Abstract
Research shows that positive affective displays in customer service interactions are positively related to
customers’ perception of overall service quality. Consequently, the way customer service employees manage their feelings
is seen as an important aspect of providing their services. In most service contexts, employees are expected to express
positive emotions, e.g., be cheerful and suppress negative emotions, such as resentment. Emotional labor is regarded as
a type of impression management, because it involves deliberate effort undertaken by service workers in order to adhere
to organizational display rules when dealing with customers. Surface acting is an emotional labor strategy and consists
of managing observable emotional expression without modifying underlying genuine feelings (service with a fake smile).
Research shows that surface acting is positively related to employee burnout. The present study (N=180) was designed to
examine the effects of surface acting on emotional exhaustion while controlling for employees’ trait emotional intelligence.
The results demonstrated that employees who declared greater use of surface acting during their interactions with
customers reported more symptoms of emotional exhaustion. As predicted, however, this effect was observed only among
employees low in trait emotional intelligence. The discussion encompasses the implications these results may have for
managing emotional expression in public performance that may result in reducing performance anxiety.
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