Emotional Labour and Definitions

Emotional Labour

• Emotional labour involves constructing and managing emotions to meet job requirements, particularly in service sectors.
• Surface acting results in more negative customer responses and heightened emotional exhaustion compared to deep acting (Zhan et al., 2016).

Defining Emotion

• Emotions are reactions to external and internal events, reflecting the importance of context relative to personal goals.
• Emotions prioritize certain goals, preparing individuals for quick, effective actions to address concerns (e.g., fear leads to escape).

Key Features of Emotions

• Emotions consist of subjective feelings, appraisals concerning personal goals, physiological changes, and behavioral expressions.

Terminology in Emotion

• Affect: Refers to emotional phenomena including moods and preferences.
• Emotional Episode: A limited-time emotional state with an intentional object.
• Mood: A prolonged emotional state, often objectless, while a sentiment relates to an emotional state tied to a specific object.
• Emotional Disorders: Long-lasting emotional conditions assessed by the DSM, such as major depression.

Personality Traits and Emotions

• Personality traits are stable characteristics over a lifetime, while temperament relates to innate predispositions.

Theories of Emotion

• James-Lange Theory: Proposes emotions result from physiological responses (e.g., seeing a bear leads to bodily reactions, then feelings of fear).
• Cannon-Bard Theory: Argues that emotional experiences (feelings, physiological responses, behaviors) occur simultaneously and independently.
• Schachter-Singer Theory: Suggests emotions depend on a combination of physiological arousal and cognitive appraisal.

Basic Emotion Theory

• Basic emotions evolved to address threats in early human environments, identified by researchers like Paul Ekman (e.g., happiness, sadness, anger).
• Each basic emotion has a unique adaptive function and is universally recognized across cultures.

Core Affect and Psychological Construction

• This model categorizes emotions along dimensions of valence (positive/negative) and arousal.
• Emotional experiences are constructed from mental concepts, shaped by personal and cultural learning.

Appraisal Theories

• Focus on cognitive appraisals that shape emotional experiences, considering dimensions like novelty and pleasantness.

Measurement of Emotion

• Emotional induction methods include recollection, vignettes, affective materials (films, music), and facial expression posing.
• Advantages of these methods include their face validity and ecological relevance, while disadvantages involve their lab-based limitations and inconsistent effectiveness.

Measurement Considerations

• Reliability: Consistency in measurement scores.
• Validity: Ensures the measure accurately assesses intended constructs and correlates with relevant outcomes.
• Self-report measures are convenient but may lack precision due to individual differences in standards of emotional intensity.### Self-Report Measures
• Comparison between individuals across different languages can lead to misinterpretations due to lost meaning in translation.
• Populations with limited language comprehension include infants, brain-damaged individuals, and nonhuman animals.
• Self-reports of emotions can sometimes conflict with physiological and behavioral measures.
• Within-subject changes in self-reported feelings often correspond to meaningful physiological changes (e.g., skin conductance).

Physiological Measures

• Physiological measures assess the bodily responses related to emotional experiences, preparing the body for actions.
• The sympathetic nervous system triggers fight-or-flight responses (e.g., increased heart rate, sweating).
• The parasympathetic nervous system promotes growth and conserves energy for later use.
• Common physiological measures include heart rate, cortisol levels, skin conductance, electroencephalography (EEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Advantages of Physiological Measures

• Objectivity is a key advantage; measurements like heart rate are straightforward compared to subjective questionnaire scores.
• EEG captures changes in brain electrical activity instantaneously after emotional triggers.
• fMRI provides highly accurate spatial localization of brain activity through oxygen uptake variations.

Limitations of Physiological Measures

• Some methods (e.g., fMRI) may be costly and uncomfortable, requiring motionless participants in a noisily enclosed space.
• Situations used in physiological analyses often lack ecological validity, not representing real-life scenarios.
• Individual physiological responses can vary widely, influenced by personal biological differences.
• Observing changes from baseline physiological states may yield better insights regarding emotional responses.

Interpretative Challenges

• Discerning specific emotions from physiological responses can be difficult; for instance, an increased heart rate can be attributed to both elation and anxiety.
• External factors, such as sneezing, may skew physiological data.
• Interpretation of results may be ambiguous; for example, amygdala activation upon viewing a spider may indicate fear or simple detection without clear distinction.

Behavioral Measures

• Behavioral measures observe and record emotional expressions through facial muscle contractions (e.g., eyebrow lowering, lip tightening during anger).
• Useful for studying emotions in populations unable to communicate verbally, such as infants and animals.
• The Facial Action Coding System, developed by Ekman and Friesen, tracks facial muscle contractions in terms of duration and intensity.

Limitations of Behavioral Measures

• Behavioral expressions might not accurately reflect genuine emotions; individuals can mask feelings through expressive suppression.
• Coding of specific facial movements is time-intensive and requires extensive training to accurately distinguish subtle action units (e.g., eye widening).
• Ambiguity in facial expressions exists, with some requiring consensus among raters for accurate interpretation.

This quiz explores the concept of emotional labour, particularly in service industries. It distinguishes between surface acting and deep acting, highlighting their effects on emotional exhaustion and customer interactions. Additionally, it delves into what constitutes an emotion and its significance.