Deep Acting Research Articles

The status of emotional labour and its influence on job burnout among village doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic in China: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundVillage doctors in China are not only the gatekeepers of rural residents' health but also the net bottom of the medical security system. However, emotional labour is increasingly threatening the stability of the rural primary medical system. In addition, the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has further exposed the vulnerability of human resources in China's rural health system. This study aims to evaluate the current situation of emotional labour among village doctors and explore the impact of emotional labour on job burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic in China.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted in December 2021 in Shandong Province. We used structured questionnaires to collect data, including sociodemographic characteristics, emotional labour, and job burnout. Data were analysed by t test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation analysis, and hierarchical multiple linear regression.ResultsA total of 1,093 village doctors from Shandong Province participated in the study. More than half of the participants were male (62.40%) and were between 41 and 50 years old (53.43%). The total mean score of emotional labour was 3.17 ± 0.67, of which the surface acting (SA) score was 2.28 ± 0.90, and the deep acting (DA) score was 3.91 ± 0.93. There were significant differences in SA according to gender and work content (P < 0.05) and in DA according to gender, age, education level, and work content (P < 0.05). Pearson correlation analysis showed that SA was positively correlated with job burnout (P < 0.001), and DA was negatively correlated with job burnout (P < 0.001). Hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis revealed that 29% of the variance in job burnout is attributable to SA (β = 0.530, P < 0.001) and DA (β = -0.154, P < 0.001).ConclusionVillage doctors in Shandong Province performed moderate levels of emotional labour during the COVID-19 pandemic. SA had a significant positive effect on job burnout, while DA had a significant negative effect on job burnout among village doctors. Administrators should enhance training on emotional labour for village doctors to play a positive role in alleviating their job burnout.

Psychological capital moderates the effect of emotional labor strategies on job burnout in college teachers

I explored the correlations of psychological capital, job burnout, and emotional labor strategies. Participants were 434 teachers at two universities in China, who completed scales to measure the three variables. Results showed that both deep acting and expression of natural emotion were negatively correlated with college teachers' job burnout, and surface acting was positively correlated with job burnout. Additionally, psychological capital significantly moderated these effects: For teachers with high psychological capital, expression of natural emotion and deep acting were both significantly correlated with job burnout, but the correlation between surface acting and burnout was not significant; however, for teachers with low psychological capital, surface acting and burnout were significantly correlated, but the correlations between expression of natural emotion and burnout, and between deep acting and burnout were not significant. The results shed light on how to reduce and prevent job burnout among college teachers.

Employee reactions to leader emotional display strategies in a crisis situation

AbstractDuring a crisis, leaders experiencing fear have to decide whether to reveal or regulate their emotions. Drawing on the emotions as social information (EASI) model and employing an experimental vignette study (n = 159) in the context of a young firm's crisis, we compare employee reactions (i.e., employee affect, job engagement, and affective commitment) to different leader emotional display strategies, namely, deep acting, surface acting, and genuine emotions. Compared with a leader's genuine emotions (i.e., display of fear), surface acting increased negative affect, whereas deep acting reduced negative affect. With regard to the total effects of our mediation model, surface acting negatively influenced employee job engagement and affective commitment, whereas deep acting surprisingly showed no differences to the display of genuine emotions. Our findings indicate that leaders who experience fear may consider revealing this genuine emotion during a crisis rather than engaging in potentially inauthentic emotion regulation strategies.

Transformational Leadership and Emotional Labor: The Mediation Effects of Psychological Empowerment.

