The emotional labor of end-of-life care work: Findings of a mixed methods study in Hong Kong

Teachers can be seen as emotional workers often needing to be sensitive to the demands that their work makes on their emotions, and skilful in regulating their feelings, but few quantitative studies have examined this issue systematically. Using hierarchical regression analysis to examine this issue, this study investigates teachers’ perceptions of the relationships among the emotional job demands, emotional intelligence, emotional labour strategies and teaching satisfaction, with a particular focus on the moderating role of emotional intelligence. The results of a survey of 1281 Chinese teachers reveal that teachers’ perceptions of emotional job demands and emotional intelligence significantly predict the three emotional labour strategies. Emotional intelligence significantly moderates the impact of emotional job demands on surface acting and expression of naturally felt emotion but not deep acting. Even after controlling for emotional job demands and emotional intelligence, deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotion still have a positive influence on teachers’ teaching satisfaction. Deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotion are more effective emotional labour strategies for teachers. A teacher development programme is suggested to make teachers clear about these emotional demands and different emotional labour strategies, and enhance teachers’ emotional intelligence.

Following Grandey's integrative model of emotional labor and emotion regulation, this study examined the relationships between university teachers' reported use of various emotional labor strategies and some antecedents (i. e., perceived emotional job demands and teaching support) and teaching efficacy. A sample of 643 university teachers from 50 public higher education institutions in an East China province responded to a questionnaire survey. The data analysis based on descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling showed that surface acting impeded teaching efficacy in instructional strategy and learning assessment, while deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotions enhanced teaching efficacy in course design, instructional strategy, and learning assessment. For the antecedents of university teachers' emotional labor strategies, teachers perceived that the emotional job demands of teaching facilitated their use of surface and deep acting; in contrast, teachers' perceived teaching support decreased their use of surface acting and increased their use of expression of naturally felt emotions.

This study examined the relationships between emotional labour strategies and its antecedents and consequences among academic staff in Jordanian universities. A total of 547 university teachers from three public Jordanian Universities responded to a questionnaire survey. The results showed that university teachers who experienced higher levels of negative emotion regulation, engaged in detached engagement, exhibited impulse control, anticipated emotions less, and displayed less emotional countenance were more likely to experience difficulties with emotion regulation. Those who engaged more in surface acting and faced greater challenges in regulating their emotions were more likely to experience burnout. Additionally, difficulties in emotion regulation still served as a potential mediator in the link between surface acting and emotional job demands, and between personal accomplishment and emotional job demands. Emotional job demands exhibited a positive relationship with surface acting. The challenges posed by emotional job demands might not directly lead to difficulties in emotion regulation.

This study constructed a model of the emotional labour process of teachers. This study sampled 1,075 Taiwanese junior high school teachers for a structural equation modelling analysis. The results revealed the following: (1) Female teachers exhibit higher levels of emotional job demands (ED), extrinsic motivation (EM) and intrinsic motivation (IM) of emotional labour, as well as surface acting, deep acting, and emotional exhaustion (EE) compared to male teachers. However, females display lower levels of depersonalisation (DP) compared to males. (2) Non-STEM teachers have higher levels of ED and EE compared to STEM teachers. However, STEM teachers exhibit more positive emotions (PE) compared to Non-STEM teachers. (3) Teachers with administrative positions experienced higher levels of EE compared to teachers without administrative positions. (4) ED positively predicted emotional labour strategies (ELS). (5) The EM positively predicted maladaptive ELS and negatively predicted adaptive ELS. IM positively predicted adaptive ELS. (6) Maladaptive ELS negatively predicted PE and positively predicted negative emotions (NE), whereas adaptive ELS positively predicted PE and negatively predicted NE. (7) PE negatively predicted EE and reduced personal accomplishment (RA), while NE positively predicted EE and DP.

