Since Hochschild (1979) introduced the concept of emotional labor, many psychology and management researchers have investigated its various antecedents and outcomes (Zapf, 2002). Emotional labor refers to the way employees manage their emotional expressions and display expected emotions (Hochschild, 1983). The focus in most studies has been on two emotional labor strategies: surface acting and deep acting. Surface acting involves suppressing one’s felt emotions and faking the desired emotions, whereas deep acting refers to modifying ones’ inner feelings and actually experiencing the desired emotions (Diefendorff, Croyle, & Gosserand, 2005). In the present study, we examined the effect of personality, specifically neuroticism, on emotional labor strategies along with the mediating role of job feedback in the negative relationship between neuroticism and deep acting.

Neuroticism and Emotional Labor Strategies

McCrae and Costa (1987) described personality as consisting of five dimensions: openness, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Diefendorff et al. (2005) pointed out that personality traits significantly influence emotional labor strategies. According to Austin, Dore, and O’Donovan (2008), among the Big Five personality traits, neuroticism correlates most significantly with surface acting, implying that neuroticism may play a dominant role in influencing employees’ emotional labor strategies.

The relationship between neuroticism and emotional labor strategies still has one missing link. Diefendorff et al. (2005) explored only the relationship between neuroticism and surface acting. Nor have subsequent researchers investigated the possible association between neuroticism and deep acting. In the present study, we posited that neuroticism would relate negatively to deep acting, firstly because neuroticism means having a lower ability to regulate emotions (McCrae & Costa, 1987). We reasoned that the neurotic person would use a surface acting strategy because surface acting requires relatively little mental effort with regard to regulating emotions, whereas deep acting is more demanding (Zapf, 2002). Therefore, people with high levels of neuroticism would have difficulty in using a deep acting strategy. Secondly, neuroticism has been found to relate positively to negative affect (Diener, Oishi, & Lucas, 2003). According to the trait-behavior congruence theory (Moskowitz & Coté, 1995), high neuroticism produces a demanding and stressful trait-inconsistent behavior, that is, experiencing and expressing positive emotions. Surface acting involves only the outward expression of expected emotions, whereas deep acting involves not only the outward expression but also experiencing the feeling inward. Therefore we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Neuroticism will relate positively to surface acting and negatively to deep acting.

Neuroticism and Job Feedback

According to the job characteristics model (Hackman & Lawler, 1971), feedback is one of the five job characteristics that influence employees’ intrinsic motivation and job performance. Personality may influence how an individual perceives feedback. Those high in neuroticism tend to perceive feedback negatively (Furnham, 1989). Bolger and Zuckerman (1995) showed in their research that, when facing stressful events, those high in neuroticism engage in a coping strategy that is significantly more directed to achieving escape-avoidance. Employees high in neuroticism readily perceive feedback negatively, tend to experience negative emotions, and are more likely to avoid or even reject the feedback, in order to cope with such stressors. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Neuroticism will relate negatively to job feedback.

Job Feedback and Deep Acting

Feedback from customers generally helps service employees to improve the quality of their work (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). Specifically, Zhou (1998) indicated that feedback improves role playing, which is significantly correlated with emotional labor (Mann, 1999). Adopting the same logic for the association between feedback and role playing, we proposed that feedback might also help employees manage their emotional labor strategies better.

Surface acting and deep acting entail different natures. Surface acting has been conceptualized as faking in bad faith. Thus, job feedback would not be likely to promote surface acting. On the other hand, deep acting has been conceptualized as faking in good faith, involving the internalization of the felt rules (Austin et al., 2008; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). Feedback may help employees to learn more about how the interaction with the customer has gone, may facilitate further interaction, and, thereby, may promote deep acting. Therefore, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: Job feedback will relate positively to deep acting.

Mediating Role of Job Feedback

Neuroticism has also been described by such terms as worrying, insecurity, self-consciousness, and moodiness (McCrae & Costa, 1987). As mentioned in the former sections, neuroticism may influence employees’ reaction to job feedback, and, in the case of emotional labor, employees may use the job feedback to adjust their expression of emotion. Thus, neuroticism has to operate through the medium of job feedback to influence deep acting. Therefore, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 4: Job feedback will mediate the effect of neuroticism on deep acting.

