THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONAL DISSONANCE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL‐BEING: THE IMPORTANCE OF ROLE INTERNALISATION AS A MEDIATING VARIABLE

Abstract

Over the last ten years, increasing attention has been given to employees' displays of emotions to customers during service transactions and particularly to how organisations try to control these emotional displays (Adelmann, 1989; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Hochschild, 1983; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987, 1989; Wharton & Erickson, 1993). The act of expressing organisationally‐desired emotions during service interactions has been labelled emotional labour (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Hochschild, 1983). The issue in emotional labour research which has received the most focus has been “emotional dissonance”, that is, the state of discomfort generated in employees when they have to express emotions which they do not genuinely feel (Middleton, 1989). In large part, this attention to emotional dissonance has been based on the potential negative consequences that emotional dissonance can have for workers psychological well being (Hochschild, 1983; Erickson, 1991; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987; Wharton, 1993). This study seeks to extend previous empirical research on when emotional dissonance is most likely to result in these negative consequences and, especially, the importance of role internalisation as a mediating variable in the emotional dissonance‐psychological well‐being relationship.

Citation

Morris, J.A. and Feldman, D.C. (1996), "THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONAL DISSONANCE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL‐BEING: THE IMPORTANCE OF ROLE INTERNALISATION AS A MEDIATING VARIABLE", Management Research News, Vol. 19 No. 8, pp. 19-28. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb028484