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Summary The present study distinguished between two modal emotional display rules, demands to express positive efference and demands to suppress negative efference, that partially constitute the work roles of many employees. Perceived demands to express positive emotion were positively related to health symptoms primarily among those reporting: (1) lower identification with the organization; (2) lower job involvement; and (3) lower emotional adaptability. The effects of various personality traits and situational variables on perceived emotional labor differed depending on the nature of the emotional labor. The findings are discussed in terms of implications of emotional labor for health and practices through which organizations might intervene to minimize its unhealthful consequences among employees. We also attempt to reconcile the findings with some of the related research in psychology suggesting that some forms of required efference may have salutary physiological consequences. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Introduction
Much research investigating the relationship between job demands and health has emphasized the key psychosocial nature of the demands. Pressures are placed on individuals in a social context and their behavioral responses to these pressures have socially derived implications for them. Being required to modulate the expression of one's own emotions in particular ways is a significant component of the work role for many persons. This type of role requirement has been called 'emotional labor' (cf. Wharton and Erickson, 1993, p. 458). The concept of emotional display rules was introduced by Paul Ekman (e.g., Ekman, 1972). Emotional display rules refer to norms about appropriate emotional expression for specific situations. Persons who have much customer or client contact (e.g., salespersons, nurses) are seen to be subject to stronger emotional display rules (Sutton, 1991; Sutton and Rafaeli, 1988). Several authors have observed that such display rules may be expected to compromise the psychological and/or physical health of workers because they often lead to a disturbing disequilibrium (or 'dissonance') between felt emotions and the emotions one must exhibit (Ashforth and Humphrey, 1993; Morris and Feldman, 1996; Rafaeli and Sutton, 1987; Wharton and Erickson, 1993). Indeed there is considerable evidence from outside the work sphere that chronically experiencing conflict among one's emotions has negative health consequences (see reviews by Friedman, 1989; King and Emmons, 1990). Emotional labor is a construct of...