Expert knowledge or emotional connection? Examining clients’ expectations for highly-skilled professional care

Abstract Current research suggests that clients devalue semi-skilled care workers’ substantive knowledge and compel these workers to provide emotional intimacy. I refer to this characterization of care workers’ expertise and labor as from the heart knowledge and care. In this study, I evaluate if clients expect highly-skilled care workers with professional degrees to provide from the heart knowledge and care, too. I conducted qualitative interviews to examine clients’ expectations for their relationships with care professionals. While other studies suggest that clients devalue emotional intimacy cultivated by workers who they perceive as having few work skills, the clients in my study valued—and often rewarded—emotional intimacy cultivated by workers who they perceived as highly-skilled. I explore the limits of Zelizer’s conceptualization of the “connected lives” approach by highlighting the link between status and worker-client relationships.