Emotional exhaustion behind the badge: Examining the effects of affective commitment, surface acting, and gender among police personnel

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Public service organizations, such as the police, place great value on employee commitment because the public interest is at stake. While previous literature establishes a negative association between affective commitment and emotional exhaustion, the underlying mechanism remains insufficiently explored. Drawing on the perspective of emotional labor, this paper investigates whether surface acting, which refers to the feigning of expected emotions, mediates the impact of affective commitment on emotional exhaustion among police personnel. Furthermore, the study aims to explore whether this mediating effect is influenced by gender. The dataset utilized in this research comprises responses obtained from a survey administered to 465 police officers employed by the Taipei City Police Department. Our findings reveal a significant suppression effect of surface acting in the affective commitment-emotional exhaustion relationship, suggesting that surface acting, as a result of low affective commitment, has a detrimental impact on emotional well-being. Interestingly, the effects of affective commitment and surface acting on emotional exhaustion are stronger in male police officers compared to their female counterparts. In summary, the results of this study contribute to the existing literature and have broader implications for high-stress work environments. The findings provide insights into how organizations can better support the well-being of their employees by promoting commitment and addressing surface acting. Moreover, the study underscores the importance of considering gender differences in understanding the impact of these variables on emotional exhaustion among police personnel.