emotional labor and health outcomes: an overview of literature and preliminary empirical evidences

8/10/2019 Emotional Labor and Health Outcomes: An Overview of Literature and Preliminary Empirical Evidences

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Emotional Labor and Health Outcomes: An Overview of Literature andEmotional Labor and Health Outcomes: An Overview of Literature andEmotional Labor and Health Outcomes: An Overview of Literature andEmotional Labor and Health Outcomes: An Overview of Literature andEmotional Labor and Health Outcomes: An Overview of Literature and

Preliminary Empirical EvidencesPreliminary Empirical EvidencesPreliminary Empirical EvidencesPreliminary Empirical EvidencesPreliminary Empirical Evidences

Sandeep Kumar*, Binayak Shankar** & A. P. Singh***

Several job conditions in the service sector organizations have been hypothesized to be linked to experience of stress due

to the performance of emotional labor and, ultimately results in health outcomes. People in the lower status categories like

women, people of inferior color, children- lack a status shields against poorer treatment of their feeling (Hochshild, 1983).

Social Distribution of jobs leads to certain sub-groups of workers to assume emotional labor. The performance of

emotional labor appears to have both positive and negative consequences related to health. Emotional labor through

dissonance created by surface acting and/or the effort required for deep acting creates a stressor for service sector

employees that may negatively impact psychological, behavioral and physical well-being. Job/ task and organizational

demands are the stressors which lead to acute reactions at psychological, physiological and behavioral levels. These

reactions finally affect the health outcomes in the form of several illnesses such as depression, hypertension, coronaryheart disease and alcoholism. In this relationship of emotional labor and health outcomes social support, interpersonal

competence, coping and defense mechanism play the role of buffers.

KKKKKeeeeeywywywywywororororords:ds:ds:ds:ds: emotional labor, emotional dissonance, health outcomes.

* Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005. E-mail: [email protected]

** Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005.

*** Professor, Department of Psychology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005.

Indian Journal of Social Science Researches

Vol. 7 (1), March, 2010, pp 83-89

ISSN : 0974-9837

Inthe past few decades, due to the rise of serviceeconomy researchers have elaborated their view of

labor characteristics to include the performance of

emotional labor (Daniels, 1987; England, 2005;

Finemann, 1993). Basically, emotional labor through

emotional dissonance created by different strategies

of emotional labor (surface acting and deep acting)

acts a stressor for service workers that in turn may

negatively affect psychological, behavioral and

physical well-being (Pugliesi, 1999, Gelderen et al.,

2007, Karim, 2009). The different types of job/ task

and organizational demands are such stressors that

results in acute reactions at psychological,

physiological and behavioral levels (Gilboa et al.,

2008). These reactions finally affect the health

outcomes in the form of several illnesses such as

depression, hypertension, coronary heart disease and

alcoholism (Grandy, 2000, Agervold, 2009)Emotional

labor is a form of emotional regulation in which

employees are expected to display certain emotions

as part of their job and to promote organizational

goals. The effects of emotional displays are on other

target people who can be clients, customers,

subordinates or co-workers. The term emotional

labor was first defined by the sociologist Arlie

Hochschild (1983) as the management of feeling to

create a publicity observable facial and bodily display.

Following her seminal piece in which she coined this

term, several conceptualizations of emotional labor

have been proposed.

Some conceptual ambiguity persists, but each

conceptualization has in common the general

underlying assumption that emotional labor involves

managing emotions so that they are consistent with

organizational or occupational display rules,

regardless of whether they are discrepant with internal

feelings (Grandey, 2000). Hochschild (2003) used theterm emotion work to refer to any attempt to modify


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84 Kumar et al

the experience or expression of a consciously felt

emotion. When the individual performs emotion work

as a required part of her/his actual job performance

it is called emotional labor.

The job involving emotional labor is defined as

those that: (a) require face-to-face or voice-to-voice

contact with the public; (b) require the worker to

produce an emotional state in another person; (c)

allow the employees to exercise a degree of control

over their emotional activities (Hochschild, 1983).

Display rules refer to the organizational rules aboutwhat kind of emotion to express on the job (Rafaeli &

Sutton, 1987).

Liu, Perrewe, Hochwarter, & Kachmar, (2004)

interpreted emotional labor as the attempt by

individual to reduce the discrepancy between felt and

displayed emotions. From the perspective of the

individual service employee, emotional labor involves

individual differences as well as individuals

interpretations of their emotional experiences when

examining the causes and consequences of

emotional labor. Individual differences may predisposeindividuals to feel and perceive stimuli in certain ways.

