For Negative Emotional Labor,Which Strategy Promotes Well-Being?An Examination Of Surface And Deep Acting

Emotional labor involves the display of emotions by service representatives when dealing with customers.Researchers suggest that deep acting,as opposed to surface acting,is the preferred choice for regulating emotional labor.While there is some truth to this conceptualization,at least in terms a tendency to suppress felt negative emotions to conform to what are seen to be society's expectations-display rules,the question remains as to whether there might be situations where a service representative has to manage felt positive emotions,that is display rules emphasize explicitly or implicitly the suppression of one's felt positive emotions:negative emotional labor.In the present study,we used an experience-sampling technique to explore within-person interactions involving surface acting(Study 1),positive and negative affective states,job satisfaction,and work withdrawal.We also examined the potential moderating effects of surface acting self-efficacy when individual suppresses felt positive emotions in order to meet desired display expectations.In a follow-up study(Study 2),we investigated similar relationships with deep acting and deep acting self-efficacy.In both studies,call center employees provided responses to daily surveys for ten days.Using hierarchical linear modeling,we found that for negative emotion labor,affective states and well-being worsened when employees engaged in deep acting,whereas improved when employees engaged in surface acting.Results also revealed for deep acting associations,the buffering role of deep acting self-efficacy insofar as we found within-individual relationships are weaker for high deep acting self-efficacy levels,whereas for surface acting relationships,with surface acting self-efficacy the within-individual associations were stronger for high than low levels.We conclude by a discussion of implications of the findings.