In order to survive the fiercer competition, more and more service firms emphasize front-line employees' role of creating excellent customer experience by displaying positive emotions during the service interactions. However, the underlying mechanisms for the relationship between transformational leadership and front-line employees' emotional labor remain unclear. Drawing upon the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study develops a conceptual model in which transformational leadership influences front-line employees' emotional labor through the mediator of psychological empowerment. By collecting data from 436 employees in five call centers, we tested our model and hypotheses through PROCESS 3.3 macro for SPSS developed by Hayes. The results show that transformational leadership shows positive and negative effects on deep acting and surface acting, respectively. The positive effect on deep acting is partially mediated by psychological empowerment, while the negative effect on surface acting is fully mediated by psychological empowerment. Specifically, two dimensions of psychological empowerment (impact, self-efficacy) play negative mediating roles between transformational leadership and surface acting, while impact, self-determination, and self-efficacy play positive mediating roles of transformational leadership and deep acting. The findings advance our understanding about how transformational leadership influences front-line employees' emotional labor by introducing psychological empowerment as a mediator.

Abusive supervision and emotional labour on a daily basis: The role of employee mindfulness

This study examined the relationships between abusive supervision, subordinates' work engagement and their emotional labour on a daily basis. Based on an experience sampling study of 95 frontline hospitality employees over 10 working days, the results revealed the complex consequences of abusive supervision on subordinates in the hospitality industry. The results showed that daily abusive supervision was positively related to employees' daily surface acting through their daily work engagement, but it was not significantly related to daily deep acting. In addition, subordinates' mindfulness moderated the relationship between daily abusive supervision and subordinates' daily work engagement. These findings reveal employees’ daily responses to abusive supervision and can help tourism and hospitality managers develop relevant training programmes and policies to reduce the negative impact of abusive supervision and thus protect employee well-being.

When and how sales manager feedback contributes to sales performance: the role of emotional labor and cross-selling

PurposeThis study aims to test the mediating effect of cross-selling behavior (CSB) on the relationship between sales manager feedback (i.e. output and behavioral) and sales performance, and the moderating effect of emotional labor (i.e. deep and surface acting) on this relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used two-wave multisource data: survey and objective sales performance (sales revenue) data collected from 300 door-to-door salespeople working at a South Korean cosmetics company.FindingsThe relationship between output feedback and sales performance was mediated by CSB. In addition, the positive relationship between output feedback and CSB was weakened by deep and surface acting, whereas that between behavioral feedback and CSB was strengthened by deep acting. Specifically, behavioral feedback had a positive relationship with CSB when salespeople engaged in a high level of deep acting. This relationship was not significant for low and medium levels of deep acting. The authors’ supplementary analyses indicated no significant three-way interaction effect between output feedback, behavioral feedback and emotional labor on CSB.Research limitations/implicationsData collection from door-to-door salespeople in a single cosmetics company undermines the generalizability of the present findings.Practical implicationsBy exploring the boundary conditions that strengthen or weaken the effectiveness of manager feedback, this study provides insights into how the two types of manager feedback can be effectively used to promote CSB and sales performance.Originality/valueThis study offers a nuanced understanding of the relative roles of output and behavioral feedback in CSB and the differential moderating effects of emotional labor on the two types of manager feedback.

The Mediating Effect of Presenteeism on the Relationship between Emotional Labor and Work Engagement of Coaches for Disability Sports.

The aim of present study was to examine the mediating effect of presenteeism on the relationship between emotional labor and work engagement of coaches for disability sports. A total of 198 coaches in Korea participated in this study. Participants responded a survey measuring emotional labor, presenteeism, and work engagement. After analyzing the correlation between each variable, the mediation model was verified through structural equation model analysis. The results reveal that emotional labor of coaches for disability sports positively predicted their work engagement, but negatively predicted presenteeism. In addition, the participants' presenteeism can have a negative effect on their work engagement. Moreover, completing work in presenteeism was found to mediate the relationship between the deep acting and surface acting in emotional labor and work engagement of disability sports coaches.

