Emotional Labour

Introduction

Many working positions require workers to display certain emotional reactions that are expected by clients, colleagues or supervisors, but these required reactions sometimes or often contradict the worker's own actual feelings. Emotional labour demands may be found particularly in service jobs, where interaction with other people is a substantial part of the work task. Research results indicate that high demands to control emotional reactions are related to several undesired psychological outcomes: such as, stress and emotional exhaustion. This highlights the importance of job, but also of proper staff selection processes and training of job holders.

Definition of…