Emotional labor

Emotional labor is the act of managing one's own emotions and the emotions of others to meet job expectations. It requires the capacity to manage and produce a feeling to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. More specifically, workers are expected to regulate their personas during interactions with customers, co-workers, clients, and managers. This includes analysis and decision-making in terms of the expression of emotion, whether actually felt or not, as well as its opposite: the suppression of emotions that are felt but not expressed. This is done so as to produce a certain feeling in the customer or client that will allow the company or organization to succeed.

thumb|A [[waitress at a restaurant is expected to do emotional labor, such as smiling and expressing positive emotion towards customers]]

The sociologist Arlie Hochschild provided the first definition of emotional labor, which is displaying certain emotions to meet the requirements of a job. Within cognitive emotion work, one attempts to change images, ideas, or thoughts in hopes of changing the feelings associated with them. The term can also refer to informal counseling, such as providing advice to a friend or helping someone through a breakup. When Hochschild was interviewed about this shifting usage, she described it having undergone concept creep, expressing that it made the concept blurrier and was sometimes being applied to things that were simply just labor, although how carrying out this labor made a person feel could make it emotional labor as well.

Determinants

Societal, occupational, and organizational norms. For example, empirical 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 in accordance with the display rules. Hence, the emotional culture to which one belongs influences the employee's commitment to those rules.
Dispositional traits and inner feeling on the job; such as employees' emotional expressiveness, which refers to the capability to use facial expressions, voice, gestures, and body movements to transmit emotions; or employees' level of career identity (the importance of the career role to self-identity), which allows them to express the organizationally-desired emotions more easily (because there is less discrepancy between expressed behavior and emotional experience when engaged in their work).
Supervisory regulation of display rules; Supervisors are likely to be important definers of display rules at the job level, given their direct influence on workers' 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. Although the underlying processes differ, the objective of both is typically to show positive emotions, which are presumed to impact the feelings of customers and bottom-line outcomes (e.g. sales, positive recommendations, and repeat business). However, research generally has shown surface acting is more harmful to employee health. Without a consideration of ethical values, the consequences of emotional work on employees can easily become negative. Business ethics can be used as a guide for employees on how to present feelings that are consistent with ethical values, and can show them how to regulate their feelings more easily and comfortably while working.

Careers

thumb|A [[nurse working in a hospital is expected to express positive emotions towards patients, such as warmth and compassion.]]

In the past, emotional labor demands and display rules were viewed as a characteristic of particular occupations, such as restaurant workers, cashiers, 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.

Teachers

Zhang et al. (2019) looked at teachers in China, using questionnaires the researchers asked about their teaching experience and their interaction with the children and their families. According to numerous studies, early childhood education is important to a child's development, which can have an effect on the amount of emotional labor a teacher must perform, and that the teacher's emotional labor has an effect on the children. Zhang et al. (2019) found that surface acting was used significantly less than deep and natural acting in kindergarten teachers, and that early childhood teachers were less likely to fake or suppress their feelings. They also found that more experienced teachers had higher levels of emotional labor, because they either had more skills to suppress their emotions, or they are less driven to use surface acting.

Bill collectors

In 1991, Sutton did an in-depth qualitative study into bill collectors at a collection agency. He found that unlike the other jobs described here where employees need to act cheerful and concerned, bill collectors are selected and socialized to show irritation to most debtors. Specifically, the collection agency hired agents who seemed to be easily aroused. The newly hired agents were then trained on when and how to show varying emotions to different types of debtors. As they worked at the collection agency, they were closely monitored by their supervisors to make sure that they frequently conveyed urgency to debtors.

Bill collectors' emotional labor consists of not letting angry and hostile debtors make them angry and to not feel guilty about pressuring friendly debtors for money. However, a number of scholars have not only studied the difficulty and skill required for childcare, but also suggested that the emotional labor of childcare is unique and needs to be studied differently. Performing emotional labor requires the development of emotional capital, and that can only be developed through experience and reflection. There is clear evidence that emotional labour can be of great benefit to both the caregiver and recipient and although many nurses find the profession deeply rewarding, over 65% report experiencing high levels of stress and burnout and a further study of 43,026 participants revealed a burnout rate of 56.0% for nurses, 54.1% for other clinical staff and 45.6% in non-clinical healthcare workers and compassion fatigue being highly prevalent in the field Caring for patients with additional needs may be paid or unpaid labour with carers and family members of the patients often also experiencing a high degree of fatigue and emotional labour expenditure often leading to social isolation and implications for their own health.

