varies by state, but the other most frequently used title is licensed mental health counselor . Several U.S. states, including Illinois, Maine, and Tennessee, have implemented a two-tier system whereby...
, secretaries
Secretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
, and nurses. However, display rules have been conceptualized not only as role
Role
A role or a social role is a set of connected behaviours, rights and obligations as conceptualised by actors in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behaviour and may have a given individual social status or social position...
requirements of particular occupational groups, but also as interpersonal job demands, which are shared by many kinds of occupations.
Determinants of using emotional labor
- Societal, occupational, and organizational normsNorm (sociology)Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
. For example, empiricalEmpiricalThe word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....
evidence indicates that in typically "busy" stores there is more legitimacy to express negative emotions, than there is in typically "slow" stores, in which employees are expected to behave accordingly to the display rules; and so, that the emotional culture to which one belongs influences the employee's commitmentCommitmentCommitment may refer to:*Promise, or personal commitment*Contract, a legally binding exchange of promises*Brand commitment*Involuntary commitment, the use of legal means or forms to commit a person to a mental hospital, insane asylum or psychiatric ward...
to those rules. - Dispositional traitsDispositional attributionDispositional attribution is the explanation of individual behavior as a result caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual, as opposed to outside influences that stem from the environment or culture in which that individual is found...
and inner feeling on the job; such as employee's emotional expressiveness, which refers to the capability to use facial expressions, voice, gestures, and body movements to transmit emotions; or the employee's level of career identity (the importance of the career role to one's self-identity), which allows him or her to express the organizationally-desired emotions more easily, (because there is less discrepancy between his or her expressed behavior and emotional experience when engage their work). - Supervisory regulation of display rules; That is, Supervisors are likely to be important definers of display rules at the job level, given their direct influence on worker's beliefs about high-performance expectations. Moreover, supervisors' impressions of the need to suppress negative emotions on the job influence the employees' impressions of that display rule.
Implications of using emotional labor
Studies indicate that emotional labor jobs require the worker to produce an emotional state in another person. For example, flight attendantFlight attendant
Flight attendants or cabin crew are members of an aircrew employed by airlines primarily to ensure the safety and comfort of passengers aboard commercial flights, on select business jet aircraft, and on some military aircraft.-History:The role of a flight attendant derives from that of similar...
s are encouraged to create good cheer in passengers and bill collectors promote anxiety
Anxiety
Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,...
in debtors.
Research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
on emotional contagion
Emotional contagion
Emotional contagion is the tendency to catch and feel emotions that are similar to and influenced by those of others. One view developed by John Cacioppo of the underlying mechanism is that it represents a tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures,...
has shown that exposure to an individual expressing positive or negative emotions can produce a corresponding change in the emotional state of the observer.
Accordingly, a recent study
Observational study
In epidemiology and statistics, an observational study draws inferences about the possible effect of a treatment on subjects, where the assignment of subjects into a treated group versus a control group is outside the control of the investigator...
reveals that employees' display of positive emotions is indeed positively related to customers' positive affect.
Positive affective display in service interactions, such as smiling and conveying friendliness, are positively associated with important customer outcomes, such as intention to return, intention to recommend a store to others, and perception of overall service quality.
There is evidence that emotion labor may lead to employee's emotional exhaustion
Emotional exhaustion
Emotional exhaustion is a chronic state of physical and emotional depletion that results from excessive job demands and continuous stress. It describes a feeling of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work...
and burnout
Burnout (psychology)
Burnout is a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest. Research indicates general practitioners have the highest proportion of burnout cases; according to a recent Dutch study in Psychological Reports, no less than 40% of these experienced high levels of...
over time, and may also reduce employee's job satisfaction
Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction describes how content an individual is with his /her job. The happier people are within their job, the more satisfied they are said to be. Job satisfaction is not the same as motivation or aptitude, although it is clearly linked...
. That is, higher degree of using emotion regulation on the job is related to higher levels of employees' emotional exhaustion, and lower levels of employees' job satisfaction.
There is empirical
Empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....
evidence that higher levels of emotional labor demands are not uniformly rewarded with higher wages. Rather, the reward is dependent on the level of general cognitive demands required by the job. That is, occupations with high cognitive demands evidence wage returns with increasing emotional labor demands; whereas occupations low in cognitive demands evidence a wage "penalty" with increasing emotional labor demands.
See also
External links