Teaching entails many demands of an emotional and interpersonal kind. For the current study, emotional job demands were conceptualised as comprising three components: exposure to emotionally demanding situations, emotional labour (use of deep and surface acting) and work focused on the emotional well-being of others. Both emotional job demands and ‘non-emotional’ job demands (that is, general demands such as those pertaining to workload, time constraints and curriculum issues) were hypothesised to predict emotional exhaustion. Two resources, social support and confidence in one’s own teaching practices (teaching self-efficacy [TSE]), were expected to have main and buffering effects. Primary school teachers (N = 556) completed an electronic questionnaire measuring all study variables. Consistent with hypotheses, general (non-emotional) job demands, emotional demands, social support and TSE, each uniquely predicted exhaustion. In addition, TSE buffered the negative effect of deep acting on emotional exhaustion. Findings shed light on the complexity of the job factors that contribute to the emotionally exhausting nature of school teaching, and suggest avenues for intervention. In particular, they show that strategies for enhancing professional self-efficacy may help teachers manage some of the emotional demands associated with their role.

To investigate the relationship between emotional labour strategies and job satisfaction among nurses in Turkey. Nursing is one of the professions in which emotional labour is heavily used. The relationship between emotional labour strategies and job satisfaction has many different consequences in nursing. Although studies have focused on the relationship between emotional labour and job satisfaction among nurses abroad, no studies on the subject have been found in Turkey. A cross-sectional descriptive design was employed. The study was conducted with 281 nurses working in a university hospital and three public hospitals in Manisa, Turkey. Research data were collected using the Personal Information Form, Emotional Labour Scale and Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analysis were used in data evaluation. Analyses showed that the type of emotional labour strategy most frequently exhibited by nurses was surface acting. In surface acting, behaviours do not reflect employees' true feelings. Job satisfaction of nurses was higher than the medium level. A negative correlation was found between deep acting and job satisfaction. In deep acting, employees try to feel the emotions appropriate to the behaviour expected of them. Nurses' emotional labour may cause some undesirable consequences. Nurses' emotional labour strategies are related to their job satisfaction levels. Managers should be aware of the emotional labour of nurses and its possible negative consequences. Management strategies that target the negative consequences of emotional labour are important not only for the well-being of nurses but also for the quality of patient care.

This study aimed to examine the associations among emotional labor strategies, stress from emotional labor, and burnout in nurses. We employed a descriptive cross-sectional design. Data were collected from May to November 2018 in South Korea using structured questionnaires. Participants were 303 nurses from 27 hospitals, who were recruited by convenience sampling. Emotional labor strategies (surface acting, deep acting, and expression of naturally felt emotions), stress, and burnout were self-reported. A path analysis using structural equation modeling was performed to examine the associations among the study variables. Bivariate analyses revealed that surface acting was positively correlated with stress and burnout, deep acting was negatively correlated with burnout, and naturally felt emotions were negatively correlated with stress and burnout. The path analysis revealed that surface acting was positively associated with stress, naturally felt emotions were negatively associated with burnout, and the stress from emotional labor was positively associated with burnout. Although surface acting was not directly associated with burnout, it was indirectly associated through stress. Surface acting involves regulation and suppression of one's felt emotions. The findings of this study suggest that hospitals need to reduce expectations for surface acting to reduce nurses' stress and burnout. Organizational efforts to provide interventions that improve nurses' ability to manage their emotions in interactions with patients might effectively foster nurses' well-being. Surface acting might contribute to nurses' burnout, and naturally felt emotions might reduce nurses' burnout. Nurse managers should thus provide opportunities to discuss the utilized emotional labor strategies and encourage appropriate responses depending on the patient context. Programs that promote emotional competence may reduce the adverse effects associated with nurses' emotional labor and foster effective coping strategies.