According to Grove and Fisk (1989) Employees can

display organizationally-desired emotions by acting

out the emotion. Such acting can take two forms:

1. Surface acting: It involves painting on affective

displays, or faking; Surface acting involves an

employees 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.

2. Deep acting: The employees modify their inner feelings

to match the emotion expressions the organization

requires. Emotional Labor and Health

OutcomesSchaubroeck and Jones (2000) in their study

found that perceived demands to express pos

emotion were positively related to health sympto

primari ly among those report ing: (1) lo

identification with the organization; (2) lower

involvement; and (3) lower emotional adaptability.

effects of various personality traits and situatio

variables on perceived emotional labor di

depending on the nature of the emotional labor. T

also discussed the implications of emotional la

for health and practices through which organizat

might intervene to minimize its unhealt

consequences among employees.

Researchers have also hypothesized that

strain of emotional regulation negatively affe

employee physical and psychological well-be

(Grandy, 2000). Bono and Vey (2005) on the bas

their meta-analytic study pointed out that emotio

labor is associated with poor physical

psychological health. Emotional labor has also b

correlated with cancer (James, 1993).

We have conceptualized the relationship

emotional labor and health (Kumar, Shankar & Sin2010). In this conceptualization we have propo

an organizational model of emotional labor and

health related outcomes; in which emotional labo

considered as predictor, personality, work culture

coping have been treated as moderators and

criterion is the health outcomes. According to t

proposition surface acting would negatively corre

with the health outcomes because of the h

emotional dissonance and deep acting wo

positively correlated with the health outcomes

to relatively low level of emotional dissonance.

other factors such as personality, work culture

coping would moderate the relationship between

emotional labor and health outcomes.


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Therefore, it is clear that dispositional factors can

predict the display of appropriate emotions (Tan et al.,

2003). Though emotional labor is meant to create

economic benefits for the organizations, it can have

negative consequences on both the physical and mental

health of the employees (Grandy, 2000). Hochschild

(2003) argued that the effort to maintain a difference in

feeling and feigning over the long run leads to strain,

ultimately posing threats to the physical well-being of

employees.

Emotional Labor and Personality

The different occupational roles, such as customer

service, healthcare, protective services, and counseling

occupations, employees are continually faced with

emotionally charged encounters requiring specific

emotional displays.

Personality has been widely correlated with

emotional labor by different researchers in organizational

settings. Research has shown that negative affectivity

(neuroticism) is positively related to emotional labor (Liu

et al., 2004). Brotheridge and Grandey (2002) found

that negative affectivity is positively related to surface

acting. Tan et al., (2003) in their study found that service

employees with high extraversion traits are

characterized by the display of more positive emotions

than by service employees with low extraversion traits.

So, we can say that negative affectivity increases and

positive affectivity reduces emotional labor.

Conceptual Model of Emotional Labor and Health Relationship (Kumar, Shankar & Singh, 2010)

Emotional Labour

Surface

Deep Acting

Health

Outcome

-Physical Health

-Mental Health

Big Five Personality

Factorc

-Openness to Change

-Conscientiousness

Extraversion

-Agreebleness-Neuroticism

Work Culture

-Mallebility

-Proactive

-Obligation towards

others

-Responsibility seeking

-Participation

Coping

-Emotion Focused

-Task Focused

Predictor Moderators Criterion

Emotional Labor and Health outcomes 85


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86 Kumar et al

It is generally anticipated that conscientious

individuals would follow emotional display rules by

working to be genuine in their expressions, rather than

just going through the surface acting. Consistent with

this argument, Diefendorff et al. (2005), in their study

found that conscientiousness is negatively correlated

with surface acting and agreeableness correlates

positively with deep acting and negatively with surface

acting.

Tsai (2001) found that psychological climate for

service friendliness is positively related to displayed

positive emotions. Grandey (2003) argued that deepacting is positively related to and surface acting is

negatively related to the perception of the service delivery

as friendly and warm. Employees who feel that they

have control at work feel more empowered in customer

encounters, including aggressive ones and show less

stress appraisal of customer verbal aggression

(Grandey, Dickter & Sin, 2004).

In professional and management jobs Simpson and

Stroh (2004), found that women are better at suppressing

negative feelings and displaying positive feelings than

men. Also, men report more often suppressing positivefeelings and displaying negative feelings than women

report.

Emotional labor has been widely studied and is of

considerable interest in relation to outcomes such as

sense of accomplishment and burnout. There is a

growing interest in individual differences in emotional

labor and in organizational display rule perceptions.

