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EMOTIONAL CULTURES, REGIONS,
AND DRAMATURGY

Emotional culture within organizations consists of three components: emotional vocabularies (Gerth & Mills, 1953; Gordon, 1981), emotional norms (Gordon, 1989; Hochschild, 1979, 1983; Scheff, 1979, 1990), and meanings of power and status (Kemper, 1978). Gordon (1990) also differentiated between institutional and impulsive orientations within emotional cultures. Institutional meanings of emotions are those given by organizational members when they are in full control of their emotions. Members effect achievement and maintenance of institutional norms, and in doing so continue to uphold and reproduce emotional culture (Gordon, 1989).

In formal organizations such as the DPS, the application of impulsive modes of emotional expression is considered either deviance or indicative of faulty socialization (Gordon, 1981; Thoits, 1989). However, permission to express impulsive emotion is granted to those with power and status, typically middle- and upper-class men of Anglo-Celtic origin (Hochschild, 1983; Pierce, 1999). These "status shields" also apply to relationships between clients and organizational members. Those with greater professional status are less likely to witness impulsive orientations to emotion than those with lower

3. "YOU WAIT UNTI L YOU GET HOME " 47

status (Hochschild, 1983). For example, patients are less likely to exhibit displays of extreme emotion in the presence of medical consultants than they are in front of clinical staff that are considered of lower status.

The concept of emotional region is derived from Goffman's (1959) dramaturgical perspective. Performance, which is a central component of an organization, is defined as "all the activity of a participant on a given occasion that serves to influence any of the other participants" (Goffman, 1959, p. 26). Performances are only successful when individuals can show that their actions are genuine, while sustaining simultaneously a "front" that is considered authentic (Goffman, 1959, p. 28).

Successful performance is also staged by teams "who share both the risk and discreditable information in a manner comparable to a secret society" (Goffman, 1959, p. 108, as cited in Manning, 1992). Teams are organized by "directors" who manage disputes and delegate responsibility. Teams also act in "front regions," which are defined as spaces within which they perform for their public (Goffman, 1959, pp. 102-114). Teams "rehearse, relax, and retreat" to "back regions," spaces hidden from publics' view when front region performances are "knowingly contradicted as a matter of course" (Goffman, 1959, pp. 110-114). Goffman's (1959) conceptualization of front and back regions is used here heuristically to develop further Fineman's (1993b) notion of the "emotional architecture" of organizational culture, in which he suggests within organizations physical spaces exist in which different feeling rules apply.

The concept of emotional culture builds on Gordon's (1981) original conceptualization, joining both Goffman's (1959) description of regional behavior and audience segregation and the differentiation perspective of organizational culture (Martin, 1992), which recognizes the importance of subcultures. Therefore, emotional culture can be observed within three "regions"—frontor onstage, backstage, and offstage. The front-stage sector is where emotional labor is performed, whereas the backstage sector is where interaction with organizational members happens and where emotional process work is likely to occur. In comparison, offstage regions are located outside the physical realm of the organization itself. As Hosking and Fineman (1990) asserted, differentiation between front-stage and backstage organizational emotionality helps us understand the nature and consequence of emotional labor, particularly within the context of emotional culture.

EMOTIONAL LABOR AND EMOTIONAL
PROCESS WORK

Recent research on the links between the performance of emotional labor and emotional dissonance indicates that a complex array of factors has both positive and negative effects on the individual's emotional well-being in the workplace (Hartel, Hsu, & Boyle, 2002). These factors include the quality of the immediate workplace emotional climate in which the service encounter occurs (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995), the influence of gendered cultural norms (Wharton, 1993), the degree of job control and routinization (Leidner, 1993; Van Maanen, 1991), and the quality of organizational responses to stress induced by emotional labor (Kunda & Van Maanen, 1999).

