Within most studies, the measures of surface acting employed do not distinguish between the acts of feeling emotions and suppressing them. This is a confounding variable because simply experiencing the negative emotions could account for the harmful effects which surface acting has upon wellbeing. To investigate whether or not this is the case, Semmer, Messerli and Tschan (2016) separately assessed ‘emotions felt’ and ‘emotions displayed’ by using a diary study. Their results suggest that the effects of surface acting are, at least partly, due to the experience of the emotion when a negative emotion is suppressed. This is beneficial for our understanding as to why surface and deep acting impact wellbeing in different ways. Through engaging …show more content…
They conducted a meta-analysis of 95 independent studies which revealed significant positive correlations between surface acting and impaired overall wellbeing. Contrastingly, no correlation was found between deep acting and impaired wellbeing. This is critical for our understanding of emotional labour as it proves the necessity of distinguishing between the use of deep and surface acting. This evidence suggests that emotional labour is a multifaceted concept and consequently, whether or not it will negatively impact wellbeing will vary depending on the emotional strategy used. The analysis revealed that surface acting was correlated with increased levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and psychological strain. A meta-analysis is particularly good evidence for clarifying whether emotional labour has detrimental effects upon wellbeing because it allows one to investigate whether findings from previous research are situation-specific or consistent across samples and settings. Similarly, the findings of a second meta-analysis conducted by Kammeyer-Mueller et al. (2013) also attest to the idea that differing forms of emotional labour produced differing effects upon wellbeing. Consistent with Hülsheger and Schewe’s (2011) analysis, it was reported that surface acting strategies have negative relationships with both work performance …show more content…
For example, one variable which influences the relationship is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence relates to the concept of one’s ability to interpret emotions through devices such as facial expressions or body language (Mayer, Caruso & Salovey, 2000). Research conducted by Prati, Liu, Perrewé and Ferris (2009) discovered that higher levels of emotional intelligence offset the negative effects of surface acting. Furthermore Judge, Woolf, and Hurst, (2009) reported that emotional labour had less negative effects for extraverts than it did for introverts. These findings convey the importance of considering disposition when looking at the relationship between emotional labour and wellbeing as it is clear that individual’s traits play a role. It is highly unlikely that research has already discovered all possible mediators of this relationship. As such, future research would be wise to continue investigating other dimensions of personality which could influence the direction of the relationship. The advantage of uncovering these variables would be that employers could tailor their search towards candidates who are more suitable to jobs high in emotional labour. In turn, this would benefit both organisations and workers alike through improving person-job fit, which, has been