Abstract
Emotional labor is characterized by two main regulation strategies: surface acting and deep acting. However, which strategy consumes more energy? To explore this, we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure changes in hemoglobin density while participants performed a task requiring them to make the opposite emotional facial expression of that presented in a picture. We found that (1) neither surface nor deep acting led to a significant change in hemoglobin concentration in the prefrontal cortex; (2) making negative and positive facial expressions activated the same left front and middle areas of the prefrontal cortex; and (3) making positive facial expressions activated the rear portion of the prefrontal cortex, but making negative facial expressions did not. Based on these findings and past work, we can infer that deep and surface acting may not significantly differ in terms of the activity in the prefrontal cortex energy consumed. Furthermore, engaging in positive and negative emotional labor appear to utilize some of the same neurological mechanisms, although they differ in others.
Highlights
Emotional labor is the act of regulating one’s emotion to conform to organizational standards
Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) argue that, in addition to surface acting and deep acting, that there is a third form of emotional labor: spontaneous and genuine emotional labor, wherein the person expresses naturally felt emotions that align with the emotional display rules; in this case, no acting is required (Diefendorff et al, 2005)
To determine which channels were activated while participants engaged in surface or deep acting, we subjected the beta values estimated from the NIRS-SPM tool to a one sample t-test and determined the level of activation when displaying positive, negative, and neutral emotional face pictures
Summary
Emotional labor is the act of regulating one’s emotion to conform to organizational standards. Self-reported results might be reflecting effects of participants’ memory, and not emotional labor per se For this reason, some researchers have tried experimental methods to explore differences between surface acting and deep acting. The authors found that (1) the participants devoted significant effort and found it difficult to perform both surface and deep acting, but deep acting engaged more attention, and (2) both surface acting and deep acting led to decreased sadness, while deep acting led to a stronger physiological response (e.g., greater increase in heart rate) In another experimental study, Gabriel and Diefendorff (2015) utilized a call center simulation to examine how shifts in customer incivility influenced continuous measures of participants’ felt emotions, surface acting, deep acting, and vocal tone during a single interaction. This enabled us to explore whether there was a difference in the effort for these strategies between positive and negative emotional expressions
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