Early work on the conceptualization and operationalization of emotional labor created a clear distinction between emotion work and emotional labor (Hochschild, 1979, 1983). Expanding on Hochschild's (1983) definition of emotional labor previously discussed, Hochschild (1983) also argued that emotive dissonance was an inevitable consequence of emotional labor because it resulted in a transmutation of the private emotional region into the public commercial region. However, emotion as a process involves the appraisal of a series of affect-related events, which may involve the experience of discrete or private emotions such as sadness or envy. Although the context in which the appraisal and subsequent emotional regulation take place may change from a public to private one, the process of appraisal, attribution, and regulation of emotion is essentially the same (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996).

Therefore, I propose that emotional process work is an integral part of emotional labor, and is an extension of the service provider-client interaction. In addition, I also propose that organizational response to this aspect of an employee's work influences significantly both the quality of the service outcome and the levels of individual employee stress fitness and emotional health.

Emotional Process Work

Emotional process work occurs before, during, and after a service encounter, and involves a number of strategies that enable the employee to maintain a normative emotional state. Thoits (1984, 1985) explained that when emotional management techniques fail and individuals are unable to deal satisfactorily with "deviant" or "outlaw" emotions such as disgust, extreme anger, or hatred, they then have to process this failure as a violation of feeling or expression norms. Thoits (1985) cited two conditions that she viewed as central to the prediction of emotion work failure: the persistence of deviant or outlaw emotions, and the absence of social support. Thoits (1985) explained that when individuals are committed to competent identity enhancement and are aware of a discrepancy between situational feelings and emotional norms, attempts at emotional process work follow, and self-attributions of deviance occur as a result of persistent failure to create an individual normative state. For example, if a paramedic felt extreme anger after attending a case such as child abuse, this would be considered the emotional norm for this particular situation. However, if the same officer felt nonchalant or disinterested about the same case, he might attempt to move his feelings closer to the emotional norm for this sit

3. "YOU WAIT UNTI L YOU GET HOME " 49

uation. If he were unable to do this, then he would be more likely to label his own emotions as deviant.

Therefore, Thoits's (1984, 1985, 1991) work has implications for how emergency sendee organizations confront the reality of work stress and the maintenance of appropriate emotional climates within the organization. Within an emergency service context, emotional process work occurs after a case has been completed and involves a variety of strategies that are designed to assist the officer to return to a normative emotional state. The parameters of a normative state are determined by both societal and organizational cultural norms, and are influenced by gender, national culture, and generational emotional norms. Emotional process work may be as simple as one officer acknowledging to another officer that the previous patient was rude or obnoxious, or it may involve many weeks of coping with a major traumatic event such as a plane crash. All officers "do" emotional process work, and the degree to which they accomplish successfully emotional normality varies according to level of experience, degree of social support, and ability to cope with the demands of emotional norms and feeling rules that the organization places on them.

RESEARCH SITE AND DESIGN

The DPS provides prehospital emergency care to subscribers to its service. It is a public-sector organization that has developed a culture emergent from a combination of both militaristic and not-for-profit influences. The DPS is a male-dominated organization, with over 90% of the on-road staff being men. As part of their duties as "caring" paramedics, the DPS on-road staff are expected to perform as emotionally complex individuals while simultaneously adhering to a strict hegemonically masculinist code of conduct. Officers are expected to display the "softer" emotions of compassion, empathy, and cheerfulness in public, while refraining from the expression of grief, remorse, or sadness in the company other officers. Although this expectation is not harsh in itself, it becomes untenable when the DPS relies heavily on the "privatizing" of emotional process work.

Using Thoits's (1991) work on social support as a basis, emotional process work is defined as the emotion work in which officers engage after emotional labor has been performed. Although this practice incorporates what Hochschild (1983) referred to as emotional management, in this particular context it is used to differentiate between the processes used while emotional labor is being performed, and those utilized to make sense of the interaction to which emotional labor is central.

