{"title":"Emotional labor: The role of organizational dehumanization.","authors":"Nathan Nguyen, Théo Besson, Florence Stinglhamber","doi":"10.1037/ocp0000289","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In a permanent quest for profit, employees can be reduced to a mere function or instrument, dissociated from their quality as individuals for the organization's ends. Experiencing such a feeling as an employee has been called organizational dehumanization. Scholars have recently suggested that organizational dehumanization may play a key role in the development of emotional labor. However, how organizational dehumanization and two main emotional labor strategies (i.e., surface and deep acting) are <i>causally</i> related remains unclear in this literature. In the present research, we argue that employees who experience organizational dehumanization and whose self is thus threatened then engage in surface acting to \"conserve\" their self or in deep acting to \"give up\" their self in service of the role. Overall, the combined results of three studies offer strong evidence that organizational dehumanization leads employees to perform more surface acting, but not more deep acting. Unexpectedly, our findings also indicate that deep acting reduces the perception of being dehumanized by the organization. In showing this, the present research sheds light on the potential dark side of deep acting, by suggesting that this strategy can change employees' perspectives in a way that may encourage them to stay in an organization that treats them as a means to an end. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48339,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Occupational Health Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"13","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Occupational Health Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000289","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2021/7/29 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, APPLIED","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 13
Abstract
In a permanent quest for profit, employees can be reduced to a mere function or instrument, dissociated from their quality as individuals for the organization's ends. Experiencing such a feeling as an employee has been called organizational dehumanization. Scholars have recently suggested that organizational dehumanization may play a key role in the development of emotional labor. However, how organizational dehumanization and two main emotional labor strategies (i.e., surface and deep acting) are causally related remains unclear in this literature. In the present research, we argue that employees who experience organizational dehumanization and whose self is thus threatened then engage in surface acting to "conserve" their self or in deep acting to "give up" their self in service of the role. Overall, the combined results of three studies offer strong evidence that organizational dehumanization leads employees to perform more surface acting, but not more deep acting. Unexpectedly, our findings also indicate that deep acting reduces the perception of being dehumanized by the organization. In showing this, the present research sheds light on the potential dark side of deep acting, by suggesting that this strategy can change employees' perspectives in a way that may encourage them to stay in an organization that treats them as a means to an end. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
期刊介绍:
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology offers research, theory, and public policy articles in occupational health psychology, an interdisciplinary field representing a broad range of backgrounds, interests, and specializations. Occupational health psychology concerns the application of psychology to improving the quality of work life and to protecting and promoting the safety, health, and well-being of workers. This journal focuses on the work environment, the individual, and the work-family interface.