The Dimensions, Antecedents, and Consequences of Emotional Labor

This article conceptualizes the emotional labor construct in terms of four dimensions: frequency of appropriate emotional display, attentiveness to required display rules, variety of emotions to be displayed, and emotional dissonance generated by having to express organizationally desired emotions not genuinely felt. Through this framework, the article then presents a series of propositions about the organizational-, job-, and individual-level characteristics that are antecedents of each of these four dimensions. Frequency of emotional display, attentiveness to display rules, variety of emotions to be displayed, and emotional dissonance are hypothesized to lead to greater emotional exhaustion, but only emotional dissonance is hypothesized to lead to lower job satisfaction. Implications for future theory development and empirical research on emotional labor are discussed as well.