The effects of emotional labour on well-being among shy student teachers

Abstract

Teaching is an emotional endeavour. For teachers, it can imply managing genuine emotions in classrooms and displaying emotional expressions that are in keeping with their teaching methods and are motivating for their students. Teacher well-being is affected when there is a mismatch between the genuine emotions a teacher feels and the emotional expressions that would be beneficial to teaching. However, this emotional labour might not equally impact the well-being of all teachers. Acting out emotions might be particularly challenging for individuals who experience discomfort in displaying their emotions in the first place. This longitudinal study, involving 331 student teachers from Germany, examines the prevalence of shyness, its general effects on job-related well-being, and its specific influence when considering the emotional labour involved in the teaching practicum. The findings reveal that one in two student teachers in this sample can be described as shy. In addition, the data suggest a positive link between shyness and emotional exhaustion and a negative link between shyness and job satisfaction. Further, mediation analyses indicate that the relationship between shyness and well-being is fully mediated by the emotional labour strategy of surface acting. This implies that the well-being of shy student teachers is more strongly affected by the demands of emotional labour in the classroom.