The First Attempt to Apply an Online Mindfulness Program to Nursing Staff in a Traditional Korean Medicine Clinic in COVID-19 Era: A Case Series

The importance of medical personnel's mental health is emphasized in the COVID-19 era. The characteristics of traditional Korean medicine (KM) may affect the mental health of nursing staff working at KM clinics. In this case series, we report the first attempt to apply an online mindfulness program to the nursing staff in a KM clinic in Korea. For three female nursing assistants, an online mindfulness program consisting of five sessions was offered for two months. After the program, a decrease in emotional labor was observed in two participants, and a decrease in the level of burnout was observed in all participants. One participant showed an increase in their emotional labor level, which was associated with an increase in deep acting. The participants expressed a high level of satisfaction with this program in terms of recommendations for peers and willingness to participate again. As this report is a case series, larger studies are needed to fully evaluate the benefits of the program on emotional labor and burnout of KM clinic nursing staff. However, the potential benefits of emotional labor and burnout, high satisfaction, and some challenges identified in this case series can be considered in future extensions and modifications of the program.

Leaders' emotional labour strategies and followers' emotional engagement: mediating effect of perceived transformational leadership

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between leaders' emotional labour strategies (surface acting and deep acting) and followers' emotional engagement while concentrating on the mediating role of perceived transformational leadership. By using mail and personal administrated survey method, data were collected by 372 employees (33 supervisors and 339 subordinates/followers) of 87 NGOs in Malaysia. We employed the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) techniques for the statistical analysis. The findings revealed that leaders' emotional labour strategies (surface acting and deep acting) play a significant role to influence their subordinates' emotional engagement. Specifically, leaders' surface acting negatively affects the followers' emotional engagement, and deep acting has a positive relationship with followers' emotional engagement. Moreover, perceived transformational leadership significantly mediates the relationship between leaders' emotional labour strategies (surface acting and deep acting) and followers' emotional engagement. This study gives an insightful understanding of the crucial roles of leaders' emotions and followers' emotional engagement in the workplace.

The Effect of Surface Acting on Turnover Intention in Debt Collector Employees

Turnover Intention is a condition obtained by employees to switch from one company to another. One of the factors that can influence turnover intention is surface acting. This study aims to determine the effect of surface acting on turnover intention in debt collector employees. This study uses a simple quantitative regression approach. Respondents in this study were 153 debt collector employees who were obtained using the snowball sampling technique. The results showed that there was a positive and significant effect of surface acting on the turnover intention of debt collectors (b = 0.685, p = 0.00 &lt;0.05) indicating that the higher the surface acting score, the higher the turnover intention of debt collectors. Additional test results show that recent education and age have no significant effect on surface acting on turnover intention among debt collectors (P = 0.00 &gt; 0.05). This research can be a reference for finance companies to provide training regarding better emotional labor strategies. The next researcher’s suggestion is to use a qualitative approach method to describe conditions in more detail and conduct research on two emotional labor strategy variables (surface acting and deep acting) on turnover intention in debt collector employees.

What about the emotional labor of university teachers in teaching? A survey from a Chinese university

Emotional labor is an important factor that affects the teaching effectiveness of teachers, and university teachers are no exception. In order to understand the current status of emotional labor among university teachers, this paper investigated the emotional labor of 253 university teachers from China. The results showed that university teachers have a high perception of emotional display rules, and engage in high levels of emotional labor behavior. They employ more deep acting and naturally felt emotion strategies in emotional labor, and age differences were found in surface acting, which decreases with age. Finally, this paper proposes suggestions for improving the impact of emotional labor at both the individual and organizational levels. University teachers need to continuously improve their own emotional management abilities and intrinsic work motivation, while universities need to create a good educational ecological environment and provide social support for university teachers.

The link between emotional labor and employee performance in the services sector

The lack of clarity related to the concept of emotional labor has impeded its development regardless of the conspicuous importance of emotional labor for the external and internal environments which include the employees, organizations, structure, operations, and clients. Thus, this research aims to highlight the connection between emotional labor and its impact on employee performance. This study is concerned with the employees in the services sector in the period between January 2011 and June 2022 and included a total of 21 articles. In general, this review found that emotional labor can result in positive results for the business, as enhancing workers’ satisfaction as well as performance, on the other hand, burnout and poor job performance when people are compelled to express emotions differently than their own, the findings were highlighting the consistent connection between surface acting (SA) and employee performance. Nonetheless, the findings of deep acting (DA) and the employee’s performance were blended (Çağlıyan et al., 2013; Alsakarneh et al., 2019). Searches were conducted using ProQuest, EBSCO, Emerald Insight, PsycINFO, Science Direct, and Google Scholar. The research team systematically reviewed each article and relative reports, eliminating those not relevant to the review.