In keeping with Hochschild's (1983) original definition, emotional labor is defined here as the appropriate level of display, feeling, and exchange that occurs between the service provider and the service recipient. Therefore, the

practice of emotional labor includes both individual emotion work and emotion management of others' feelings. In the DPS context, emotional labor is specifically defined as the management of the emotional interface between paramedic and patient, and/or persons located within the vicinity of the interaction with whom the officer needs to communicate with in order to successfully accomplish the task at hand.

This ethnographic style qualitative study of the emotional labor practices within ambulance work utilizes a triangulated approach that involves extensive observation of work routines and practices. Given that self-reports of intangible and unobservable feelings and inner emotion work may be difficult to validate through formal interviews only, I chose this observational methodological approach because I considered it the most appropriate way of accessing this kind of data (James, 1993). Document analysis of training and human resource materials, recruitment practices, and organizational mission statements was also performed.

My approach to ethnographic research is influenced by the classic anthropological approach, which requires the researcher to adopt the role of "professional stranger" (Agar, 1996). According to Van Maanen (1988), this kind of ethnographic study can be categorized as more of a "critical" than "realist" account of the culture of the DPS. Therefore, it does not focus exclusively on my personal experience as a fully immersed participant, but rather is a critical account of organizational emotionality within the workplace. Although I was physically and emotionally involved in particular cases, I did not wear a uniform, was not permitted to comfort or reassure patients, and was not fully accountable to the DPS as an employee or volunteer. My own experiences in the field did not involve "doing emotion" in the same way that ambulance officers did. This psychic distance from the actual work in which officers engaged is indicative of the well-documented dilemma field-workers face when they are restricted in their ability to gain unlimited and pure access to informants in the field (Hubbard, Backett-Milburn, & Kemmer, 2001).

Fieldwork was conducted within the DPS over an 18-month period. During that time I conducted 500 hours of observation, and attended and partially observed 110 cases. I observed cases with 50 on-road officers, 9 of whom were women. In addition to these observations, I conducted 30 in-depth interviews with officers across the 7 DPS geographical regions. I also attended training sessions, spent time within communication call centers, and held informal discussions with senior managers and counselors about DPS policies regarding posttraumatic stress disorder and stress debriefing.

An ethnography is a written representation of either a whole or parts of a culture, and carries serious intellectual and ethical responsibilities (Van Maanen, 1988). Therefore, every effort has been made to protect the identities of the paramedics who agreed to be interviewed for this study. The names of these interviewees have been changed to maintain anonymity. Care has been taken to

3. "YOU WAIT UNTI L YOU GET HOME " 51

choose names that do not correspond with those officers who were observed or interviewed. At no time during fieldwork were patients' names recorded.

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ON-STAGE AND BACKSTAGE REGIONS: THE DPS
AND THE PERFORMANCE OF EMOTIONAL LABOR

Emotional labor is an integral part of a paramedical officer's work day. Several aspects of paramedic work impinge on how and why emotional labor is performed. They include the management of patients' emotions through surface and deep acting; the management of one's own emotions through emotional switching; generational and geographical differences between officers; and training to perform emotional labor. Hochschild (1983) differentiated between surface and deep acting, in that surface acting involves a superficial expression of the appropriate emotion. Deep acting involves the combination of the actual exhortation along with the expression of the emotion. Emotional switching is an emergent category from the data, and it involves the ability to change one's emotional demeanor quickly. In paramedic work this occurs frequently, particularly in the move from a highly emotionally charged job to one that is less taxing and emotionally demanding.

There are four emotional labor practices that are specific to paramedical work: the ability to manage the patients' and one's own anxiety; managing people who are out of their usual environment; being able to cope with a constant state of uncertainty; and the ability to simultaneously "care for" and "care about" others (James, 1993). This section focuses on emotions through surface and deep acting, as they are a critical component of a paramedical officer's position.

