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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology


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On the positive and negative effects of emotion work in organizations


Dieter Zapf & Melanie Holz
a a a

Department of Psychology, Johann Wolfgang GoetheUniversity, Frankfurt, Germany Version of record first published: 17 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Dieter Zapf & Melanie Holz (2006): On the positive and negative effects of emotion work in organizations, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 15:1, 1-28 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13594320500412199

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EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

2006, 15 (1), 1 28

On the positive and negative eects of emotion work in organizations


Dieter Zapf and Melanie Holz
Department of Psychology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany

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Emotion work (emotional labour) is dened as emotional regulation required to display organizationally desired emotions by the employees. It has received increased attention because it is relevant in the service industry where social interactions with customers, clients, or patients are a signicant part of the job. Empirical studies found equivocal eects on psychological well-being which indicates that emotion work is a multidimensional construct with dimensions having positive and negative health eects. In the present studies, the following aspects of emotion work were dierentiated: emotional regulation requirements: (1) the requirement to display positive emotions; (2) the requirement to display negative emotions, (3) the requirement to be sensitive to clients emotions; (4) emotional dissonance: the expression of emotions that are not felt. Analyses were based on a representative sample (N 184) of service workers and another sample of service workers (N 1158) consisting of call centre agents, hotel and bank employees, and kindergarten teachers. The data showed that emotional dissonance was the stressful aspect of emotion work, whereas the display of positive emotions and sensitivity requirements also had positive eects on personal accomplishment. The requirement to express negative emotions had little eect on burnout. Neuroticism had little impact on the relations between emotion work and burnout.

In most economic societies service work plays an important role now. In the European countries, for example, more than 50% of the workforce comprises service workers (Paoli, 1997). Consequently, the psychological analysis of service work has received increased attention in recent years (e.g., Nerdinger,
Correspondence should be addressed to Dieter Zapf, Department of Psychology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt, Mertonstr. 17, D-60054 Frankfurt, Germany. Email: D.Zapf@psych.uni-frankfurt.de An earlier version of this article was presented as a poster at the 25th international congress of Applied Psychology, July 7 12, 2002, Singapore. Parts of the present study were supported by the German Federal Ministry of Work and Social Aairs and the Hessen Ministry of Social Aairs. 2006 Psychology Press Ltd http://www.psypress.com/ejwop DOI: 10.1080/13594320500412199

ZAPF AND HOLZ

1994; Zeithaml & Bitner, 2000). One of the core aspects of service work is the social interaction with customers or clients. Here, as in any social interaction, the requirement to regulate ones emotions plays a central role. Hochschild (1983) coined the term emotional labour for this requirement. She investigated the work of ight attendants and showed that a substantial part of the job was dealing with the passengers and their emotions. Based on qualitative ndings, Hochschild (1983) argued that high emotional demands had negative eects on psychological and physical health. Whereas most but not all empirical studies so far were able to demonstrate such negative eects of emotional labour, the empirical ndings with regard to positive eects were much more inconsistent. In some studies, the frequency of emotion display was positively related to well-being; in others it was not. In particular, it has been argued that the display of positive emotions has positive consequences. However, only a few studies have explicitly measured the requirement to display positive emotions. But again, empirical results were inconsistent. The present paper intends to contribute to this still open question. We will present the test of an overall model using structural equation modelling. In particular, we will focus on the relationship between emotional job requirements and psychological strain rather than on behavioural or emotion regulation strategies and its consequences. We will distinguish between the requirement to display positive and the requirement to display negative emotions and we will also investigate the requirement to sense emotions of the interaction partner. This has only occasionally been done in the literature so far. Finally, we will systematically consider negative aectivity (NA) in these analyses, thus responding to an important methodological discussion in psychological stress research. We are not aware of any study that took all these aspects into account. In the following we will rst describe a multidimensional framework of emotion work. Based on the existing literature we will then develop hypotheses regarding the positive and negative eects of emotion work on burnout. Emotional labour or emotion work (Zapf, 2002) is an important aspect of employee client interactions. Client is used here to refer to any person who interacts with an employee, for example, patients, children, customers, passengers, or guests. Expressing appropriate emotions during face-to-face or voice-to-voice interactions is a job demand for many employees in the service industry. Service workers are required to manage their emotions as a part of their job. Certainly, service workers cannot be assumed to be always in a good mood. Rather, they may sometimes be bored and they may all more or less frequently encounter situations eliciting negative emotions such as anger, fear, or disappointment. Emotion work as part of the job, however, implies the display of organizationally desired emotions even in these unpleasant situations. Accordingly, emotion work has been dened as

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the psychological processes necessary to regulate organizationally desired emotions as part of ones job (e.g., Grandey, 2000; Hochschild, 1983; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987; Zapf, 2002). Hochschild (1983) argued that carrying out emotion work for long hours would overtax the service providers abilities to show the desired emotions. They would go on smiling, but they would not feel the expected emotions. This discrepancy between displayed and felt emotions she called emotional dissonance. Hochschild maintained that showing emotions not felt at that moment wouldin the long runlead to the alienation of ones feelings, which would cause psychological ill health. In her qualitative interviews with ight attendants, she found a variety of negative health consequences of emotion work such as psychosomatic symptoms, and alcohol and sex problems. Other studies, however, did not uniformly nd these negative eects, and some even found positive eects of emotion work. Therefore, researchers started to develop models dierentiating various dimensions of emotion work. Most of these models comprised dimensions referring to the frequency of emotion display and/or emotional dissonance (e.g., Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Grandey, 2000; Morris & Feldman, 1996, 1997; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000). This also applies to the concept used in the present study. Moreover, applying Hackmans (1969) distinction of job analysis approaches we followed the behaviour requirement approach, thus focusing on the situational job requirements (see also Diefendor & Richard, 2003; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000) rather than on the individual work behaviours or emotion regulation & Morgan, 2002; Glomb & strategies (e.g., Brotheridge & Lee, 2002; Co te Tews, 2004). We dierentiated between various dimensions of emotion work requirements (Zapf, Vogt, Seifert, Mertini, & Isic, 1999): (1) the requirement to display positive emotions (abbreviated as positive emotions), (2) the requirement to display and handle negative emotions (negative emotions), (3) the requirement to sense the emotion of the interaction partner (sensitivity requirements), and (4) the dissonance between felt and displayed emotions (emotional dissonance). In line with most empirical studies (e.g., Adelmann, 1995; Brotheridge & Lee, 2003; Morris & Feldman, 1997) the frequency of emotional display was considered to be an important aspect of emotion work. Factor analyses (Zapf, Vogt et al., 1999) demonstrated the necessity of distinguishing between being required to show positive and negative emotions. This is so because the necessity to display positive and negative emotions is not uniformly high or low across occupations. Rather, it depends on specic job requirements. For a call centre agent, the requirement to show negative emotions will be relatively infrequent (e.g., Zapf, Isic, Bechtoldt, & Blau, 2003). In contrast, a frequently cited example for a job comprising a frequent requirement to show negative emotions is the case of a bill collector (Sutton, 1991). Another example may be an undertaker, who has to express

