Emotional labor

From Freepedia

Emotional labour is a form of task that requires someone to suppress or simulate their emotions, particularly realted to capitalistic working conditions. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild coined the term in 1983 in a seminal work, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Hochschild defines emotional labor as “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display [which] is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value” (Hochschild, 2003).

Nursing is often cited as an example of a job requiring great emotional labor. In the United States most jobs that deal with clients expect a high degree of emotional labor. Employees are trained and pressured to present an amicable smile and pleasant demeanor. Such conditions are known to increase job stress and decrease job satisfaction. The dilemma is that the lower the job quality the higher the emotional labor required to present the job required emotional display (e.g. low wage fast-food atendees greeting customers with a smile).