Food-industry workers

Wait staff

thumb|A waitress taking an order in an American restaurant

In her 1991 study of waitresses in Philadelphia, Paules examines how these workers assert control and protect their self-identity during interactions with customers. In restaurant work, Paules argues, workers' subordination to customers is reinforced through "cultural symbols that originate from deeply rooted assumptions about service work." Because the waitresses were not strictly regulated by their employers, waitresses' interactions with customers were controlled by the waitresses themselves. Although they are stigmatized by the stereotypes and assumptions of servitude surrounding restaurant work, the waitresses studied were not negatively affected by their interactions with customers. To the contrary, they viewed their ability to manage their emotions as a valuable skill that could be used to gain control over customers. Thus, the Philadelphia waitresses took advantage of the lack of employer-regulated emotional labor in order to avoid the potentially negative consequences of emotional labor.

Though Paules highlights the positive consequences of emotional labor for a specific population of waitresses, other scholars have also found negative consequences of emotional labor within the waitressing industry. Through eighteen months of participant observation research, Bayard De Volo (2003) found that casino waitresses are highly monitored and monetarily bribed to perform emotional labor in the workplace. Specifically, Bayard De Volo (2003) argues that through a sexualized environment and a generous tipping system, both casino owners and customers control waitresses' behavior and appearance for their own benefit and pleasure. Even though the waitresses have their own forms of individual and collective resistance mechanisms, intense and consistent monitoring of their actions by casino management makes it difficult to change the power dynamics of the casino workplace. According to Leidner (1993), employers attempt to regulate workers' interactions with customers only under certain conditions. Specifically, when employers attempt to regulate worker–customer interactions, employers believe that "the quality of the interaction is important to the success of the enterprise", that workers are "unable or unwilling to conduct the interactions appropriately on their own", and that the "tasks themselves are not too complex or context-dependent." Larson and Yao (2005) argue that physicians consider empathy a form of emotional labor. Specifically, according to Larson and Yao (2005), physicians engage in emotional labor through deep acting by feeling sincere empathy before, during, and after interactions with patients. On the other hand, Larson and Yao (2005) argue that physicians engage in surface acting when they fake empathic behaviors toward the patient. Although Larson and Yao (2005) argue that deep acting is preferred, physicians may rely on surface acting when sincere empathy for patients is impossible. Overall, Larson and Yao (2005) argue that physicians are more effective and enjoy more professional satisfaction when they engage in empathy through deep acting due to emotional labor. Practitioners control their own emotional responses, but also take on the emotions of their patients. Emotional labor shows up in their field through empathy, emotional stability, and observations, even while dealing with their own hardships and trauma. In many cases, therapists use deep acting when engaging with their clients rather than forcing their emotions, so their responses can feel more authentic and supportive. Although policing is often viewed as stereotypically masculine work that focuses on fighting crime, policing also requires officers to maintain order and provide a variety of interpersonal services. For example, police must have a commanding presence that allows them to act decisively and maintain control in unpredictable situations while having the ability to actively listen and talk to citizens. According to Martin (1999), a police officer who displays too much anger, sympathy, or other emotion while dealing with danger on the job will be viewed by other officers as someone unable to withstand the pressures of police work, due to the sexist views of many police officers. There are two comparisons that represent emotional labor within public administration, "Rational Work versus Emotion Work", and "Emotional Labor versus Emotional Intelligence."

Performance

Many scholars argue that when public administrators perform emotional labor, they are dealing with significantly more sensitive situations than employees in the service industry. The reason for this is because they are on the front lines of the government, and are expected by citizens to serve them quickly and efficiently. When confronted by a citizen or a co-worker, public administrators use emotional sensing to size up the emotional state of the citizen in need. Workers then take stock of their own emotional state in order to make sure that the emotion they are expressing is appropriate to their roles. Simultaneously, they have to determine how to act in order to elicit the desired response from the citizen as well as from co-workers. Public Administrators perform emotional labor through five different strategies: Psychological First Aid, Compartments and Closets, Crazy Calm, Humor, and Common Sense.

Definition: rational work vs. emotion work

According to Mary Guy, Public administration does not only focus on the business side of administration but on the personal side as well. It is not just about collecting the water bill or land ordinances to construct a new property, it is also about the quality of life and sense of community that is allotted to individuals by their city officials. Rational work is the ability to think cognitively and analytically, while emotional work means to think more practically and with more reason.

Definition: intelligence vs. emotional intelligence

Knowing how to suppress and manage one's own feelings is known as emotional intelligence. The ability to control one's emotions and to be able to do this at a high level guarantees one's own ability to serve those in need. Emotional intelligence is performed while performing emotional labor, and without one the other cannot be there.

