MENTAL MODEL · M5510

Emotional Labor

BehaviorHigh supportPsychology

Included

Updated 2026-08-05

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Emotional labor, proposed by Arlie Hochschild, is the work of managing one's own emotions in order to display the feelings a job requires, such as the smile of a flight attendant or the patience of a customer service agent. Commodifying feeling splits the performed self from the real one and invites burnout. The key condition is that the organization sets the emotional rule and the worker supplies the effort, so the cost is real and deserves compensation.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Cost recognition: treat a staff member's good attitude as labor that consumes energy and merits compensation. - Strategy choice: prefer deep acting, changing the felt emotion, over surface masking. - Recovery design: build buffers and support into roles that require constant display.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Hochschild showed that employees must manage and perform the emotions their role prescribes. Surface acting, wearing the feeling like a mask, costs more psychic strain than deep acting, which adjusts the inner feeling to fit, and unrelenting display depletes the self until exhaustion sets in.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Practice this model in one real situation:

Identify the emotional rules the role imposes. 2. Choose between surface acting and deep acting deliberately. 3. Watch for the signs of emotional exhaustion. 4. Build organizational buffers and support into the role.

Check to track your progress (stored locally)

Learning progress0%

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Source support: Explicit

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zh.wikipedia.orghttps://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%83%85%E7%B7%92%E5%8B%9E%E5%8B%95ZH · Explicit
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