Emotional Labor at Work: Annotated Bibliography

Introduction to Emotional Labor as a Workplace Issue

Emotional labor — the management of feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job — has become an increasingly important area of study in organizational psychology and management. The sources gathered in this annotated bibliography represent a broad cross-section of scholarship examining how emotional investment shapes job stress, performance, well-being, gender dynamics, and identity in the workplace. Together they reflect a growing consensus that employees cannot simply leave their emotions at the door, and that organizations must actively account for this reality.

The entries are arranged alphabetically by author surname and span disciplines including occupational health psychology, management communication, public administration, and medicine. Each annotation summarizes the source's core argument and evaluates its relevance to the study of emotional labor.

Alderman, P. K. (1995). Emotional labor as a potential source of job stress: Organizational risk factors for job stress. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

There are many different risk factors that can affect workers when it comes to job stress in an organization, and emotional labor is one of them. Alderman addresses this issue by examining how emotionally invested people can become in their jobs and how profoundly it affects not only the work they do, but how they perceive the rest of their lives. Whether the emotional labor invested in a job carries over into reduced emotional need-meeting during a person's personal time is a significant concern. Naturally, everyone is different, but Alderman is interested in the average worker and whether emotional labor plays a role in the job stress that he or she feels. If emotional labor is found to be a driver of job stress, ways to lessen its effects can then be sought.

Job Stress, Working Conditions, and Emotional Investment

Daniels, K., Harris, C., & Beiner, R. B. (2004, December). Linking working conditions to unpleasant affect: Cognition, categorization and goal. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 343.

The conditions in which a person works — and how those conditions affect work performance and related issues — are the subject Daniels, Harris, and Beiner chose to address. Other studies of this nature have been conducted in the past, but none that examine goals, cognition, and categorization in quite the same way as the authors do here. This is an important area of study because the working conditions that many people face do not appear to be improving. Top-level employees tend to enjoy very good working conditions, while most of the workers who keep organizations running do so in conditions that are less than optimal. The likely increase in productivity that would follow from better working conditions makes this area worthy of further examination.

Glomb, T., Kammeyer-Mueller, J., & Rotundo, M. (2004). Emotional labor and compensating wage differentials. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 700–714.

Emotional labor is becoming more and more important in business settings. In the past it was not given much attention, but the concept is gaining recognition as people realize there is far more to work than physical or mental demands. People become emotionally involved in their work as well — some more than others, and more so in certain fields. It is important, Glomb, Kammeyer-Mueller, and Rotundo point out, that employers understand that individuals are just that — individual. Each person has his or her own needs, goals, and wants. Those who are deeply emotionally invested may willingly work for less money. Conversely, those who are emotionally drained by their jobs often expect higher compensation. This is a dilemma that many employers face and often are unsure how to address.

Pugliesi, K. (1999). The consequences of emotional labor: Effects on work stress, job satisfaction, and well-being. Motivation and Emotion, 23(2), 125–154.

Pugliesi's central claim — that jobs are stressful — is hardly a secret. The emotional labor a person invests in a job, however, can produce many mixed results. People who perform work they truly love gain a high degree of satisfaction from accomplishing that work, along with a sense of well-being and a lowered stress level. However, even in the most fulfilling roles, things can go very wrong, and the stress and dissatisfaction during those periods can be intense, leaving workers wondering whether they are making any difference at all. Overall well-being and life satisfaction can be affected by these feelings, potentially setting a person on a path away from the positive contributions he or she could otherwise make.

Briner, R. B. (2004). Emotion and organizations: A decade of development. Human Relations, 57, 1333–1362.

How businesses and organizations evolve over time is particularly significant when assessing where they stand now and where they are headed. Not everything about the future can be learned from the past, but many trends can be identified. Whether those trends are positive or negative, awareness of them is one of the keys to effective management. Emotion plays a strong role, as Briner points out, in how a company develops. The way a person feels about what he or she does can have a lasting effect on individual performance and on the organization as a whole. At the same time, emotion must be separated as much as possible from business decision-making to ensure that choices serve the organization's best interests.

Emotional Intelligence, Regulation, and Organizational Performance

Druskat, V. U., Sala, F., & Mount, G. (Eds.). (2006). Linking emotional intelligence and performance at work: Current research evidence with individuals and groups. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Retrieved February 14, 2008, from Questia database.

The subject of emotional intelligence is one that most people know relatively little about. While most are familiar with standard intelligence testing, their knowledge of emotional intelligence tends to stop there. Druskat, Sala, and Mount focus specifically on emotional intelligence and how it affects people's working lives. Individuals who lack emotional maturity often struggle at work, tending toward poor discipline and disorganization. Even in highly structured environments these individuals can flounder — and, when required to work closely with others or as part of a team, can bring colleagues down with them. Given that this is a genuine concern for many organizations, addressing it is a vital issue in today's business environment.

Grandey, A. (2000). Emotion regulation in the workplace: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 95–110.

With emotional labor an increasingly prominent topic, it is important to develop a clearer understanding of how the workplace operates on an emotional level. Emotions were long assumed to belong at home, yet they play a real and significant role in working life, and employers must recognize this. Emotional labor is an important dimension of what people bring to their jobs, as Grandey rightly points out. The regulation of emotion within the workplace is also addressed, in light of incidents — workplace violence, episodes of rage, and other serious problems — that, while rare, are believed likely to grow more common as society becomes more global and workplace pressures continue to intensify.

Grandey, A., Fisk, G. M., & Steiner, D. D. (2005). Must "service with a smile" be stressful? The moderating role of personal control for American and French employees. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 893–904.

Having control is an important concept in the business world. People must be able to maintain self-control when dealing with colleagues and customers who may or may not be satisfied. As Grandey, Fisk, and Steiner accurately point out, even agreeable customers and colleagues can be problematic if they are emotionally needy, because they consume a great deal of a person's time and energy. Employees are taught to smile and to remain courteous at all times, but this can be extremely difficult, and it does cause stress. Most people assume that a smiling employee is a happy employee — a conclusion that can be very far from the truth.

Liu, Y. (2006). Dispositional antecedents and consequences of emotional labor at work. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 67–76. Retrieved February 14, 2008, from Questia database.

Liu has studied emotions in the workplace quite extensively. Emotional labor is fast becoming a significant issue as society and the business world continue to change. A primary consideration today is what consequences emotional labor carries and how a person's workplace emotions might lead to success or failure. Emotions were once believed to have no place at work, but researchers now know otherwise. People cannot simply switch off their feelings upon arriving at work, yet learning to manage those feelings remains critical, because many organizations still behave as though their employees have no emotions — and the consequences when those emotions surface can be severe.

Meier, K. J., Mastracci, S. H., & Wilson, K. (2006). Gender and emotional labor in public organizations: An empirical examination of the links to performance. Public Administration Review, 66, 6. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from Proquest database.