Personality and emotional intelligence (EI) are relevant

to this, but their effects have been examined in a

relatively small number of publications. Surface acting

(SA) has been found to be positively correlated withNeuroticism and negatively correlated with Extraversion

and Conscientiousness, whilst deep acting (DA) was

positively correlated with Agreeableness and

Extraversion. Positive display rule perceptions were

correlated with Extraversion and negative displayperceptions with Neuroticism. EI was unrelated to

but negatively associated with SA and positi

associated with positive display rule perceptio

Structural equation modeling has shown that EI part

mediates the effect of personality on SA.

personality correlations were similar to previous res

For EI it appears that high-EI individuals are less li

to make use of the emotionally superficial SA strat

this may be related to their superior emotion regula

capabilities (Austin, Dore & ODonevan, 2007).

Emotional Labor and CopingEmotional Labor and CopingEmotional Labor and CopingEmotional Labor and CopingEmotional Labor and Coping

Gross, Cartensen, Tsai, Skorpen, & Hsu, (19

argued that with age, individuals report greater emoti

control and lesser negative emotional experience. T

suggested that this may be the result of o

participants adopting increasingly antecedent-focu

strategies to influence their emotions. Consistent

this finding, Lockenhoff and Carstensen (2004) fo

that when time in life is limited, younger and o

people alike pay more attention to the emotional asp

of situations, prioritize emotion-focused over probl

focused coping strategies. Similar effects emerge wtime is limited for reasons other than chronological

there is ample evidence for a greater emphasis

emotion-focused coping strategies as people age,

this is associated with better emotion-regulatory s

and more positive and less negative emotio

experience among older adults.

Emotional Labor and Work CultureEmotional Labor and Work CultureEmotional Labor and Work CultureEmotional Labor and Work CultureEmotional Labor and Work Culture

Researchers in the context of U.S. (Pugh, 20

Sutton & Rafaeli, 1988), Canada (Rafaeli, 1989),

Israel (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1990) found a nega

relationship between store busyness employeedisplay of positive emotions. Surprising

the context of Singapore, Tan et al. (2003) found

relation between store busyness and employee dis

of positive emotion. Tan et al. (2003) suggested th


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may be due to the cultural difference between the two

contexts. In another study, Gross et al. (1997) used

culturally diverse set of samples to explore the age-

related changes in emotion and emotion regulation. They

found that age was associated with decreased impulse

strength for European Americans but not Chinese

Americans. They suggested that the broad impact of

culture on the emotional behavior cannot be ruled out.

However, much work has not been done to explore the

role of culture on emotional labor.

Subramanium (2005) suggested that there are two

ways of measuring the demands of a job-time and effort.In the last two decades a new element has been added

i.e.; emotional labor. From a customer service

representative in a call centre to a teacher or manager,

the emotional demands of any job have increased.

Emotional empathy is the modern day equivalent of the

muscle power that was essential to manual labor. Today,

it is all about the ability to strike up a rapport with

another human being. Employers believe customers

will stay loyal when they are given personalized service

in a mass consumer market driven technology. The

standards are increasing day by day to the newer

heights. Employees are instructed to provide service

with personalized naturalness, spontaneity and warmth

qualities which they must provide consistently to the

customers.

Mishra (2006) in his comprehensive review

highlighted that the dominance of customer over the

production/service employee, and as a result of this,

increasing use of emotional labor in the work place has

increased the need to better understand that what

emotional labor is? This review has widely discussed

the factors that affect and are affected by emotional

labor.

There is indeed a need to identify moderating effects

of personality, work culture and coping on health

outcomes. It may be used to select, train, and develop

the employees to adjust them and to behave in such a

manner that less harmful effects on health outcomes

are observed. In this way the employees will make

themselves more efficient and productive for the

organization in which the work.

Emotional Labor and Perceived HealthEmotional Labor and Perceived HealthEmotional Labor and Perceived HealthEmotional Labor and Perceived HealthEmotional Labor and Perceived Health

Outcomes: An Experience with Bank ExecutivesOutcomes: An Experience with Bank ExecutivesOutcomes: An Experience with Bank ExecutivesOutcomes: An Experience with Bank ExecutivesOutcomes: An Experience with Bank Executives

It is evident that the modern organizations;

especially service sector organizations are posing more

emotional demands on their employees. The employee

has to engage themselves in the performance ofemotional labor as the demand of job situations. The

customers are being treated as if they are king and

the employees have to please them because the success

of the organization ultimately depends on the

customers. This kind of job situations are more

demanding emotionally and the employee perform

emotional labor. Both forms of emotional labor surface

acting and deep acting creates a situation in which

there is either emotional dissonance or to put more

effort. The continuous performance of emotional labor

results is health outcomes; more often negative in

nature.

