Research On The Level Of Emotional Labor Input And Its Influencing Factors Of First-line Social Workers In China

Emotional labor is a new form of labor that emerged in the era of the service industry which rapid development recent years.It refers to a series of psychological and behavioral activities that individuals(workers)take in order to achieve self-identity and realize their own interests under the social control of the emotional system.Different from traditional manual labor and mental labor,emotional labor uses the emotional resources of workers as capital.Under the dual effects of emotional system and social culture,in order to show the emotions that match their own roles,workers need to constantly adjust their own emotional expression,psychological state and even behavior in their work.Emotional labor is usually measured in six dimensions: duration,frequency,type,intensity,surface acting,and deep acting.Because social workers need to use empathy and active listening skills in their practical work frequently,they will inevitably produce a lot of emotional labor.Emotional labor not only affects the work and psychological state of the workers,but also affects the service effect.It can be seen that the importance of emotional labor for social workers cannot be ignored.Through combing the literature research,it is found that the existing research on emotional labor mostly focuses on the service industry,education industry and health care industry,while the research focuses on emotional labor of social workers are relatively rare.Based on the self-designed questionnaire,this study collected 476 valid samples of emotional labor of first-line social workers in China.Using multiple linear regression to explore the influencing factors of social workers' emotional labor input level,and analyzing the commonality and difference between social workers' emotional labor and traditional industry emotional labor through emotional system theory,pointing out that social workers' emotional labor is professional and unique.First,by comparing the emotional labor level data of social workers and service workers,it is found that the level of emotional labor input of social workers is higher than that of service employees.Second,more than 90% of institutions ororganizations have standardized requirements on the emotional expression of social workers,which reflects the more prominent social control functions of social systems in the field of social work.Third,through multiple regression analysis,it is found that the personality characteristics of extroversion,openness,rigor,the average salary and emotional expression norms will affect the level of emotional labor input of social workers.The social workers who have extroversion,openness,and rigor personality,have higher levels of emotional labor input.The average monthly salary is positively correlated with the level of emotional labor input of social workers.When the organization has clear emotional expression norms,the social workers' emotional labor input is higher.There are two innovations in this study: the first is trying to carry out theoretical innovation,using the emotional system theory to analyze the level of emotional labor input of social workers;the second is to introduce the emotional labor scale to the level of emotional labor input of social workers in China.The influencing factors have been exploratory research,enriching the empirical research on emotional labor in the social work field.