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The Role of Surface Acting in the Relationship between Job Stressors, General Health and Need for Recovery Based on the Frequency of Interactions at Work

The aim of the study was to verify whether the frequency of face-to-face interactions with the public at work can reveal differences in how people react to emotional regulation demands. In particular, we investigated the mediating role of surface acting (a strategy of dealing with emotional dissonan...

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Autores principales: Sciotto, Giulia, Pace, Francesco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9024759/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35457670
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19084800
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author Sciotto, Giulia
Pace, Francesco
author_facet Sciotto, Giulia
Pace, Francesco
author_sort Sciotto, Giulia
collection PubMed
description The aim of the study was to verify whether the frequency of face-to-face interactions with the public at work can reveal differences in how people react to emotional regulation demands. In particular, we investigated the mediating role of surface acting (a strategy of dealing with emotional dissonance) in the relationship between two typical job stressors (workload and mental load) and two outcomes closely related to work-related well-being: employees’ general health and the need for recovery. Prior studies investigating the detrimental effects of emotional dissonance mostly focused on service workers. However, in light of a survey conducted by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (2016) highlighting the growing psycho-social risk constituted by intense human interactions in the workplaces, even in unexpected categories of workers, we hypothesize that emotional demands may also be a concern for those who do not specifically interface with clients as part of their job duties. The results of the multi-group analysis of front-office (N = 734) and back-office (N = 436) Italian workers showed that surface acting fully mediates the relationship between workload and general health among back-office workers, while it only partially mediates this relationship among front-office workers. Furthermore, surface acting is positively associated with the need for recovery and negatively with general health, with higher values for back-office workers. The findings support the hypothesis that the emotional demands are not only a service worker issue and highlight the need to address emotional regulation strategies to enhance the quality of life in and outside the workplace for all employees.
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spelling pubmed-90247592022-04-23 The Role of Surface Acting in the Relationship between Job Stressors, General Health and Need for Recovery Based on the Frequency of Interactions at Work Sciotto, Giulia Pace, Francesco Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The aim of the study was to verify whether the frequency of face-to-face interactions with the public at work can reveal differences in how people react to emotional regulation demands. In particular, we investigated the mediating role of surface acting (a strategy of dealing with emotional dissonance) in the relationship between two typical job stressors (workload and mental load) and two outcomes closely related to work-related well-being: employees’ general health and the need for recovery. Prior studies investigating the detrimental effects of emotional dissonance mostly focused on service workers. However, in light of a survey conducted by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (2016) highlighting the growing psycho-social risk constituted by intense human interactions in the workplaces, even in unexpected categories of workers, we hypothesize that emotional demands may also be a concern for those who do not specifically interface with clients as part of their job duties. The results of the multi-group analysis of front-office (N = 734) and back-office (N = 436) Italian workers showed that surface acting fully mediates the relationship between workload and general health among back-office workers, while it only partially mediates this relationship among front-office workers. Furthermore, surface acting is positively associated with the need for recovery and negatively with general health, with higher values for back-office workers. The findings support the hypothesis that the emotional demands are not only a service worker issue and highlight the need to address emotional regulation strategies to enhance the quality of life in and outside the workplace for all employees. MDPI 2022-04-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9024759/ /pubmed/35457670 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19084800 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sciotto, Giulia
Pace, Francesco
The Role of Surface Acting in the Relationship between Job Stressors, General Health and Need for Recovery Based on the Frequency of Interactions at Work
title The Role of Surface Acting in the Relationship between Job Stressors, General Health and Need for Recovery Based on the Frequency of Interactions at Work
title_full The Role of Surface Acting in the Relationship between Job Stressors, General Health and Need for Recovery Based on the Frequency of Interactions at Work
title_fullStr The Role of Surface Acting in the Relationship between Job Stressors, General Health and Need for Recovery Based on the Frequency of Interactions at Work
title_full_unstemmed The Role of Surface Acting in the Relationship between Job Stressors, General Health and Need for Recovery Based on the Frequency of Interactions at Work
title_short The Role of Surface Acting in the Relationship between Job Stressors, General Health and Need for Recovery Based on the Frequency of Interactions at Work
title_sort role of surface acting in the relationship between job stressors, general health and need for recovery based on the frequency of interactions at work
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9024759/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35457670
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19084800
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