Therefore, to support our conceptualization of

emotional labor and health outcomes relationship semi-

structured interview sessions were conducted by the

authors on the bank executives who directly interact

with customers in the different private and public sectors

banks. The banks in which the interviews were

conducted are State Bank of India, Punjab National

Bank, Bank of Baroda, Axis Bank, ICICIC Bank, ING

Vysya Bank, HDFC Bank, and Canara Bank.

The observed results indicated that out of 35

executives 28 (80%) who reported to be more involvedin performing emotional labor also reported to have more

health problems in comparison to them who were less

involved in performing emotional labor. So, it can be

concluded that the more emotional labor adversely affects

Emotional Labor and Health outcomes 87


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88 Kumar et al

Referen cesReferen cesReferen cesReferen cesReferen ces

Agervold, M. (2009). Emotional dissonance and burnout am

social counselors. International Journal of Work Organiz

and Emotion, 3, 1-17.

Austin, E. J., Dore, T. C. P. & ODonovan, K. M. (2008). Associa

of personality and emotional intelligence with display

perceptions and emotional labour. Personality and Indiv

Differences, 44, 679-688.

Bono, J. E., & Vey, M. A. (2005). Toward understanding em

management at work: A quantitative review of emotional

research. In C. E. J. Hrtel, W. J. Zerbe, & N. M. Ashka

(Eds.), Emotions in organizational behavior (pp. 233).Marwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Brotheridge, C. M., & Grandey, A. A. (2002). Emotional labo

burnout: Comparing two perspectives of people work. Jo

of Vocational Behavior, 60, 17-39.

Daniels, A. K. (1987). Invisible work.Social Problems, 34,403

Diefendorff, J. M., Croyle, M. H., & Gosserand, R. H. (2005)

dimensionality and antecedents of emotional labor strate

Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66, 339-357.

E n g l a n d , P. ( 2 0 0 5 ) . E m e r g i n g t h e o r i e s o f c

work.Annual Review of Sociology, 31,381-399.

Fineman, S. (1993). Organizations as Emotional Arenas. In S. Fine

(Ed.) Emotion in Organizations (pp. 9-35). London: Sage.Gelderen, B., Heuven, E., Veldhoven, M., Zeelenberg, M., & C

M. (2007). Psychological strain and emotional labor among p

officers: A diary study. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 71,

459.

perceived health outcomes. On the other hand it was also

found that the private sector bank executives perform more

emotional labor as compared to public sector banks.

Among 15 private sector bank executives 13 (87%) reported

to perform emotional labor and out of 20 public sector

bank executives only 15 (75%) reported to be involved in

performing emotional labor.. Therefore, it can also be

concluded that private sector executives perform more

emotional labor as compared to public sector bank

executives.

Discussion and ConclusionDiscussion and ConclusionDiscussion and ConclusionDiscussion and ConclusionDiscussion and Conclusion

On the basis of the review of the literature we can say

that most of the studies on emotional labor have been

carried out on the western populations; very few studies

are done in the Indian setting. And the studies on the

western populations are mainly concerned with relating

the emotional labor with other variables such as personality,

work culture, and coping. The studies which directly deal

with the emotional labor and health outcomes are very

few and to clarify this relationship more studies are required

(Mishra, 2006). The moderating effect of these variables

in the relationship between emotional labor and health

outcomes has not yet been well established (Kumar,Shankar and Singh, 2010).

The assessment of emotion labor may be helpful to

select the employees having the specific personality to

involve themselves in emotional labor with care by evolving

different effective ways of coping; so that they can avoid

negative health outcomes and their effectiveness. The

organizations (especially service sector organizations)

could be benefited by way of having effective employees

(Lockenhoff & Carstensen 2004).

The relationship of emotional labor and work culture

has not been yet well established. So, there is a need to

establish the relationship between emotional labor and

work culture; because much work has not been done to

explore the role of culture on emotional labor. Similarly,

the issues related with the moderating effect of work culture

in the relationship of the emotional labor and he

outcomes have also not been properly addressed.

The relationship between emotional labor and he

outcomes is in its preliminary phase; therefore m

extensive studies should be conducted to establish it m

comprehensively. One of the measure advantage

focusing the studies on this particular theme is tha

selecting the employees having the specific person

to involve them in emotional labor with care by evol

different effective ways of coping; so that they can a

negative health outcomes and improve the effectiven

of the service sector employees.


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