The Mediating Effect of Deep Acting in the Relationship between Service-oriented Leadership and Employee Emotional Exhaustion

The Mediating Effect of Deep Acting in the Relationship between Service-oriented Leadership and Employee Emotional Exhaustion

Deep Dense Network-Based Curriculum Reinforcement Learning for High-Speed Overtaking

Reinforcement learning methods have promising applications in autonomous vehicles, such as lane keeping, adaptive cruise control, and overtaking. However, long-time sequential decision making in complicated scenarios, such as continuous high-speed overtaking, remains challenge. One such challenge is that current neural networks in reinforcement learning employ a shallow neural network, which has limitations in feature extractions. To address this, we propose a deep actor–critic network framework using multilayer dense-connection networks to obtain efficient extracted features. To be specific, we employ a deep dense architecture in the framework of soft actor–critic, which has multiple hidden layers serving as feature extractions. To tackle the vanishing or exploding gradient problem, we reuse features and design shortcut connections, as well as feature-concatenating operations between hidden layers. Meanwhile, when learning multitask high-speed overtaking as one whole progression, the agent has to learn driving, lane changing, and avoiding other vehicles at the same time. Therefore, another challenge is that sparse rewards worsen the speed of convergence. We design a task-level sequencing curriculum reinforcement learning method to tackle the reward sparseness. It breaks down a complex task into two successive subtasks: the first aims to drive as fast as possible in a single-vehicle model; and the second aims to overtake other vehicles without any collisions as soon as possible according to the knowledge gained from the first task in a multivehicle model. Finally, we evaluate our method using a racing car simulator with different tracks. In a comparison using the standard actor–critic algorithm in three different multivehicle scenarios, the best median results show that our deep actor–critic network framework reduces overtaking distance and overtaking time by up to 4.9% and 8.7%, respectively.

Linking Personality, Emotional Labor and Employee Well-being: The Role of Job Autonomy

This study aimed to examine the cause and consequence of emotional labor strategies based on the emotional labor framework. To investigate the boundary condition of the current research model, the study proposed that job autonomy would moderate the effects of emotional labor on employees'' well-being. To achieve the purpose of the study, it was first tested whether neuroticism and extroversion of employees predicted the focal outcomes (i.e., burnout and work engagement) via distinct emotional labor strategies. Second, the moderation effects of job autonomy were tested for each emotional labor strategy in predicting the focal outcomes. Third, the conditional indirect effects of job autonomy on the mediation process were examined. The results revealed that surface acting partially mediated the relationship between neuroticism and burnout, whereas deep acting fully mediated the relationship between extraversion and work engagement. Regarding the moderating effects of job autonomy, it significantly moderated the relationship between surface acting and burnout and between deep acting and work engagement. In addition, from the moderated mediation effects, the conditional indirect effects of job autonomy were significant. Finally, theoretical and practical implications are discussed and limitations and future research directions were suggested.

Mediating Effect of Job Satisfaction on the Relationship between Emotional Labour and Organizational Commitment among the Physiotherapists