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seriousness and grief during a funeral. The requirement to display negative emotions should not be mistaken for letting out ones negative emotions in an uncontrolled manner. Rather, the controlled expression of anger may be used to make clear that one is seriously aected by something or that one is taking something very seriously. For example, a nurse may use controlled anger to make clear that she does not want to be touched by a patient. A kindergarten teacher may use anger to stop children ghting, etc. Whereas there are some studies which also included the requirement of positive emotions display (e.g., Diefendor & Richard, 2003; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000), the requirement to express negative emotions has been considered in qualitative studies (Stenross & Kleinman, 1989; Sutton, 1991) but only rarely in quantitative studies. The expression of organizationally desired emotions is not an end in , 2005; itself. Emotions are shown to have an inuence on clients (Co te Kruml & Geddes, 2000; Pugliesi, 1999). Expressing emotions is one possible way to inuence the clients feelings. To be able to inuence the clients emotions, their accurate perception is an important prerequisite. In social interactions, information provided by the emotion display of the interaction partner is used to guide ones own response (Elfenbein, Marsh, & Ambady, 2002). Therefore, sensitivity requirements as the necessity to be sensitive and to consider the emotions of clients is another aspect of the emotion work concept (Zapf, Vogt et al., 1999). Sensitivity requirements are low if there are no or only few interactions with clients or if an employee can display organizationally desired emotions independent from the clients feelings, for example, in the case of highly scripted interactions. Sensitivity requirements are high, if knowledge of the clients emotions is a prerequisite for ones own emotional reaction. Finally, as in some of the other studies on emotion work, we included the concept of emotional dissonance (e.g., Abraham, 1998; Kruml & Geddes, 2000; Morris & Feldman, 1996, 1997; Nerdinger & Ro per, 1999; Zapf, Vogt et al., 1999; Zerbe, 2000). Emotional dissonance occurs when an employee is required to express emotions which are not genuinely felt in the particular situation. A person may feel nothing when a certain emotion display is required, or the display rule may require the suppression of undesired emotions and the expression of neutrality or a positive emotion instead of a negative one. Emotional dissonance was found to be resulting from external demands rather than being a reaction to emotion display or a behavioural strategy (Zapf, Vogt et al., 1999). We assume that surface acting which is a response focused strategy to express an emotion which is not felt (cf. Grandey, 2000; Hochschild, 1983) is an adequate and probably the most frequently used emotion regulation strategy to respond to emotional dissonance as a situational demand, e.g., if the situational demand is to be friendly to an arrogant customer. However, the service provider may also not

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be willing to put on the expected friendly face. Rather he or she may look neutral or even angry, thus showing emotional deviance (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987) as another possible response. In cases, the service provider may even try to overcome his or her negative inner feelings, which corresponds to the concept of deep acting (Hochschild, 1983). In the work of Hochschild, it was emotional dissonance that was hypothesized to lead to the alienation of ones feelings which in turn caused various psychological strains. The positive and negative eects of emotion work will be investigated with regard to burnout (e.g., Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998). This concept was introduced as an individual reaction to high emotional demands in human service work. It can be understood as an indication that employees are no longer able to manage their emotions adequately when interacting with clients. Burnout is a syndrome consisting of three aspects: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment (Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Emotional exhaustion measures ones feeling of being burnt out, frustrated, and perceiving working with people to be demanding. Depersonalization comprises the tendency to treat clients like objects and to become indierent and apathetic with regard to clients. Personal accomplishment includes the feeling of having the competence to do things and of being able to meet ones aspirations in ones job. Explanations for the positive and negative eects of emotion work on , 2005). First, at the burnout can be given at two dierent levels (cf. Co te interaction level, the emotion work aspects can be seen as indicators of positive or negative social interactions with clients. Second, explanations at the conceptual level of emotion regulation relate to processes and mechanisms inherent in the emotion work concept (Grandey, 2000; Zapf, 2002; see below). In the following we will discuss the potential positive and negative eects of the emotion work aspects on burnout both at the level of social interactions and the level of emotion regulation. Starting with the negative eects, studies consistently found correlations between emotional dissonance (or variables which share some features with emotional dissonance such as suppressing negative emotions or surface acting) and psychological strain (e.g., Abraham, 1998; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Grebner et al., 2003; Heuven & Bakker, 2003; Lewig & Dollard, 2003; Morris & Feldman, 1997; Nerdinger & Ro per, 1999; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000; Zapf, Vogt et al., 1999; Zerbe, 2000). In particular, relations between emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion were found in the studies of Heuven and Bakker (2003), Lewig and Dollard (2003), Morris and Feldman (1997), Nerdinger and Ro per (1999), Zapf, Vogt et al. (1999), and Zerbe (2000). Similar results were found for emotional dissonance and depersonalization (Dormann & Zapf, 2004; Dormann, Zapf, & Isic, 2002; Zapf, Vogt et al., 1999). A variety of explanations exists for this result. An explanation at the interaction level is

