직무관련 부정정서와 표면행위: 감정소진과 자기감정인식의 조절된 매개모형

Surface acting is an emotional labor strategy involving the suppression of felt emotions and projecting false but desired emotions. Previous research shows that surface acting relates to negative outcomes such as work withdrawal, job dissatisfaction, and ineffective emotional expression. However, few studies have been conducted to explain the underlying reasons that motivate employee engagement in surface acting. The purpose of this study is to investigate the antecedents of surface acting and the mechanisms by which these antecedents influence surface acting. Specifically, the present study has three purposes. First, it examines the influence of job-related negative affective states (J-NAS) on surface acting via the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion. Second, it investigates the moderating effect of self-emotion appraisal, a sub-dimension of emotional intelligence, on the relation of J-NAS with surface acting. Third, by integrating the mediating and moderating effects, it proposes a moderated mediation model for surface acting. Affective event theory suggests that events in the workplace can significantly influence employee affective responses, which, in turn, influence attitudes and behaviors. Negative affective states, accompanied by action tendencies such as avoidance, are associated with a behavioral inhibition system and a reduced thinking-feeling repertory. Individuals transfer their felt emotions to desired emotions using display rules that combine past emotions, memories, and images (Baumeister et al., 2001). However, when negative affective states reduce the thinking-feeling repertory, individuals are prevented from changing their felt emotions to the desired ones. Consequently, negative affective states are likely to motivate employee surface acting. Furthermore, this linkage between negative affective states and surface acting suggests a possible mediating effect of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between the two variables. Generally, because negative emotions are stronger and accompanied by a considerable amount of information, they tend to dominate. As a result, employees are more likely to sustain emotional exhaustion when they experience negative affective states than when they experience positive affective states. Resource conservation theory suggests that emotionally exhausted employees protect or replenish their depleted resources by minimizing their efforts to display positive emotion (Lam et al., 2010). As a result, employees who are emotionally exhausted by negative affective states tend to engage in surface acting. Therefore, we propose the following:H1: Job-related negative affective states have positively related surface acting. H2: Emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between job-related negative affective states and surface acting. Emotional intelligence has been considered a crucial ability affecting individual emotion-related processes and outcomes. Largely, emotional labor studies have focused on the effects of emotion regulation rather than those of emotion recognition. However, self-emotion recognition precedes emotion self-regulation (Wong & Law, 2002). Individuals having the ability to recognize their own emotion status are able to appraise exactly their emotional states provoked by workplace events. Subsequently, the impacts of negative affective states on emotional exhaustion are perhaps more acute when self-emotion appraisal is high compared to when it is low. The ability to appraise one’s own emotion moderates the positive relationship between J-NAS and emotional exhaustion. H3: Self-emotion appraisal moderates the positive relationship between job-related negative affective states and emotional exhaustion. Specifically, the positive relationship between J-NAS and emotional exhaustion will be stronger when self-emotion appraisal is higher than when self-emotion appraisal is lower. H4: Self-emotion appraisal moderates the positive relationship between job-related negative affective states and emotional exhaustion. Specifically, the positive relationship between J-NAS and emotional exhaustion will be weaker when self-emotion appraisal is higher than when self-emotion appraisal is lower. When Hypotheses 2, 3, and 4 are taken collectively, it is likely that self-emotion appraisal will conditionally influence the strength of the indirect effects of J-NAS on surface acting via emotional exhaustion. H5: Self-emotion appraisal moderates the indirect effects of J-NAS on surface acting via emotional exhaustion. Specifically, a positive, indirect effect between J-NAS and surface acting is stronger when self-emotion appraisal is higher than when appraisal self-emotion is lower. Data were collected using questionnaires distributed to 300 employees in fifteen service firms, of whom 150 were used in the statistical analysis. Results support all three hypotheses (H1, H2, & H5). There was a moderating effect of self-emotion appraisal, i.e., the positive relationship between J-NAS and emotional exhaustion was stronger when self-emotion appraisal was high than when it was low. Additionally, the indirect effect of J-NAS on surface acting through emotional exhaustion was stronger when self-emotion appraisal was high. The present study suggests that negative affective states experienced in the workplace induce emotional exhaustion by causing employees to engage in surface acting. Job-related affective states are influenced by situational factors. Therefore, in order to prevent the likelihood of negative affective responses in the workplace, preventing employees from engaging in surface acting is highly desirable. For instance, by encouraging workplace management support of supervisors and colleagues, negative emotional responses might be minimized or avoided, thereby helping reduce employee surface acting. We have also provided evidence of the moderating effects of individual self-emotion appraisal on the relationship between affective states and surface acting. In contrast to previous studies, which typically focused on the impacts of emotional self-regulation on emotional labor strategies, this study examined the crucial role of the effects of self-emotion appraisal. Finally, this study contributes to current theory by providing a comprehensive model that includes moderating and mediating effects to explain the factors underlying employee surface acting.