Surface Acting

Most paramedical officers admit that they do a significant amount of surface acting. This involves smiling, teasing, and light humor, all of which should be taken at face value only. During the study's observations, there were several occasions when officers were friendly toward the patient but then complained bitterly about the patient's attitude or expectations after the patient had been transported. In these cases, patients complained about the length of time spent for the ambulance to arrive, which irritated the officers, because lengthy delays were often out of their control.

Although officers generally displayed a friendly demeanor in front of most older patients, several officers either ignored dementia patients, or treated quiet or depressed patients in a condescending manner. A more somber demeanor was observed on several night shifts, when officers treated many intoxicated, indigenous, or adolescent patients.

During observations, officers reported that they used surface acting techniques with almost every patient. Whether it be sharing a joke with a shy or fearful patient, smiling in the face of a belligerent one, or developing a "neutral" expression when having to coax an intoxicated person into the back of the ambulance, officers view acting as part of their work. However, they also distinguish between surface acting, that is, expressing positive or negative emotions even if they are not authentic, and deep acting, when officers are required to actually feel the emotion they are projecting. Officers define surface acting either as the act of expressing positive feelings, especially in circumstances where the situation does not lend itself to positive emotionality, or as the suppression of negative emotions, such as sadness or disgust. In both circumstances, the performance requires officers to give something that is either themselves, or denies parts of themselves.

There are many techniques officers use to perform surface acting successfully. Humor was cited as the major strategy used, and during observations it was the most common way of engaging with patient: As one senior officer stated:

If you can make someone laugh or smile you've got the battle half won. Treat them like an equal. Get their mind off their worries. Have a joke with them or whatever. If you get their mind off what's hurting them you're well on your way.

According to Francis (1994), humor as emotion management involves a sophisticated cultural performance, which strengthens and often restores normal feelings. Francis (1994) also stated that humor is used as an integrative device that effectively reduces (or redefines) an external threat. This bonding process often occurs at the expense of the excluded person or persons.

A good example of how humor is used to alleviate patients' and relatives' anxiety was when a man in his eighties was transported home from a hospital after a hip replacement operation. Officers needed to be able to gauge how much humor they can perform, and in this case, they used the opportunity to make light of a delicate situation. When the patient arrived home, the officers sensed that the relatives needed much reassurance, as they seemed particularly anxious about the difficulty the patient would experience walking up the front stairs. The officers were extremely jovial, and joked with both the patient and his relatives. One of the younger officers even took the crutches and ran up and down the sidewalk outside the house with them. The relatives were not offended by this, and even seemed to appreciate the mild joke at the patient's expense. This is an example where the officers judged correctly how much humor was acceptable, and even used the permission given by the relatives to engage in "horseplay."

However, there are occasions when humor either fails or is unappreciated. When a form of surface acting has failed, officers have the option of reverting

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to silence or changing the topic of conversation to strictly medical issues (Palmer, 1983). In the case of long trips from rural areas to metropolitan hospitals and vice versa, humor is one of many strategies officers used to quell irritable patients. As this officer of 6 years indicated, there is often a difference between the type of surface acting performed on a longer and shorter trips:

I think a lot of DPS officers joke a lot of things off and they've got standard lines that they can use to laugh it away and maybe try to get this person around through humor. But there's a bit of a difference there between city and country too because where I am I'll probably have a patient on board a maximum of twenty minutes. So for me, it's quite easy. I can put up with them and be nice to them for that period of time and then I can just refer them on. But with a country person having to put up with a whinger from the back of the bush to the city on a long trip would be extremely difficult. There are two in the car, and if by the end of the day you're starting to become weary you can swap over.... All you can do is what is within your power at the time. All you can do is try to be friendly, try to understand where they're coming from.

