Experiencing emotional labor: an analysis of the discursive construction of emotional labor
Year: 2007
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This study analyzes how employees at a university recreation center discursively\nconstruct their experiences of emotional labor, how they conceptualize such behavior in\nterms of displaying unfelt emotions and faking in good and bad faith, and what these\ndiscursive constructions reveal about their perceptions of authenticity. The findings\ndemonstrate that workers construct emotional labor as a natural ability and as performing\na role. People who construct emotional labor as a natural ability depict themselves as the\ncontroller of their workplace emotion. They display unfelt emotions in good faith when\nthey do so to uphold another’s face, and they believe that they possess a true self.\nEmployees who construct emotional labor as performing a role view their supervisors as\ncontroller of their workplace emotion. They fake emotions in good faith when doing so\nuphold their own face, and they fake in bad faith when it upholds the face of a co-worker\nwho they feel needs to be disciplined. These people do not possess a sense of authentic\nself. They view themselves as multi-faceted and they say that they use social\ncomparison to determine how to behave in particular situations. These findings reveal\npreviously unexplored complexities in scholars’ conceptions of emotional labor and\nauthenticity.
Author: Mary Kathryn Haman
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2310005211