Development and validation of the Emotional Labour Scale

This paper describes the development and validation of the Emotional Labour Scale (ELS) as tested on samples of 296 and 238 respondents. The ELS is a 15‐item self‐report questionnaire that measures six facets of emotional display in the workplace, including the frequency, intensity and variety of emotional display, the duration of interaction, and surface and deep acting. Estimates of internal consistency for the subscales ranged from .74 to .91. Confirmatory factor analysis results provided support for the existence of six unidimensional subscales. Evidence was also provided for convergent and discriminant validity.