The role of self-efficacy in performing emotion work

2006

This study used a sample of 154 cabin attendants to examine the role of self-eYcacy in the performance of emotion work. On the basis of the literature, we hypothesized that self-eYcacy would have a moderating inXuence on the relationship between emotional job demands (i.e., feeling rules and emotionally charged interactions with passengers) and emotional dissonance, and on the relationship between emotional dissonance and well-being (emotional exhaustion and work engagement). In addition, we predicted that emotional dissonance mediates the relationship between emotional job demands and well-being. The results of a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses generally supported these hypotheses. Results conWrmed that emotionally charged interactions with passengers are related to emotional exhaustion and engagement through their inXuence on emotional dissonance. Furthermore, self-eYcacy buVers the relationship between emotional job demands and emotional dissonance, and the re...

European Journal of Work and …, 2003

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2011

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 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 selfcompetence 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.

Emotional labor can be defined as the degree of manipulation of one's inner feelings or outward behavior to display the appropriate emotion in response to display rules or occupational norms. This study concerns the development of an emotional labor model for the hospitality industry that aims at identifying the antecedents and consequences of emotional labor. The study investigates the impact of individual characteristics on the way emotional labor is performed; it investigates the relationships among the different ways of enacting emotional labor and their consequences, and addresses the question of whether organizational characteristics and job characteristics have buffering effects on the perceived consequences of emotional labor, which are emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction.

Journal of Personnel Psychology, 2015

This two-wave study examined work engagement as a function of personal resources and emotionally demanding conditions at work. We hypothesized that personal resources (self-efficacy and optimism) buffer the effect of emotional demands and emotion-rule dissonance on work engagement. Furthermore, we expected that emotional demands/dissonance boost the effect of personal resources on work engagement. One-hundred sixty-three employees, who provide service to customers, participated at both measurement times. Analyses supported (a) the buffering hypothesis, since emotional demands and dissonance related negatively to work engagement when self-efficacybut not optimism -was low, and (b) the boosting hypothesis, since self-efficacy -but not optimism -related positively to engagement particularly when emotional demands and dissonance were high.

2009

Appropriate behaviours toward customers often requires employees to suppress some genuine emotions and/or express other emotions; genuine or contrived. Managing one's emotions in this way gives rise to emotional exhaustion. This can have consequences for psychological ill health, in the form of work place strain, and ultimately employee's desire to leave. This student examines the relationships between emotional management, emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions amongst diversional therapy professionals.

PhD Thesis, 2017

This study investigates service workers’ experiences of managing their emotions and how they make sense of these in relation to their perceived well-being. It responds to calls within the sociology of service work literature for a more definitive focus upon the dynamic complexity of service agents’ ‘emotional self-management’ and their self-care across, in addition to within, specific occupational contexts. The still novel qualitative methodology, interpretative phenomenological analysis (‘IPA’) was adopted because of its emphasis upon gathering experiential data from a first person viewpoint. This choice of IPA was innovative, not only because of its virtual invisibility in service research to date, but also because it was methodologically augmented using artefact elicitation technique. A purposive, non-random, sample of twelve participants was drawn, six from each of two specific occupational groups; air cabin crew and nurses, with respondents participating in a series of in-depth, loosely structured interviews over an extended timeframe. The findings revealed that three key relationships lay at the heart of how participants made sense of their emotional experiences; service agents’ themselves, their interaction with working colleagues and those whom they served. Relationships were played out within dynamic climates of authenticity, falseness, loyalty or betrayal and often interpreted by respondents in terms of their inherent degrees of truth, trust, dignity and pride. This study contributes to contextual and theoretical understanding by offering fresh insights on service agents’ emotional experiences as mediating influences in their socially constructed sense of selves and their well-being. This is one of very few studies which emphasise idiographic contexts within the broader patterns of worker–customer relations, transcending the traditionally delineated occupational boundaries of nursing and commercial service work. New knowledge has been created by considering individuals’ feelings about their work in this way thus prompting a reconsideration of emotion effort in terms of its complexity, challenge and occupational context.

Research on Emotion in Organizations, 2012

Human Resource Management Review, 2002

In this article, the state of the art of research on emotion work (emotional labor) is summarized with an emphasis on its effects on well-being. It starts with a definition of what emotional labor or emotion work is. Aspects of emotion work, such as automatic emotion regulation, surface acting, and deep acting, are discussed from an action theory point of view. Empirical studies so far show that emotion work has both positive and negative effects on health. Negative effects were found for emotional dissonance. Concepts related to the frequency of emotion expression and the requirement to be sensitive to the emotions of others had both positive and negative effects. Control and social support moderate relations between emotion work variables and burnout and job satisfaction. Moreover, there is empirical evidence that the cooccurrence of emotion work and organizational problems leads to high levels of burnout.

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).