Is Emotional Labor Easier in Collectivist or Individualist Cultures? An East–West Comparison

• Date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0091026018814569
• Author: Ian Adams,Sharon Mastracci
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026018814569

Public Personnel Management

2019, Vol. 48(3) 325 –344

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0091026018814569

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Article

Is Emotional Labor Easier

in Collectivist or Individualist

Cultures? An East–West

Comparison

Sharon Mastracci1 and Ian Adams1

Abstract

Emotional labor is the effort to express job-appropriate emotions and/or suppress

inappropriate emotions. The effort manifests in interpersonal interactions, whether

face to face or voice to voice, and can increase stress and burnout. Most research

in emotional labor is based on North American samples. Could public servants in

different cultures experience emotional labor differently? We test the provocative

hypothesis that emotional labor is less stressful for people in collectivist cultures, due

to the predominance of harmony and interdependence in such cultures. Our results

confirm that emotional labor via surface acting leads to burnout to a lesser degree for

respondents in collectivist cultures compared with individualistic cultures. Emotional

labor via deep acting actually lowers burnout in collectivist cultures. We also find that

emotional labor theories based on North American studies may be used in Eastern

contexts, and that public servants in collectivist cultures are more responsive to

display rules compared with those in individualist cultures.

Keywords

comparative research, emotional labor, individualism/collectivism, structural equation

modeling

Emotional labor is the effort to express job-appropriate emotions and/or suppress inap-

propriate emotions. Most research in emotional labor is based on North American

samples. Is emotional labor experienced differently in different countries? From

1The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sharon Mastracci, The University of Utah, 260 South Central Campus Drive, Room 358, Salt Lake City,

UT 84112, USA.

Email: sharon.mastracci@poli-sci.utah.edu

814569PPMXXX10.1177/0091026018814569Public Personnel ManagementMastracci and Adams

research-article2018

326 Public Personnel Management 48(3)

Hulsheger and Schewe (2011), we know that decades of emotional labor research

confirms that surface acting leads to burnout in the private sector. From Guy, Newman,

and Mastracci (2008), we know this finding holds in the public sector too. However,

Ashkenasy and Daus (2013) question whether the surface acting/burnout link in emo-

tional labor theory applies in non-Western contexts: “Emotional labor research should

consider literature from diversity-related and cross-cultural studies. How would col-

lectivistic versus individualistic societies differ regarding emotional labor norms and

outcomes?” (p. 286). In their comparison of private-sector workers in China and the

United States, Allen, Diefendorff, and Ma (2014) warn “models of emotional labor

generated in a Western culture may not apply in other cultures” (p. 21). Mesquita and

Delvaux (2013) provocatively posit that workers in other cultures may find emotional

labor easier: “Cross-cultural evidence . . . suggests that emotional labor is less stress-

ful and less costly for people in interdependent than in independent cultures” (p. 263).

Regulating emotions to sustain social harmony may accustom people in interdepen-

dent/collectivist cultures to monitor and adjust their affect constantly, so emotional

labor may fail to generate the stress found in independent/individualist cultures. Does

a public-service ethos make a difference (Guy et al., 2008; Sloan, 2017)? Does con-

cern for the public good confound differences found among workers in for-profit orga-

nizations? The purpose of our study is to examine the effects of emotional labor across

cultures among public servants. Two studies to date have examined emotional labor

cross culturally in the private sector (Allen et al., 2014; Eid & Diener, 2001) but none

has studied public servants.

Review of the Literature

Emotional Labor

Physical labor is needed in jobs where people work with things. Cognitive labor is

needed in jobs where people work with information. Emotional labor is needed in jobs

where people work with people.

As we move further and further away from organizations that are designed to operate

assembly lines, we must devise new structures that capture today’s work and skill

requirements . . . Making emotional labor visible is the first step, making it compensable

is the next. (Guy & Newman, 2004, p. 296)

Emotional labor is the effort to suppress inappropriate emotions or express appropriate

emotions within oneself or another person, where “appropriate” and “inappropriate”

are dictated by the demands of the job. Emotion work is the day-to-day effort to feel,

or at least appear to feel, context appropriate: happy at weddings and sad at funerals.

Sometimes that requires no effort, other times it does, but in all cases, emotion work is

done for the benefit of personal relationships. Emotional labor is the effort to feel or

appear to feel context appropriate at work. It is done for the benefit of the employer to

conform to professional expectations and to keep the citizen/customer happy (Lopez,

2006). Work display rules are more restrictive than day-to-day interpersonal display