Sex work

Gender

Macdonald and Sirianna (1996) use the term "emotional proletariat" to describe service jobs in which "workers exercise emotional labor wherein they are required to display friendliness and deference to customers." Because of deference, these occupations tend to be stereotyped as female jobs, independent of the actual number of women working the job. According to Macdonald and Sirianna (1996), because deference is a characteristic demanded of all those in disadvantaged structural positions, especially women, when deference is made a job requirement, women are likely to be overrepresented in these jobs. Macdonald and Sirianna (1996) claim that "[i]n no other area of wage labor are the personal characteristics of the workers so strongly associated with the nature of the work." Job segregation, which is the systematic tendency for men and women to work in different occupations, is often cited as the reason why women lack equal pay when compared to men. According to Guy and Newman (2004), occupational segregation and ultimately the gender wage gap can at least be partially attributed to emotional labor. Specifically, work-related tasks that require emotional work thought to be natural for women, such as caring and empathizing are requirements of many female-dominated occupations. However, according to Guy and Newman (2004), these feminized work tasks are not a part of formal job descriptions and performance evaluations: "Excluded from job descriptions and performance evaluations, the work is invisible and uncompensated. Public service relies heavily on such skills, yet civil service systems, which are designed on the assumptions of a bygone era, fail to acknowledge and compensate emotional labor." According to Guy and Newman (2004), women working in positions that require emotional labour in addition to regular work are not compensated for this additional labour because of the sexist notion that the additional labour is to be expected of them by the fact of being a woman. Guy and Azhar (2018) found that emotive expressions between sexes is affected by culture. This study found that there is variability to how women and men interpret emotive words, and specifically results showed that culture played a huge role in these gender differences.

Disability

People with disabilities are becoming increasingly part of the labor force due to societal attitudes about inclusion and neoliberal pressures around reducing welfare. Roles that require emotional labor may be more difficult for people with certain kinds of disabilities to perform. People with disabilities may also have to put more time and energy to perform a task than non-disabled people, for instance, when they routinely encounter prejudice and stigma (as would be the case for many groups experiencing prejudice) including disability-unfriendly structures (accessibility, administrative or social). On the other hand, due to the routine experience of navigating unhelpful structures and prejudice, people with disabilities can have the dual advantage of better skills in finding ways around problems without expending emotional energy, like feeling surprised, and a more empathetic understanding of the experiences of other people with similar problems. Inclusive or unfriendly organizational culture also has an impact, and workplaces may require workers with disabilities to downplay their impairments in order to "fit in" creating an extra burden of emotional labor. Most individuals will experience complex effects of their disabilities on their emotional labor in a given job role at a specified organisation and disabled individuals often have to expend a large amount of emotional labour in order to receive the financial or medical support they are dependent on.

Implications

Positive affective display in service interactions, such as smiling and conveying friendliness, are positively associated with positive feelings in customers, as well as important outcomes, including intention to return, intention to recommend a store to others, and perception of overall service quality. There is evidence that emotional labor may lead to employees' emotional exhaustion and burnout over time. A higher degree of using emotion regulation on the job is related to higher levels of employees' emotional exhaustion,

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: occupations with high cognitive demands show wage returns with increasing emotional labor demands; whereas occupations low in cognitive demands evidence a wage "penalty" with increasing emotional labor demands. Additionally, innovations that increase employee empowerment—such as conversion into worker cooperatives, co-managing schemes, or flattened workplace structures—have been found to increase workers' levels of emotional labor, as they take on more workplace responsibilities.

Positive outcomes

Emotional labor can have positive effects on workers as well, especially when workers use emotional regulation strategies. In some cases, emotional labor gives employees feelings of internal satisfaction, allows them to improve their communication skills, and brings a higher rate of customer satisfaction. According to Lynch and Klima (2020), the way a worker manages their emotions is an important key in how it affects them, specifically when using strategies like deep acting. Research suggests that deep acting is associated with improved communication and stronger workplace relationships. According to Pugliesi (1999), helping fields like healthcare and education provide a sense of drive and personal fulfillment when employees see their emotional effort helping others. Employees of color reported more frequent negative interactions with the public compared to white employees, including bias and disrespect. Despite this, employees of color are still expected to have high levels of professionalism and emotional control. due to the need for emotional suppression, which decreases feelings of personal accomplishment. Trying to stay away from gender and racial stereotypes leads to constant self-monitoring and code-switching. both negative (e.g. loss of a job) and positive (e.g. getting a new job). The use of coping skills allows people to perform to the best of their ability and achieve success in the workplace. There are many coping strategies, including sharing emotions with peers, maintaining a healthy social life outside of work, being humorous, and adjusting expectations of work and oneself. Coping skills can turn negative emotions into positive emotions, and allow the employee to focus more on the public (in contrast to themself).