Method

Participants and Procedure

We conducted the study in mainland China, working with nurses from five large hospitals. Participants filled out a questionnaire during work breaks. Questionnaires were translated into Chinese from English then back-translated. Because they worked on a rotational shift system, the nurses came and went from the hospitals quite irregularly. A total of 168 questionnaires were returned, resulting in a response rate of 49.41%.

Measures

Neuroticism. The measure of neuroticism was adapted from the subscale for neuroticism in Shafer’s (1999) Big Five Personality Scale, which consists of six bipolar items. The response scale was a 9-point semantic differential type scale ranging from 1 (the left trait in the trait pair describes me very well) to 9 (the right trait in the trait pair describes me very well). A sample bipolar item is “anxious-calm”. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability was .64.

Job feedback. We used the job feedback subdimension of the Job Characteristics Inventory (JCI; Sims, Szilagyi, & Keller, 1976), which consists of five items, to measure employees’ perceived job feedback. A sample item is “The feeling that I know whether I am performing my job well or poorly”. The scales ranged from 1 (none or a minimum amount) to 5 (a maximum amount). The Cronbach’s alpha reliability was .62.

Emotional labor strategies. We used the scale developed by Diefendorff et al. (2005) to measure surface acting (seven items) and deep acting (four items). A sample item is “I fake the emotions I show when dealing with patients”. Participants rated each item using a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). The Cronbach’s alpha reliability for surface acting was .77, and .63 for deep acting.

Results

The means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of all the variables are presented in Table 1. Neuroticism related positively to surface acting (r = .26, p < .01), and negatively to both deep acting (r = -.16, p < .05) and job feedback (r = -.16, p < .05). Therefore, Hypotheses 1 and 2 were initially supported. Job feedback related positively to deep acting (r = .21, p < .01), so that Hypothesis 3 was initially supported.

A hierarchical regression was used to examine the mediating effect of job feedback (Baron & Kenny, 1986). The regression results are displayed in Table 2. Neuroticism related significantly to surface acting (Model 4; β = .21, p < .001), deep acting (Model 6; β = -.12, p < .05), and job feedback (Model 2; β = -.07, p < .05). These results supported Hypotheses 1 and 2. Job feedback related significantly to deep acting (Model 7; β = .32, p < .05), supporting Hypothesis 3. When controlling job feedback, the effect of neuroticism on deep acting became nonsignificant (Model 7; β = -.10, ns). These results supported Hypothesis 4, that is, job feedback fully mediated the negative relationship between neuroticism and deep acting.

Discussion

Our findings extend current knowledge by exploring the relationship between neuroticism and deep acting, and identifying job feedback as a mediating mechanism.

The mediating role of job feedback implies that the other party with whom the service employees interact could affect the emotional labor of the employees. During the interaction between the employees (nurses) and the clients (patients), the type of job feedback and how it is given may play a significant role in employees’ emotional labor strategies. Spencer and Rupp (2009) showed in their study that employees’ emotional labor strategies may be influenced by a customer’s interpersonal and informational injustice. Together with that research, our findings introduce a promising perspective for future research by investigating not only the role of employees in the interaction but also that of the other party.

In our study we also found that neuroticism related negatively to deep acting. In work tasks where a high level of deep acting is required, neuroticism would be an effective index for employee selection.

The limitations in the present study also suggest possible directions for future research. Firstly, as with all cross-sectional studies, the issue of causality is problematic. In future studies a longitudinal design could be used to examine patterns of change, causal direction, and reciprocal relationships. Secondly, we conducted a field study so that the ecological validity was greater than that of a study conducted in a laboratory environment. However, the limitation in our study was that we did not record and categorize the precise source of the feedback, for instance, whether it was from a client, supervisor, or a coworker. An experimental design would be better if divergent feedback was controlled.

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This paper was supported by grants from the Programming Project of the Philosophy and Social Sciences of Zhejiang Province

China (09CGGL00YB)

the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province

China (Y2100634)

and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

Yuanyuan Huo, Department of Management, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]