Need for recovery after emotional labor: Differential effects of daily deep and surface acting

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2245
• Published date: 01 May 2018
• Date: 01 May 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Need for recovery after emotional labor: Differential effects of

daily deep and surface acting

Despoina Xanthopoulou

1

|Arnold B. Bakker

2,3

|Wido G.M. Oerlemans

4,5

|Maria Koszucka

6

1

Faculty of Philosophy, School of Psychology,

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,

Thessaloniki, Greece

2

Center of Excellence for Positive

Organizational Psychology, Erasmus

University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The

Netherlands

3

Department of Industrial Psychology and

People Management, University of

Johannesburg, South Africa

4

Research & Business Development,

HumanTotalCare, Utrecht, The Netherlands

5

Eindhoven University of Technology,

Department of Industrial Engineering and

Innovation Sciences, Human Performance

Management Group, Eindhoven, The

Netherlands

6

Poradnia Psychologiczno‐Pedagogiczna,

Wroclaw, Poland

Correspondence

Despoina Xanthopoulou, Aristotle University

of Thessaloniki, Faculty of Philosophy, School

of Psychology, AUTH Campus, Thessaloniki

54124, Greece.

Email: dxanthopoulou@psy.auth.gr

Summary

This diary study examines the psychological processes that contribute to daily recovery from

emotional labor by combining emotion regulation with work‐home resources theories. We

hypothesized that overall perceptions of display rules relate positively to daily deep and surface

acting. Daily surface acting was expected to relate positively to exhaustion and negatively to flow

during work and consequently, to a higher need for recovery at the end of the workday. In con-

trast, daily deep acting was hypothesized to relate positively to flow and negatively to exhaustion

and consequently, to a lower need for recovery at the end of the workday. In turn, need for

recovery was expected to associate negatively to vigor at bedtime through reduced relaxation

during leisure. Fifty Dutch and Polish employees first filled in a survey, and then a diary for five

consecutive workdays, twice per day: at the end of the workday and before sleep. Multilevel path

analyses largely supported these hypotheses suggesting that surface acting has unfavorable

implications, whereas deep acting has favorable implications for daily well‐being at work and

recovery after work.

KEYWORDS

deep acting, exhaustion, (need for) recovery, surface acting, work‐relatedflow

1|INTRODUCTION

The requirement to display organizationally desired emotional expres-

sions and hiding others is a key demand for employees who work with

people (Hochschild, 1983). For instance, employees in service jobs are

expected to express positive emotionstowards their customers in order

to deliver high quality services (Grandey, 2003). The psychological pro-

cess through which employees regulate their emotions to align to

organizationally‐set display rules in order to fulfill role expectations is

called emotional labor (Grandey, Diefendorff, & Rupp, 2013). Emotion

regulation (i.e., managing emotional expressions and feelings at work)

is central in the emotional labor process (Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011)

and can be achieved either when employees fake the required emo-

tional expressions (i.e., surface acting), or when they change their inner

feelings in order to match the required emotions (i.e., deep acting;

Hochschild, 1983). Despite the abundance of empirical evidence on

the outcomes of these two emotion regulation strategies for work‐

related well‐being (for meta‐analyses see, Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011;

Mesmer‐Magnus, De Church, & Wax, 2012), their implications for daily

employee recovery during off‐job time have been largely neglected.

This daily diary study investigates the process of recovering from

emotional labor on a daily basis, and the role of emotion regulation

strategies and work‐related well‐being therein. Recovery from work‐

related demands refers to the process through which employees

restore the resources that have been used up during work (Sonnentag

& Fritz, 2007). Inability to recover daily is detrimental for employee

well‐being because of the accumulation of strain, whereas successful

recovery facilitates employee flourishing (for a review, see

Xanthopoulou, Sanz‐Vergel, & Demerouti, 2014). Understanding the

process through which emotion workers recover is of relevance

because more than half of the working population in Western coun-

tries deals with demands related to emotional labor on a daily basis

(Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011). Linking emotional labor and recovery

[Correction added on 04 December 2017, after first online publication: The pre-

vious affiliation of Dr. Oerlemans has been added in this corrected version.]

Received: 5 February 2016 Revised: 29 September 2017 Accepted: 14 October 2017

DOI: 10.1002/job.2245

J Organ Behav. 2018;39:481–494. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 481