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the intricate relationships among display rules, emotional job demands (EJD), emotional labour and the occupational well‐being (OWB) of kindergarten teachers in China. Utilising the job demands–resources (JD‐R) model, this study specifically assesses the influence of EJD and displays rules on two dimensions of teachers' OWB (job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion), while exploring the mediating role of emotional labour strategies. Data were collected from a sample of 1220 Chinese kindergarten teachers. By employing structural equation modelling and mediation analysis, the findings reveal that positive display rules can enhance job satisfaction and alleviate emotional exhaustion. Conversely, negative display rules are linked to heightened emotional exhaustion and diminished job satisfaction. The analysis further discerns that two emotional labour strategies significantly mediate these associations. Surface acting exacerbates adverse outcomes, whereas the natural expression of emotions acts as a salient buffer, augmenting job satisfaction and reducing emotional exhaustion. In addition, EJD can positively predict job satisfaction through deep acting. These insights underscore the necessity of cultivating educational environments that advocate for natural emotional expression and reinforce positive display rules, thereby enhancing teachers' OWB. This research offers valuable implications for educational policymakers and practitioners, emphasising the need to address the emotional aspects of teaching in early childhood education.

In the growing health care sector, meeting emotional job demands is crucial to organizational outcomes but may negatively affect employees’ well-being. Drawing on the emotional aging literature, we predicted that two common emotional job demands, display demands (expressing positive, negative, and neutral emotions toward clients) and sensitivity demands (knowing what the client is feeling), affect older health care workers’ occupational well-being differently than young workers, as indicated by their job satisfaction and need for recovery. Survey data from employees of senior care homes (N = 141, aged between 17 and 62 years) confirmed the moderating role of age for links between emotional job demands and occupational well-being indicators. Emotional display demands were generally positively associated with emotional dissonance; however, the association between demands to display neutral emotions and emotional dissonance was stronger among young compared with older employees. In contrast, among older but not young employees, emotional dissonance was negatively associated with job satisfaction, and emotional sensitivity demands were positively associated with need for recovery. These findings suggest that age may confer both advantages (facing neutral display demands) and vulnerabilities (facing emotional dissonance and sensitivity demands) in managing emotional job demands.

Objective To explore the status quo of emotional labor in operation room nurses and to analyze its effects on quality of professional life, so as to provide a reference for improving physical and mental health of operation room nurses and driving the building and development of the specialized nurse team. Methods Totally 203 operation room nurses from 4 general ClassⅢ Grade A hospitals in Jiangxi province from May to June 2018 were selected using convenient sampling, and the status quo of their emotional labor was investigated with the general information questionnaire, Nurse's Emotional Labor Scale and Nurse's Quality of Professional Life Scale. Results The total average score of emotional labor of the operation room nurses was (3.68±0.55) , including (3.57±0.76) for deep acting, (4.28±0.80) for emotional expression and (3.50±0.74) for surface acting from high to low. Univariate analysis revealed that there was statistically significant difference in surface acting scores between operation room nurses with different length of service, in deep acting scores between operation room nurses with different age, professional title and clinical teaching and in emotional expression scores between operation room scores with different educational background (P<0.05) . Emotional labor was correlated with the various factors of quality of professional life. Surface acting had negative predictive power for kindness satisfaction (β=-0.317, P<0.01) , and positive predictive power for job burnout (β=0.337, P<0.01) and secondary trauma (β=0.264, P<0.01) . Deep acting had positive predictive power for kindness satisfaction, and negative predictive power for job burnout (β=0.303, P<0.01) and secondary trauma (β=0.281, P<0.01) . Emotional expression requirements had positive predictive power for kindness satisfaction (β=0.191, P<0.01) . Multivariate linear regression analysis showed that surface acting, deep acting and emotional expression requirements were the main influencing factors to kindness satisfaction, and that surface acting and deep acting were the main influencing factors to job burnout and secondary trauma. Conclusions The emotional labor of operation room nurses stays at a medium level, and the emotional labor strategy mostly frequently used is deep acting. Surface acting, deep acting and emotional expression requirements in emotional labor have predictive power for quality of professional life, and managers should pay attention to the education and training of emotional labor for operation room nurses. Key words: Nurses; Operation room; Emotional labor; Quality of professional life

Emotional job demands and the role of matching job resources: A cross-sectional survey study among health care workers

Emotional labor is a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of effective leadership. To address this, the current study adopts the Emotion as Social Information (EASI) model as a theoretical framework to investigate the influence of leaders' emotional labor and perceived appropriateness on employees' emotional labor. A two (leaders' emotional labor strategies: surface acting vs. deep acting) by two (perceived appropriateness: appropriate vs. inappropriate) between-subjects experiment was designed with a sample of 120 front-line service employees from hotels in Shanghai. The results showed that regardless of whether the perception of a leader's surface acting was deemed appropriate or not, employees tended to perform surface acting, while the impact of the perceived appropriateness regarding the leader's deep acting was different, wherein an appropriate display of deep acting by the leader significantly influenced employees to engage in deep acting themselves. The managerial implications and limitations of the findings are also discussed.