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that emotional dissonance is related to emotional exhaustion because it is a sensitive qualitative indicator of unpleasant and stressful interactions with clients. Clients may be aggressive, they may confront the service provider with disproportionate expectations, or they may behave in an uncivil manner. These behaviours have been related to psychological strain (e.g., Ben-Zur & Yagil, 2005; Dormann & Zapf, 2004; Duy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002; Spector, 1997) and emotional dissonance may be a good indicator to cover these dierent kinds of negative social interactions with clients or customers. Moreover, at the level of emotion regulation, Gross and colleagues (Gross, 1998; Gross & John, 1997; Gross & Levenson, 1997) argued that emotion regulationas any process of self-regulation (see Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998)has its psychological costs. Emotional dissonance often means the suppression of negative emotion and there is evidence that emotion suppression is related to the sympathetic activation of the cardiovascular system (Gross & Levenson, 1997) which has been shown to be associated with poor health, adjustment, and coping responses (Pennebaker, 1990). Finally, Brotheridge and Lee (2002) suggested that surface acting which is one way to react if the required emotions do not conform to the emotions actually felt, may threaten ones authenticity (see also Erickson & Wharton, 1997). This comes close to Hochschilds (1983) notion that emotional dissonance generates feelings of estrangement from the self, which is supposed to be related to psychological strain. Emotional dissonance may also lead to the (chronic) detachment of other peoples feelings which may be related to depersonalization. Thus, based on these explanations both at the interactional and the conceptual level and in line with previous research, we hypothesized that emotional dissonance is positively related to emotional exhaustion (Hypothesis 1a) and depersonalization (Hypothesis 1b). With regard to the frequency of being required to display emotions, contradictory hypotheses exist. Some authors proposed that these requirements have negative health eects (Hochschild, 1983; Morris & Feldman, 1996); others (Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000) proposed a positive eect for the requirement to display positive emotions. Overall, we assume that emotional job requirements, i.e., the requirement of the job to display positive or negative emotions and to sense the emotion of the client, depend on the existence of display rules (rules for the expression of emotions), the frequency and the duration of service interactions as well as on the quality of these interactions, i.e., whether the clients are behaving positively or negatively (Grandey, 2000; Morris & Feldman, 1996; Zapf, 2002). We further assume that there is a positive relation between emotional requirements and health outcomes as long as these requirements are matched by the personal prerequisites of the service provider. However, if

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emotional requirements exceed certain limits, then the likelihood increases that the emotions which have to be expressed do not match the emotions felt at that moment corresponding to the denition of emotional dissonance. It follows that any negative eect of the requirement to display positive or negative emotions on burnout should be mediated by emotional dissonance (Hypothesis 2). That is, a full mediation eect is hypothesized, which implies that there should be no direct negative eects of the requirement to display positive emotions (Hypothesis 2a) or negative emotions (Hypothesis 2b) on emotional exhaustion or depersonalization if emotional dissonance is included as a mediator. This mediator eect of emotional dissonance has not yet been systematically investigated in the literature. There is a variety of reasons why emotion work should also have positive eects on psychological well-being. At the level of social interactions it can be argued that if service providers successfully meet the requirement to display and sense emotions, this will have positive eects. In particular, it will contribute to the feeling of self-ecacy or personal accomplishment. Based on the literature on the aliation motive it can be assumed that dealing with other people and expressing emotions when interacting with these people satises needs for aliation, status, and recognition, for example, by showing altruistic behaviour (e.g., Bierho, 1990; Hill, 1987). Stenross and Kleinman (1989) reported that detectives positively assessed interrogations with criminal suspects because this played a central role for goal achievement, namely, solving a case. This also included the display of negative emotions, e.g., when using the good cop bad cop technique. Pugh (2001) and Tsai (2001) found that the display of positive emotions was related to customer satisfaction and customers positive aect which may be indicators of successful service interactions. These processes may contribute to feelings of personal accomplishment. At the conceptual level of emotion regulation, the expression of emotion can either be thought of as a spontaneous or automatic process experienced not to be eortful at all (cf. Scherer & Wallbott, 1990; Zapf, 2002; emotional harmony according to Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; passive deep acting according to Hochschild, 1983), but contributing to a social situation with positive consequences for the employee concerned. Moreover, the intentional expression of positive emotions usually increases the probability of , the interaction partner to show reciprocal positive emotions in return (Co te 2005; Wiemann & Giles, 1997). This can be perceived as positive feedback contributing to the employees satisfaction and self-esteem. Emotional contagion (Hateld, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994) has also been discussed as a mechanism how the display of positive interactions in service encounters can inuence the clients emotions and thus contribute to a positive rewarding interaction (Pugh, 2001). Adelmann (1995) referred to the facial feedback hypothesis to argue for positive eects of emotion work

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(cf. Strack, Stepper, & Martin, 1988). On a qualitative level, Tolich (1993) described supermarket clerks who enjoyed showing prescribed emotions in the form of jokes or entertainment of customers who chose their checkout lines. Empirically, ndings with regard to positive eects are inconsistent. Wharton (1993) found a positive relation between emotional labour and job and Morgan (2002) were able to demonstrate a causal satisfaction. Co te eect of expressing positive emotions on job satisfaction in a longitudinal study. Morris and Feldman (1997) found positive eects of duration on emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction, but similar negative eects of the frequency of interaction. However, these eects all disappeared in multiple regressions where emotional dissonance was included. Lewig and Dollard (2003) did not nd any positive eect. Brotheridge and Grandey (2002) and Diefendor and Richard (2003) found a positive eect of the requirement to express positive emotions on job satisfaction. Schaubroeck and Jones (2000) found a respective negative eect instead of the hypothesized positive eect on physical symptoms. Based on the theoretical considerations and the existing empirical ndings we hypothesized that the requirement to display positive (Hypothesis 3a) and negative emotions (Hypothesis 3b) and to sense the emotions of the interaction partner (Hypothesis 3c) are positively related to personal accomplishment. So far we described interactions in which service providers automatically show the required emotions. If, however, the required emotions are not automatically shown, then the person may respond with deep acting to bring the felt emotions in line with the required emotions. When using deep acting as an emotion regulation strategy, an individual actively tries to experience the required emotion (Grandey, 2000; Hochschild, 1983). This may have similar eects as if the emotions were displayed automatically (in line with Hypotheses 3a b). Accordingly, Brotheridge and Grandey (2002) reported positive relations between deep acting and personal accomplishment in their studies. Alternatively, the required emotion may not be spontaneously felt, but will be displayed. This corresponds to the denition of emotional dissonance. Thus, we hypothesize that the emotional job requirements to display positive (Hypothesis 4a) or negative emotions (Hypothesis 4b) are related to emotional dissonance. Hypothesis 4 follows from Hypothesis 2, which assumes that there is no direct eect of the emotion work requirement variables on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, but that these eects are mediated by emotional dissonance. Moreover, if sensitivity requirements are too high they may overtax the employees abilities to be sensitive because of the continuous necessity to concentrate and process information while communicating with the client. Therefore, we hypothesize that there are also direct eects on emotional exhaustion (Hypothesis 5a) and depersonalization (Hypothesis 5b).

