USING A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD: EMOTIONAL LABOUR AND THE WELL-BEING OF TEACHERS IN A NATIONAL SCHOOL IN SRI LANKA

Abstract

Emotions are strongly involved in jobs, especially in the service sector that has a face to face interaction with a client. Employees have to display both necessary feelings and emotions to do their jobs effectively. Emotional labour is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value. It has negative and positive facets and serves as a doubled edged sword on the well-being of employees. The overall objective of this study was to investigate whether emotional labour affects individual psychological well-being. The selected sample was 75 government teachers from a national school. A data collecting instrument, the questionnaire was developed based on the literature of previous research. Eight hypotheses were established to test the relationships between dimensions of emotional labour and their consequences. Pearson’s correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were used to test the study hypothesis against the data collected. The positive relationship with surface acting, one of the dimensions of emotional labour and one of the dimensions of psychological well-being and emotional exhaustion were supported by the findings of this study. Further, it indicates that surface acting is a significant predictor of burnout of teachers.

Keywords: Emotional labour, psychological well-being, Deep acting, surface acting, burnout

For full paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.lk