Emotional Labor Within a Performance Episode: Understanding When and Why Employees Change Between Emotion Regulation Techniques with Customers

Emotional labor research has a long-standing tradition of utilizing person-level, cross-sectional data when attempting to understand how surface acting and deep acting operate in relation to outcomes such as emotional exhaustion and emotional displays. However, such research designs ignore the possibility of meaningful variance in both surface and deep acting within single performance episodes. To address this, the current call center simulation study utilized continuous rating methodology (e.g., Ruef & Levenson, 2007) to assess three key questions, each of which was a new contribution to the emotional labor literature. The first question assessed the within-episode relationship of surface acting and deep acting to determine whether these two constructs are antipodes, or exclusive and opposing constructs (as indicated by a negative correlation), or if they are positively related such that individuals can engage in both simultaneously (e.g., Beal & Trougakos, 2013). The second question probed the role customers play in shaping employee emotional labor. Specifically, the current study built from previous work (e.g., Cote , 2005; Diefendorff & Gosserand, 2003) to identify how social feedback from customers (i.e., confederate callers) influenced the type of regulation that employees (i.e., participants) utilize. Finally, the last question focused on whether third-party evaluations of within-episode variations in the valence of employee emotionality corresponded to employee reports of specific emotion regulation strategies. In a call center simulation with a sample of undergraduate students, results indicated that collecting continuous, momentary-level assessments offers unique information for emotional labor research. Both surface and deep acting strategies positively covaried with each other over time, though this effect was attenuated depending upon study condition (i.e., service failure, service recovery) and the phase of the performance episode (i.e., when the between-subjects manipulations were implemented). Further, results indicated that the social context (as dictated by confederate callers) impacted the extent to which participants utilized varying levels and combinations of surface and deep acting strategies. Finally, surface and deep acting were both found to be negatively related to emotional exhaustion and third-party affect ratings, though this effect also depended upon the study condition and the phase of the performance episode. Combined, the results depict a complex picture of the momentary influences and outcomes of surface and deep acting emotion regulation strategies for employee performance and well-being.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology-Industrial/Organizational

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Akron

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Gabriel, Allison Stephanie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Diefendorff, James

• Psychology
• emotional labor
• emotion regulation
• social information
• continuous rating methodology
• emotional exhaustion
• emotional performance

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1366556957

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:akron1366556957