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In recent years, stress researchers started to control stressor strain relationships for negative aectivity (NA). NA has often been equated with neuroticism (Burke, Brief, & George, 1993; Watson & Clark, 1984), and it has been interpreted as a general dimension that lowers the threshold to experience negative emotions. Some authors have argued that NA represents a nuisance variable that directly aects stressor strain relations (e.g., Burke et al., 1993). According to this view, individuals high in NA tend to view both their working conditions and their health conditions more negatively than individuals low in NA, thus producing an articial correlation between the variables. At the theoretical level, it can be argued that individuals high in NA tend to experience negative emotions more frequently. They will be more often exposed to emotional dissonance because the display of positive emotions is typically required in most service interactions. Moreover, applying the stressor creation mechanism (Spector, Zapf, Chen, & Frese, 2000) to the present context implies that individuals high in NA tend to create or contribute to social conicts with clients thus creating or contributing to a negative quality of this interaction in which negative emotions are experienced instead of the positive ones frequently required by the organizational display rules. Studies show that the burnout dimensions are associated with NA or neuroticism (Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998). Moreover, although individuals with a tendency to experience negative emotions should report more occasions where positive emotions are required but negative emotions are felt (emotional dissonance), we hypothesize that these mechanisms do not substantially decrease the relation between emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. This results from the fact of the emotional dissonance measure in the present study is intended to describe aspects of the work situation rather than subjective reactions. Usually, such measures are only little aected by NA as a nuisance factor (Spector et al., 2000). We did not expect NA to aect the emotional requirements because these are mainly determined by the display rules and the frequency and duration of service interactions. Moreover, the instrument used in this study aimed at measuring the work environment thereby trying to minimize the inuence of individual cognitive and emotional processing in the measurement process (Frese & Zapf, 1988). There is evidence that under these circumstances, the eects of NA on stressor strain relations are only small in terms of Cohens (1992) eect size criteria (Spector et al., 2000). So far, several studies on emotion work included neuroticism or NA. Brotheridge and Grandey (2002) and Diefendor and Richard (2003) found an eect on demands to suppress negative emotions. In contrast, Schaubroeck and Jones (2000) found a relatively strong eect of trait negative aect on demands to suppress negative emotions (r .48). Thus, we hypothesized that

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NA or neuroticism should have a positive eect on emotional dissonance and burnout (Hypothesis 6). However, NA should not aect the relation between emotional dissonance and burnout in a signicant way. In summary, we will test the following hypotheses, which are also shown in Figure 1: Hypothesis 1: Emotional dissonance will be positively related to emotional exhaustion (H1a) and depersonalization (H1b). Hypothesis 2: There are no direct eects of the requirement to display emotions on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Rather, the eects are mediated by emotional dissonance. Hypothesis 3: The requirement to display positive (H3a) and negative emotions (H3b) and the requirements to sense the emotion of the client (H3c) are positively related to the feeling of personal accomplishment. Hypothesis 4: The requirements to display positive (H4a) or negative emotions (H4b) will also be related to emotional dissonance. Hypothesis 5: There will be a direct eect of sensitivity requirements on emotional exhaustion (H5a) and depersonalization (H5b). Hypothesis 6: NA has a small eect (according to Cohens, 1992, eect size criteria) on emotional dissonance, but will not change the relation between emotional dissonance and burnout (H6).

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Figure 1. Hypothesized relations between emotion work and burnout.

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METHOD Samples
In this study we will report analyses based on two samples. The rst sample consisted of employees working in dierent service sectors (service sample) and the second was based on a randomly drawn sample (representative sample). The service sample consisted of four subsamples. The rst subsample was collected in the hotel business. With the help of the Berufsgenossenschaft Nahrung (professional food association), 20 hotels in an area in South West Germany were included in the study. Of the participants, 15% had a Hauptschulabschluss (lower stream school leaving certicate), 29% had mittlere Reife (middle stream school-leaving certicate), 44% had Abitur (high school diploma qualifying for university entrance), and 11% some type of university degree. Only a minority of 18% did not have a specic vocational education related to the hotel business. The second subsample consisted of participants who were employed in 14 call centres of various rms. This subsample consisted of employees who all had voice-tovoice contacts with clients. Of the participants, 74% had a high school diploma qualifying for university entrance (Abitur) or some kind of university degree, 76% received calls but did not call clients themselves (inbound); the remainder were preoccupied with both calling and receiving calls (inbound and outbound). The third subsample was collected in seven banks. Of the participants, 43% had a specic banking vocational education and another 32% a university degree. The majority of the subsample (97%) had more than 2 years of job experience. The nal subsample consisted of employees collected in 70 of the 140 public kindergartens in one of Germanys large cities. The kindergartens were systematically selected to obtain the full variety of kindergartens for the subsample. The subsample consisted of almost 50% of the total workforce of the citys public kindergartens. Of the participants, 22% possessed some kind of university degree, 35% had visited vocational schools for kindergarten teachers, and 74% had received some kind of high school degree. In all, 87% had some kind of specic education for their job and 94% of the subsample had more than 2 years of job experience. Due to missing values, the data of N 1024 participants could be used for structural equation modelling (SEM). Characteristics of the subsamples are summarized in Table 1. The second sample (representative sample) consisted of participants from two large German cities who worked at least 30 hours a week, who were not self-employed, and whose German was reasonably good so that they were able to ll in the questionnaire. Participants were randomly chosen from a citizen database. They received a letter asking for participation. After some days the potential participants were contacted by telephone. Many people

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ZAPF AND HOLZ TABLE 1 Description of the service sample

Subsample Hotels

n 175

Response rate in % 29

Mean age 80% between 18 and 32b

Percentage women 71

Occupations Frontline ocers, waiters or waitresses, administrative sta Call centre agents in banking, insurance, airline industry Banking employees Kindergarten teachers, social workers, technical sta

