직무관련 부정정서와 표면행위

Job-Related Negative Affective States and Surface Acting: A Moderated Mediation Model of Emotional Exhaustion and Self-Emotion Appraisal

감정노동의 한 형태인 표면행동은 자신이 실제로 느끼는 내면의 감정변화 없이 표면적으로 감정표현규칙에 의해 감정을 표현하는 행동으로, 선행연구에서는 이러한 표면행동의 부정적인 효과가 일관성 있게 제기되었다. 하지만, 종업원들이 왜 표면행동을 하게 되는지에 대한 고찰은 상대적으로 부족했다. 본 연구에서는 정서사건이론, 자원보존이론, 그리고 직무요구-자원모형을 기반으로 종업원들이 표면행동을 하게 되는 선행요인으로 직무관련 부정정서의 효과를 검증하고, 감정소진이 이 두 변수와의 관계를 매개함을 검증하였다. 또한 직무관련 부정정서와 감정소진 간의 관계에 개인의 자기감정인식의 조절효과를 두 개의 경쟁가설을 통해 검증하였다. 끝으로 개인의 자기감정인식 정도가 직무관련 부정정서가 감정소진에 의해 매개되어 표면행동에 영향을 미치는 간접효과의 강도를 조절하는 조절된 매개효과 모형을 검증하였다. 국내 15개 서비스 기업에 종사하는 150명의 종업원을 대상으로 실시한 설문을 바탕으로 실증분석을 실시하였다. 실증분석 결과, 직무관련 부정정서가 구성원의 표면행동을 제고시키며, 이때 감정소진은 부정정서와 표면행동 간의 관계를 완전매개 함이 밝혀졌다. 또한 자기감정인식은 직무관련 부정정서와 감정소진 간의 관계를 조절하는 것으로 밝혀졌으며, 조절효과와 매개 효과의 통합적인 검증을 통해서 자기감정인식이 직무관련 부정정서, 감정소진, 표면행동간의 관계를 조절함을 입증하였다. 끝으로 본 연구가 조직의 감정노동 연구 및 관리에 미치는 이론적, 실무적 시사점을 논의하였다.

Surface acting is an emotional labor strategy involving the suppression of felt emotions and projecting false but desired emotions. Previous research shows that surface acting relates to negative outcomes such as work withdrawal, job dissatisfaction, and ineffective emotional expression. However, few studies have been conducted to explain the underlying reasons that motivate employee engagement in surface acting. The purpose of this study is to investigate the antecedents of surface acting and the mechanisms by which these antecedents influence surface acting. Specifically, the present study has three purposes. First, it examines the influence of job-related negative affective states (J-NAS) on surface acting via the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion. Second, it investigates the moderating effect of self-emotion appraisal, a sub-dimension of emotional intelligence, on the relation of J-NAS with surface acting. Third, by integrating the mediating and moderating effects, it proposes a moderated mediation model for surface acting. Affective event theory suggests that events in the workplace can significantly influence employee affective responses, which, in turn, influence attitudes and behaviors. Negative affective states, accompanied by action tendencies such as avoidance, are associated with a behavioral inhibition system and a reduced thinking-feeling repertory. Individuals transfer their felt emotions to desired emotions using display rules that combine past emotions, memories, and images (Baumeister et al., 2001). However, when negative affective states reduce the thinking-feeling repertory, individuals are prevented from changing their felt emotions to the desired ones. Consequently, negative affective states are likely to motivate employee surface acting. Furthermore, this linkage between negative affective states and surface acting suggests a possible mediating effect of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between the two variables. Generally, because negative emotions are stronger and accompanied by a considerable amount of information, they tend to dominate. As a result, employees are more likely to sustain emotional exhaustion when they experience negative affective states than when they experience positive affective states. Resource conservation theory suggests that emotionally exhausted employees protect or replenish their depleted resources by minimizing their efforts to display positive emotion (Lam et al., 2010). As a result, employees who are emotionally exhausted by negative affective states tend to engage in surface acting. Therefore, we propose the following: H1: Job-related negative affective states have positively related surface acting. H2: Emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between job-related negative affective states and surface acting. Emotional intelligence has been considered a crucial ability affecting individual emotion-related processes and outcomes. Largely, emotional labor studies have focused on the effects of emotion regulation rather than those of emotion recognition. However, self-emotion recognition precedes emotion self-regulation (Wong & Law, 2002). Individuals having the ability to recognize their own emotion status are able to appraise exactly their emotional states provoked by workplace events. Subsequently, the impacts of negative affective states on emotional exhaustion are perhaps more acute when self-emotion appraisal is high compared to when it is low. The ability to appraise one's own emotion moderates the positive relationship between J-NAS and emotional exhaustion. H3: Self-emotion appraisal moderates the positive relationship between job-related negative affective states and emotional exhaustion. Specifically, the positive relationship between J-NAS and emotional exhaustion will be stronger when self-emotion appraisal is higher than when self-emotion appraisal is lower. H4: Self-emotion appraisal moderates the positive relationship betwe