Emotional labor, strain, and performance: Testing reciprocal relationships in a longitudinal panel study

Models of emotional labor suggest that emotional labor leads to strain and affects job performance. Although the link between emotional labor, strain, and performance has been well documented in cross-sectional field studies, not much is known about the causal direction of relationships between emot...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of occupational health psychology Vol. 15; no. 4; p. 505
Main Authors Hülsheger, Ute R, Lang, Jonas W B, Maier, Günter W
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.10.2010
Subjects
Adult
Faculty
Female
Germany
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Models, Statistical
Occupational Exposure
Stress, Psychological
Task Performance and Analysis
Germany
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Summary:Models of emotional labor suggest that emotional labor leads to strain and affects job performance. Although the link between emotional labor, strain, and performance has been well documented in cross-sectional field studies, not much is known about the causal direction of relationships between emotional labor, strain, and performance. Goal of the present study was therefore to test the direction of effects in a two-wave longitudinal panel study using a sample of 151 trainee teachers. Longitudinal lagged effects were tested using structural equation modeling. Results revealed that the emotional labor strategy of surface acting led to increases in subsequent strain while deep acting led to increases in job performance. In contrast, there was no indication of reverse causation: Neither strain nor job performance had a significant lagged effect on subsequent surface or deep acting. Overall, results support models of emotional labor suggesting that surface and deep acting causally precede individual and organizational well-being.
ISSN:1939-1307
DOI:10.1037/a0021003