Call centre

250

50

31

75

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Bank Kindergartens

122 611

a 67

37 39

50 94

Total sample
a

1158

36c

88

Distribution of questionnaires was organized by the institutions. They were not able to report the response rate. b To ensure anonymity, we were only able to use age categories (18 22, 23 28; . . . .63 67). c Category mean was used for the hotel subsample to compute overall mean age.

were excluded because they did not full the criteria mentioned above. We contacted 767 persons who fullled the criteria for participation; 405 persons sent back the questionnaire anonymously, which corresponded to a response rate of 52.8%. This estimation was the lower bound of the response rate, because among the 767 persons contacted some refused to take part in the study and nished the telephone call before the researchers received all the information required to decide whether the person fullled all criteria for participation. Two raters rated the jobs of these participants whether they were service jobs. There were three participants where the raters disagreed; these were excluded from the sample. They identied 184 service jobs, which is 45.4% of the total sample. Of these 184 participants full data were available from 175 participants because of missing data. Mean age of the representative sample was 40.9, ranging from 19 to 70 years; 37.8% were women. Moreover, 55.9% were in possession of some kind of high school degree, and 23% attended modern secondary school, 19.8% had a lower stream school leaving certicate, 1.8% who had no certicate at all, and 35.6% had some kind of university degree; 79% reported to have nished a professional training relevant for their current job. On average (median category), they had worked for 15 20 years; they had worked in their current job for approximately 2 5 years of this period of time.

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Instruments
Emotion work/emotional labour was measured using the Frankfurt Emotion Work Scales1 (FEWS 3.0; Zapf, Mertini, Seifert, Vogt, & Isic, 1999; Zapf, Vogt et al., 1999). . Positive emotions refer to the requirement to show pleasant emotions (example item: In your job how often does it occur that you have to display pleasant emotions towards your clients?). . Negative emotions ask for the necessity of displaying and dealing with unpleasant emotions (example item: How often does it occur in your job that you have to display unpleasant emotions towards your clients?). . Sensitivity requirements examine whether empathy or knowledge about clients current feelings are required by the job (example item: Does your job require paying attention to the feelings of your clients?). . Emotional dissonance refers to the display of unfelt emotions and to the suppression of felt but organizationally undesired emotions (example item: How often does it occur in your job that one has to display positive emotions that do not correspond to what is felt in this situation?). For most of the FEWS scales there was a ve-point response scale for most items ranging from very rarely/never (1), rarely (once a week) (2), sometimes (once a day) (3), often (several times a day) (4), to very often (several times an hour) (5). Burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment) was measured using the Maslach Burnout Inventory German version of Bu ssing and Perrar (1992). Emotional exhaustion measures ones feeling of being burnt out, frustrated, and perceiving working with people to be very demanding. Depersonalization comprises the tendency to treat clients like objects and to become indierent and apathetic with regard to clients. Personal accomplishment includes the feeling of having the competence to do things and of being able to meet ones personal aspirations. The burnout items were answered on a seven-point scale. Neuroticism was taken from a bipolar adjective-rating list to measure the ve-factor model of personality (Costa & McCrae, 1985). The measure was based on the 45-item bipolar adjective-rating list developed by Ostendorf and colleagues (Ostendorf & Angleitner, 1992) in the version of Schallberger and Venetz (1999). The authors demonstrated that this reduced version was
A German, English, French, or Spanish version of the instrument can be obtained from the rst author on request.
1

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satisfactory in terms of factorial structure and internal consistencies of scales. The scale for neuroticism used in this study consisted of six bipolar items on a 6-point scale, with each pole ranging from 1 and 6 very, 2 and 5 quite, and 3 and 4 rather. Reliabilities of the scales were sucient or good in most cases. They were relatively low for the requirement to display positive and negative emotions. Note, however, that these scales are both relatively short and that they show high correlations to some other scales. Depersonalization also showed low reliabilities in other studies (Bu ssing & Perrar, 1992). Means and standard deviations of the above mentioned variables are presented in Table 2, and the intercorrelations are presented in Table 3.

Statistical analyses
First we tested the model presented in Figure 1 using structural equation modelling (SEM). In this model, causal coecients will be estimated for parameters referring to hypotheses 1 6. We were not interested in causal models regarding the burnout components (see Golembiewski, Munzenrider, & Stevenson, 1986; Leiter & Maslach, 1988; van Dierendonck, Schaufeli, & Buunk, 2001). Therefore, latent correlations among the residuals of these variables were estimated. We also estimated latent correlations among the residuals of the emotional requirement variables. The analyses were carried out with LISREL 8.3 (Jo reskog & So rbom, 1996) using the maximum
TABLE 2 Psychometric data of study variables Service sample No. of items Requirement to display positive emotions Requirement to display negative emotions Sensitivity requirements Emotional dissonance Neuroticism Emotional exhaustion Depersonalization Personal accomplishment 3 Range 15 Mean 3.44 SD 0.82 Coe.a .52 Representative sample Mean 3.09 SD 1.03 Coe.a .72

15

2.96

0.93

.68

2.65

0.93

.76

3 5 6 9 5 8

15 15 16 06 06 06

3.44 3.12 2.83 1.54 1.02 3.61

1.03 0.79 0.66 1.04 0.99 0.89

.85 .80 .85 .88 .65 .79

3.26 3.15 2.83 1.32 1.07 3.59

1.26 0.79 0.83 0.87 0.98 1.34

.91 .75 .82 .82 .81 .73

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TABLE 3 Intercorrelation of study variables 2 .09 7.08 7.13 7.09 .02 7.09 7.10 .10 .00 .29 7.02 .19 .11 .30 .09 .27 .36 .06 .51 .41 7.08 .11 .12 .34 .48 .15 7.05 .20 .10 .16 .30 .37 .48 .21 7.03 .04 .06 .31 .15 7.28 .13 7.08 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

7.08 7.20

.06 .09 .46

.06 7.06 .61

7.03 7.04 .41

.29 7.23 .04

.14 7.04 .14 .04 .14 .22 .38 .52 7.16

.01 .08 .15 .15 .13 .36 .15 .54 7.10

7.03 .07 .22 .18 .25 .09 7.35 7.27 7.21

1. Age 2. Gender 3. Requirement to display positive emotions 4. Requirement to display negative emotions 5. Sensitivity requirements 6. Emotional dissonance 7. Neuroticism 8. Emotional exhaustion 9. Depersonalization 10. Personal accomplishment

7.00

7.05 7.30 .03 7.01 7.19 .01

Service sample (N 1152) lower triangle; r 4 .07 are signicant at p 5 .01. Representative sample (N 184) upper triangle; r 4 .14 are signicant at p 5 .05; r 4 .18 are signicant at p 5 .01. Gender: female 1; male 2 in both samples.