Emotional labor prevails in a variety of fields. However, degree of emotional labor practiced by medical professionals, during the COVID-19 pandemic, is considerably higher. This study adopts an explanatory sequential mixed-method approach, where a survey-based quantitative study was conducted on 406 doctors working across Pakistan; followed by an interview-based qualitative study, conducted on 15 doctors. Quantitative analysis reveals that surface and deep acting both lead to high emotional exhaustion and low well-being, whereas genuine emotions lead to low emotional exhaustion and high well-being. No significant impact of emotional job demands is found on well-being via emotional exhaustion. Results from qualitative study reaffirm that due to high emotional job demands, doctors tend to heavily engage in emotional labor, which leads to emotional exhaustion, and compromises their well-being. The research highlights the contextual nature of emotional labor construct and investigates lesser-explored facets of psychological and physical well-being. The study also adds to the scant mixed-method literature, specifically an explanatory sequential design entailing structural equation modeling and thematic analysis. Keywords: Emotional Job Demands, Emotional Labor, Emotional Exhaustion, Psychological/Eudaimonic Well-being, Physical Well-being, COVID-19.

Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is a profession characterized by high cognitive and emotional demands, leading to persistent challenges with teacher burnout (TB). While emotion regulation (ER) is known to protect against burnout, this study investigates the distinct roles of emotional labor strategies-surface acting and deep acting-within high-pressure academic cultures. It further examines whether ER mediates the relationship between surface acting and burnout, and if emotional intelligence (EI) moderates this pathway by buffering the negative effects of surface acting. A cross-sectional survey was administered to 448 EFL instructors in China, yielding a recovery rate of 93.08%. We employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to test five hypotheses, conducting mediation analysis to assess the role of ER and moderation analysis to evaluate the protective effect of EI. The results confirmed that frequent use of surface acting was positively associated with higher levels of TB, whereas deep acting was linked to lower burnout. ER functioned as a significant mediator, partially explaining the detrimental impact of surface acting on burnout. Furthermore, emotional intelligence served as a significant moderator; instructors with higher EI were less affected by the negative consequences of surface acting on their wellbeing. These findings underscore the critical distinction between dysfunctional (surface acting) and functional (deep acting) emotional labor strategies in EFL contexts. The study promotes deep acting as a more sustainable ER strategy and highlights the protective role of EI. Consequently, targeted training programs designed to enhance ER skills and develop EI are recommended as effective interventions to safeguard the wellbeing of EFL instructors operating in high-stress academic environments.

The concept of ‘emotional labour’ has been suggested as a useful framework for studying the relationship between emotionally demanding work and well being of health-care staff. The framework distinguishes ‘surface acting’ from ‘deep acting’ and suggests a predominant reliance on surface acting as a risk for emotional exhaustion. The relationship between emotional demands and emotional exhaustion among staff members working in high secure forensic psychiatric care (n = 131) was studied using the framework of emotional labour. Surface acting was found to partly mediate the relationship between emotional demands and emotional exhaustion. Experiencing the relationship with the manager as supportive contributed negatively to the prediction of emotional exhaustion. Workplace support did not moderate the relationship between emotional labour and emotional exhaustion. Although staff members working on wards in the direct care of forensic psychiatric patients tend to use both deep and surface acting during their work, our study results also show that deep acting and surface acting are differently related to emotional exhaustion. The framework of emotional labour indeed showed to be a useful paradigm within this population. Therefore, suggestions are made to pay attention to emotional labour strategies in future research and practice.