Multiple studies on Emotional Labour (EL) among various medical staff segments have been conducted, but none have focused on physiotherapists. Consequently, this study aims to examine the connections between (EL) and Job Satisfaction (JS) among physiotherapists as well as the role of job satisfaction as a moderator in the relationship between emotional labour and Organisational Commitment (OC). A cross-sectional study involving 208 physiotherapists from Sri Lanka was designed. Regression analysis and the Sobel test were used to analyse the data. It was found that EL has a significant beneficial impact on the OC of physiotherapists. Moreover, the EL has a substantial and positive effect on JS. In addition, it was unearthed that JS plays a crucial role in transmitting the effects of EL to OC. Consequently, JS serves as a mediator in this relationship. In addition, the EL dimensions, deep acting, and surface acting all positively affect the OC. This study contributes to empirical findings on the EL of physiotherapists. Due to JS's role as a mediator, hospital administrators should consider the emotions of physiotherapists in order to enhance to being and job satisfaction. Numerous studies have been conducted on various segments of the medical staff, but none have centred on physiotherapists. This study confirms JS's role as a mediator in the relationship between EL and OC in the field of physiotherapy and encourages future research to concentrate more on EL. These findings contribute to the interdisciplinarity of physiotherapy research by incorporating psychological perspectives from emotion management research.

Robot service failure: the double-edged sword effect of emotional labor in service recovery

PurposeThis paper aims to discuss the effect of frontline employees' emotional labor (surface acting vs. deep acting) on customer satisfaction and the moderating role of responsibility attributions in the situation of robot service failure.Design/methodology/approachThe scenario-based experimental method was designed to perform hypothesis testing and SPSS was used to analyze the data from the 363 questionnaires collected.FindingsThe results indicate that (1) employees' emotional labor recovery has a double-edged sword effect. Deep acting improves customer satisfaction, while surface acting undermines the effectiveness of service recovery and leaves customer satisfaction below previous levels. (2) Customers' responsibility attributions for service failure moderate the effect of service recovery.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to focus on the role of frontline employees' emotional labor in robot service failure contexts, which not only enriches and expands the relevant literature in this domain, but also deepens the understanding of how emotional labor and responsibility attribution effect the customer satisfaction.

The relationship between religiosity and meaningful work among Malaysian Muslim employees: The mediating role of existential labor.

This study aimed to explore how religiosity affects the level of meaningful work among Malaysian Muslims, owing to Malaysia's highly religious background. Although religiosity constitutes a major part of an individual's value system, the influence of religiosity on the meaningfulness of work remains unclear. To address this gap, this study examined the indirect effects of the two types of religiosity-intrinsic religiosity (IR) and extrinsic religiosity (ER)-on meaningful work through existential labor, namely, surface acting and deep acting. Self-reported survey responses from 303 Malaysian Muslim employees were analyzed using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping analysis. The results showed that both surface acting and deep acting had significant mediation effects on the relationship between IR and meaningful work. By contrast, in the relationship between ER and meaningful work, surface acting's mediation effect was not significant, whereas deep acting showed a positive mediation effect. Our findings suggest that even if employees share the same religion, meaningful work is shaped differently by the specific type of religiosity and those existential labor strategies that individuals develop. This study advances the understanding of the underlying psychological mechanisms of the impact of individual religious values in the workplace. Implications and limitations were discussed.

They can handle it, they are leaders: a look into organizational leaders’ mental health

Few studies have examined the mental health of people in a leadership position. Most of the time, mental health-related policies were created for the non-leaders to cope with the perceived pressure from their leaders. Nevertheless, the mental health of organizational leaders itself might be at stake due to the leadership ‘acts’ they have to perform. This current study aimed to investigate the moderating effect of social support and self-compassion on the relationship between organizational leaders’ emotional labor and their psychological well-being. There were mid-level working executives in leadership positions provided data on their emotional labor, social support, self-compassion, and psychological well-being. It was predicted that social support and self-compassion will both moderate the relationship between organizational leaders’ emotional labor and their psychological well-being. The results indicated that surface acting is correlated with psychological wellbeing while deep acting is not. Social support and self-compassion do not moderate the relationship between emotional labor and psychological wellbeing. However, age is significantly correlated with psychological wellbeing, social support, and self-compassion, indicating its importance in leaders.

Burn-out, emotional labour and psychological resilience among gastroenterology nurses during COVID-19: a cross-sectional study

ObjectivesTo investigate the relationship between burn-out, emotional labour and psychological resilience of gastroenterology nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic and explore the factors associated with these specific variables.DesignA multicentre cross-sectional study...