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likelihood method to examine the covariance matrix of the variables. Chi square statistics, goodness of t (GFI), adjusted goodness of t (AGFI), root means square error of approximation (RMSEA), the Akaike information criterion (AIC), and the normed t index (NFI) were used to assess the model t (Bentler, 1980; Jo reskog & So rbom, 1996; Schermelleh-Engel, Moosbrugger, & Mu ller, 2003). Experts (e.g., Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003) suggest the following criteria to indicate a good model t: w2/df  2; GFI  .95; AGFI  .90; RMSEA  .05; and NFI  .95. AIC should be smaller than the AIC for the comparison model.

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RESULTS
We started testing models with eects of the requirement to express positive and negative emotions on exhaustion and depersonalization (direct eects model), but without eects on emotional dissonance. We then tested the full mediation model with eects of the requirement to express positive and negative emotions on emotional dissonance. Third, we tested a model with both direct and mediator eects. The model with the direct eects showed a poor t in both samples, w2 172.37, df 7, p .0; AIC 230.37 in the service sample; w2 33.39, df 7, p .0 AIC 91.39 in the representative sample. In contrast the postulated full mediation model corresponding to the hypotheses and the theoretical model as presented in Figure 1 showed a reasonable t for the service sample, w2 47.70, df 9, p .0; GFI .99; AGFI .95; RMSEA .065; AIC 101.70; NFI .98, and a very good t for the representative sample, w2 6.03, df 9, p .74; GFI .99; AGFI .97; RMSEA .0; AIC 59.98; NFI .98. The direct eects model and the full mediation model are not nested. Therefore, only the AIC could be used to compare the models. The AIC was clearly lower for the full mediation model thus rejecting the direct eects model. In a next step we compared the full mediation model with a model with both direct and mediator eects. This model is nested with the full mediation model. Not surprisingly, these models showed a very good t (for the service sample, w2 24.55, df 5, p 5 .01; GFI .99; AGFI .96; RMSEA .062; AIC 86.55; NFI .99; for the representative sample, w2 2.36, df 5, p .80; GFI 1.00; AGFI .98; RMSEA .0; AIC 64.36; NFI .99. The model comparison was not signicant for the representative sample, Dw2 3.62, df 4; p 4 .05, and it was just signicant for the service sample, Dw2 23.15, df 4; p 5 .05. For the service sample more detailed analyses revealed a signicant eect of the requirement to express negative emotions on emotional exhaustion, but no eects of this variable on emotional dissonance. We then computed an optimized model where all parameters not signicant in both samples, were xed to zero. The eects concerned comprised the eect of negative emotions on personal accomplishment and

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emotional dissonance as well as the eect of sensitivity requirements on depersonalization. Moreover, we used the maximum modication index of the LISREL program to improve the model for the service sample. For this sample, the modication index suggested a relation between positive emotions and neuroticism. Because cause eect structures were unclear, we modelled a correlation between the residuals of these variables. Moreover, we added a causal eect of sensitivity requirements on emotional dissonance and a causal eect of emotional dissonance on personal accomplishment. Both optimized models were very good and met all criteria for a good model t: for the service sample, w2 12.19, df 8, p .14; GFI 1.00; AGFI .99; RMSEA .023; AIC 68.19; NFI .99; for the representative sample, w2 5.12, df 11, p .93; GFI .99; AGFI .98; RMSEA .0; AIC 55.12; NFI .99. The results are shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 shows the expected correlations among the emotional requirement variables and among the burnout variables, which were similar in both samples. Moreover, it shows that most, though not all hypotheses were supported by the empirical data.

Figure 2. Relations between emotion work and burnout: Empirical results (optimized model). Results for the representative sample in parentheses.

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Emotional dissonance had the expected eects on emotional exhaustion (H1a) and depersonalization (H1b). In the service sample, there was an additional small negative path on personal accomplishment that was unexpected, but which also indicated the negative nature of emotional dissonance. In the service sample, the requirement to display positive emotions showed both a direct eect on personal accomplishment indicating its positive eects on health (H3a), and an indirect eect on depersonalization and emotional exhaustion mediated by emotional dissonance (H2), indicating its negative eects. Similar results were found for the representative sample. However, here the eect on personal accomplishment was in the expected direction, but not statistically signicant. The requirement to display negative emotions had only an unexpected direct eect on emotional exhaustion in the service sample. In the representative sample the eect was in the opposite direction, but not statistically signicant. Moreover, there was neither an eect on emotional dissonance nor on personal accomplishment. Thus, with regard to negative emotions display, Hypotheses 2 (mediator eect), 3b, and 4b were not supported by the data. Sensitivity requirements showed the hypothesized positive eect on personal accomplishment (H3c) in both samples. Moreover, it had a direct eect on exhaustion in both samples; however, there was no direct eect on depersonalization. Thus, there was support for Hypothesis 5a for emotional exhaustion, but not for depersonalization (Hypothesis 5b). In addition, a positive eect of sensitivity requirements on emotional dissonance was found in the service sample which was not expected. With regard to neuroticism, the eects on burnout followed assumptions. The eect on emotional dissonance (H6) was small in the service sample as expected; and it was nonsignicant in the representative sample. Compared with a model without neuroticism, the maximum reduction of coecients occurred for the eect of emotional dissonance on emotional exhaustion, which was .03 in both samples. In addition, there was a small correlation between positive emotions and neuroticism which was not expected. The explained variance of the dependent variables in the service sample (representative sample in parentheses) was .16 (.18) for emotional dissonance, .19 (.18) for emotional exhaustion, .14 (.13) for depersonalization, and .20 (.18) for personal accomplishment. Finally, for the service sample, the question arose whether it was justiable at all to collapse the four subsamples into one large sample or whether dierent models would show up if the subsamples were treated separately. Because we had no hypotheses of what kind of dierences between the subsamples one could expect, we carried out overall tests and tested a so-called invariant model, which assumed that in all subsamples the same patterns and parameter estimates would occur. This model was compared with a model assuming the same pattern but allowing dierent

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parameter estimates. We tested the theoretical model corresponding to the hypotheses displayed in Figure 1 but added the direct eect of the requirement to display negative emotions on emotional exhaustion, which turned out to be signicant in the optimized model. For the invariant model w2 was 525.51, df 116, p .0; for the same pattern model it was 86.02, df 32; RMSEA .08, NFI .97, GFI .98. The dierence, Dw2 439.43, df 84, p 5 .01, clearly rejected the invariant model. Parameter estimates of the subsample analysis are summarized in Table 4. The data show that similar patterns occurred at the subsample level. Due to the smaller sample sizes some of the coecients were in the expected direction, but not signicant or only marginally signicant at the 10% level. Interestingly, the positive eect of negative emotions on emotional dissonance, which was not signicant at the total sample level, was now signicant and in the direction as expected. For the direct eect of the requirement to display negative emotions on emotional exhaustion, both positive and negative eects occurred at the subsample level. The weak respectively nonsignicant eects

TABLE 4 Parameter estimations in subsamples Independent variables Dependent variables Emotional dissonance Call centre Bank Hotel Kindergarten Emotional exhaustion Call centre Bank Hotel Kindergarten Depersonalization Call centre Bank Hotel Kindergarten Personal accomplishment Call centre Bank Hotel Kindergarten .20** .13 .37** .17** .02 .10 7.07 7.02 Positive emotions Negative emotions .09 .33** .20** .33** .06 7.11 7.10* .12** .11* .09 .12* 7.06 .07 .16* 7.01 .01 .06 .20* .18* .21** .42** .12* .22** .27** .38** .16* .28** .26** Sensitivity requirements Emotional dissonance

Neuroticism

.29** .13 .48** .22**

.21** 7.02 .00 .12** .38** .39** .22** .21** .12* .24** .11 .10** 7.41** 7.26** 7.22** 7.21**

**p 5 .01, *p 5 .05, p 5 .10, one-sided.

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of the requirement to sense emotions on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization showed inconsistent ndings at the subsample level. This was also so for the eect of neuroticism on emotional dissonance. In sum, all eects that were signicant at the total sample level for the service sample and the representative sample, were also signicant or in the expected direction at the subsample level. Eects that could not consistently been found in the service sample and the representative sample were also inconsistent at the subsample level.

DISCUSSION
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In this article we investigated the positive and negative eects of emotion work on burnout. We applied a multidimensional concept of emotion work consisting of emotional work requirements comprising the requirement to display positive and negative emotions and the requirement to sense the emotions of the interaction partner. Moreover, emotional dissonance was dened as the mist between felt and expressed emotions in a service interaction (Zapf, Vogt et al., 1999). Empirical studies did not always nd the negative eects of emotion work originally hypothesized by Hochschild (1983). Rather, both positive and negative, however inconsistent, eects were found in the literature (e.g., Adelmann, 1995; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Morris & Feldman, 1997; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000). In this article we hypothesized that the emotion work requirements have positive eects if the requirements to cope with the service interactions can be met by the employees. However, they are expected to show negative eects if personal prerequisites are overtaxed. Emotional dissonance was hypothesized to have the properties of a job stressor, i.e., a negative eect on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Finally, it was hypothesized that the relations between emotion work and burnout hold when the relations are controlled for neuroticism. These hypotheses were investigated in a sample of service workers consisting of four subsamples and in a representative sample of service workers taken from a randomly drawn sample of employees. The hypotheses were mainly supported by the empirical data. The requirement to display positive emotions had the expected positive eect on personal accomplishment in the service sample, in the representative sample the eect was positive and almost reached Cohens (1992) criterion for small eect sizes, but was not signicant. In both samples, there were strong eects of the requirement to display positive emotions on emotional dissonance. The hypotheses regarding negative emotions were only partly conrmed. First, there were no eects on emotional dissonance in the overall samples. However, the expected eects occurred in the subsample analysis. Second, there was no eect on personal accomplishment. Instead, a small direct,

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however inconsistent, eect on emotional exhaustion was found. The hypotheses regarding sensitivity requirements were mostly supported by the data. They showed a positive relation with personal accomplishment and they showed a direct eect on emotional exhaustion, but no direct eect on depersonalization. Moreover, there was a small eect on emotional dissonance that was not expected. Neuroticism did not aect the hypothesized relations between emotion work and burnout in a signicant way. Almost the same relations could be found if the analyses were done without neuroticism. In particular, the eect of neuroticism on emotional dissonance was only small and close to zero in the representative sample. Moreover, all eects that were signicant at the total sample level for the service sample and the representative sample, were also signicant or in the expected direction at the subsample level. These results support previous ndings on positive and negative eects of emotion work (e.g., Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Dieendor & Richard, 2003; Zapf, Vogt et al., 1999). The advantage of the present analyses is the simultaneous analysis of eects. They are in line with various studies that found negative eects of emotional dissonance or related concepts (Abraham, 1998; Grebner et al., 2003; Kruml & Geddes, 2000; Lewig & Dollard, 2003; Morris & Feldman, 1997; Nerdinger & Ro per, 1999; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000; Zapf, Vogt et al., 1999). The ndings also support the models of Brotheridge and Lee (2002) and Grandey (2003) who demonstrated the central role of surface acting for the negative eects of emotion work. In the present article, we focused on emotional demands rather than emotion regulation strategies. However, we found a similar mediating role for emotional dissonance as the authors found for surface acting. Moreover, the present analyses provide an explanation why empirical ndings were sometimes contradictory with regard to the eects of the frequency of emotion display. First, we dierentiated between the requirement to express positive and negative emotions. The few studies we are aware of that used positive emotions display found positive eects, with the exception of Schaubroeck and Jones (2000). The requirement to display negative emotions is job specic, whereas the requirement to display positive emotions is required in almost every service job. Therefore, if the requirements to express positive and negative emotions are not dierentiated, results may dier depending on the importance of expressing negative emotions in a particular job. Moreover, the data show that there are both direct and indirect eects of positive emotions mediated by emotional dissonance. Our explanation for this nding is that the direct eect of positive emotions on personal accomplishment represents those interactions where the required positive emotions have been automatically felt or where the strategy of deep acting has been applied successfully, both resulting in successful authentic emotions display, whereas the indirect eect mediated

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by emotional dissonance represents those interactions where the positive emotions are not felt and are either not shown at all or are displayed using surface acting. Surface acting as a strategy, however, was related to emotional exhaustion both in questionnaire studies (Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Grandey, 2003; Kruml & Geddes, 2000) as well as in diary studies (Totterdell & Holman, 2003; Tschan, Rochat, & Zapf, 2005). The results of the present study may also provide an explanation for the unexpected negative eects of the demands to express positive emotions in the Schaubroeck and Jones study. In this study, the demand to suppress negative emotions instead of emotional dissonance was used, which is a more specic concept. There are cases where positive emotions should be shown but nothing is felt. In the diary study of Tschan et al. (2005) in which data were analysed at the interaction level, negative emotions were felt in 42.2% when a positive emotion display was required, and nothing was felt in 47% when a positive emotion display was required. These 47% would be controlled if emotional dissonance were used, but not when the demand to suppress negative emotions were used. In addition, in the study of Glomb and Tews (2004) faking positive emotions had a similar negative eect on exhaustion as had suppressing negative emotions. Thus, the negative eects of cases where a positive emotion display is required but nothing is felt, may be responsible for the negative results of the demands to express positive emotions in the Schaubroeck and Jones study. The results with regard to the requirement to display negative emotions did only partly support the hypotheses. There were no eects on emotional dissonance and personal accomplishment. There are several explanations. First, the requirement to display negative emotions is much lower than the requirement to display positive emotions (cf. Table 2). Thus, given that positive emotions have to be displayed anyway, the requirement to display negative emotions may be too infrequent to have an eect. Moreover, the display of negative emotions as a strategy in a service interaction is certainly not the rst thing to do. Rather, it is a requirement in a dicult situation where negative emotions are likely to prevail on both sides. Therefore, there is little need to fake the negative emotions on the side of the service provider. Rather, one can assume that they are probably authentic in such situations. Thus, in the occupations analysed in this study, emotional dissonance based on the requirement to display negative emotions which are not felt, should occur too seldom to have a signicant eect. A possible interpretation of the positive eect on emotional exhaustion in the service sample is that situations requiring the display of negative emotions are stressful per se, for example, because one has to deal with aggressive clients. Such eects may only appear in occupations where the requirement to display negative emotions is of importance. Probably this applies more frequently to human service jobs. The fact that the majority of

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the service sample belongs to the human services whereas this is not the case in the representative sample, may explain why the positive eect occurred only in the service sample. More detailed analyses are required here. Sensitivity requirements had the positive eects as expected. Moreover, there was a small eect on emotional dissonance in the service sample, which was not hypothesized. Since this eect could not be replicated in the representative sample, we will not discuss this eect. Moreover, there is a direct eect of sensitivity requirements on emotional exhaustion indicating that the more complex interactions tend to overtax the employees abilities to cope with these interactions. Finally, controlling for neuroticism hardly changed the other relations. Therefore, common method variance explanations based on NA and related variables are not a likely explanation for the relations found in the present study. In terms of content explanations, neuroticism as a personality variable obviously has only little impact on emotion work burnout relationships. Whereas the eect of neuroticism on emotional exhaustion is comparable to some other studies, the eect on emotional dissonance is lower than in most other studies. The fact that neuroticism had so little impact on the analyses conveys the impression of emotional dissonance to be a description of job conditions rather than a subjective reaction primarily determined by personal characteristics. Based on emotion theories such as the aective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) or the concept of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998; Gross & Levenson, 1997), we propose that in service encounters (as in other situations) the elicitation of emotions whether positive or negative or whether an emotion is elicited at all, is primarily determined by the situation: the frequency, duration, and quality of the service interaction and the presence of display rules. Note that the measure of emotional dissonance in this study is oriented to describe the situation. It is asked, for example, whether positive emotions have to be shown in situations where nothing or even negative emotions are felt. This concept of emotional dissonance rests upon the assumptions that positive or negative emotions are relatively uniformly elicited in positive or negative situations. However, it does not assume that individuals respond in the same way. The concept of emotional dissonance would allow that a person responds with surface acting that would sustain the discrepancy between felt and displayed emotions, it would allow deep acting to overcome the discrepancy, and it would permit emotion deviation as well, that is, not showing the required emotion at all. There are some limitations in the study. First, the studies are crosssectional, which allows the analysis of relations but not cause and eect. We tried to consider this by modelling latent correlations among the residuals of the emotional requirements and among the burnout variables. In this article,

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it cannot be analysed whether emotion work aects burnout or the other way around. A review of the literature shows that eects of psychological strain on psychological stressors are not infrequent (Zapf, Dormann, & Frese, 1996). For the present study, it makes sense to assume that emotionally exhausted service employees are less able to display positive emotions making eects of emotional exhaustion on emotional dissonance more likely. Longitudinal studies are necessary, to shed more light on these causal structures. We already mentioned that NA as a nuisance factor is not a likely explanation for the data of this study. The relations between sensitivity requirements, personal accomplishment, and emotional exhaustion, where sensitivity requirements have both positive and negative eects on psychological health in a hypothesized way, speak against simple response bias explanations such as social desirability. The strengths of the present study is that the service sample is relatively large compared to other studies on emotion work. Moreover, the second sample was randomly drawn, which is also not very frequent in this research eld. Most of the hypothesized eects could be replicated in a second sample. One of the main goals of the present studies is to disentangle the eects of emotional requirements on burnout, thereby analysing the mediating eects of emotional dissonance and separating positive and negative eects by simultaneous computations using SEM. The analyses show, for example, that the signicant zero-order correlations between the requirement to display positive emotions on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization are fully mediated by emotional dissonance. They also show that the eects of negative emotions display on accomplishment can fully be explained by the correlation among the emotional requirements variables. This study has shown that emotion work is related to burnout, and that the instrument used in this study has been useful to dierentiate positive and negative eects of emotion work. Longitudinal studies are now required to further analyse the causal structure among these variables.

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