During the course of an average day shift, officers transport many nonurgent cases. These cases usually involve a low level of technical skill, although they often involve a considerable amount of surface acting. Many nonurgent patients are older frail women, sometimes suffering from dementia, and some officers expressed a significant amount of ambivalence toward these patients. Although all officers I observed transporting these patients expressed either positive emotions or affective neutrality, in many cases officers expressed dislike or discomfort about these cases to other officers after these patients had been transported. For example, one younger officer referred to nonurgent cases as "granny-busting." Others referred to these cases as "humpers" or "geries," which refer to older patients who have difficulty walking or communicating. As one officer of 20 years explains, this kind of emotional distancing is a vital part of the job for officers who are barely out of adolescence:

DPS officers dissociate very well. I mean, how can you not? The DPS is now made up of officers in their late teens to early thirties who have all got families and they pull kids out of pools and go to motor accidents. In a lot of cases they're treating elderly people around the same age as their parents with the same sortof complaints. If they don't dissociate themselves with that patient emotionally they get caught up in the web of themselves. And occasionally you do.

As one officer explained, emergency service workers are exposed to more emotionally distressing situations in the course of one shift than many people would experience in a year. This unsanitized experience of the social world is one that most officers come to accept as "part of the job." Officers also justify their tendency to distance themselves emotionally as part of the process of developing a veneer. The following quote is from an officer with 8 years of experience who explained that developing such a shield is important part of acting out the professional role of the paramedical officer:

A lot of people may be upset but you just harden because you do see so much of death and dying ... it's just a part of life. We're not isolated from it the way the general public is. Years ago everyone saw death and dying. There was a lot more blood around, we killed our own animals. It's not that we're necessarily special, it's just that we keep seeing what most people saw forty or fifty years ago. We also get to see a lot more inappropriate behavior and people trying to cope with things. If you don't have that veneer, if you don't have some hardness, you're not going to survive.

Therefore, surface acting is not only a strategy for managing patients' emotions; it is also considered an important method in managing one's own emotions and emotional conflicts. Many officers admit that developing an extreme focus at the scene of major trauma, what they describe as tunnel vision, is the most common method of suppressing or denying individual emotional responses. This form of affective neutrality is also considered necessary for both managing the anxiety of the patient, and appearing professional:

You become more job orientated. You see the patient as a job. You don't see them as a person. Once you get them settled down you might give them some reassurance. It's a professional thing. You have to close it out. It's very hard to explain.

Thus, officers' perception of professionalism involves successful accomplishment of an affectively neutral performance. In this respect, ambulance officers are not unique. What distinguishes DPS officers is the degree to which they find themselves in situations that call on them to engage in deep acting.

Deep Acting

In the context of the DPS, deep acting involves the management of all aspects of an affective state, including the ability to change how one is feeling about an event or person. The most common deep acting technique officers referred to was when a patient was objectified. This was achieved through officers developing the image of the patient as a thing or object, and in doing so, temporarily suspending any emotional attachment they may have to the patient as a human being. Although most officers admit that this strategy should not be used frequently, many explained that high levels of stress and emotional exhaustion encourage the overuse of this strategy. One officer justified the use of this technique by highlighting that deep acting strategies are no different from those used by other health professionals:

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3. "YOU WAIT UNTI L YOU GET HOME " 55

The analogy of a piece of meat was given to me early on in my DPS career and it's right. I mean, it's a terrible term. But the analogy I was given was that a surgeon treats a patient as a piece of meat and does his best possible job on it. Carves it like Michelangelo carved David and then puts it back. And that's the way DPS paramedics do their job. If they get emotionally tied to it then they can't effectively do the job.

Smith and Kleinman (1989) explained this tendency toward objectification by drawing comparisons between the socialization processes of military recruits and medical students. Both undergo a process of desensitization where emotions are blunted by sleep deprivation and changes in the way students perceive human bodies.

Although some officers overuse surface and deep acting strategies needed to achieve emotional distancing, others are prone to emotional attachment with patients, particularly those who remind an officer of a relative, child, or loved one. Many officers I spoke to explained that all officers are prone, at some time during their careers, to communicate inappropriate emotional messages to the relatives of the dying patient, because officers find it difficult to reconcile their lifesaving role with the very real possibility of losing the patient.

Most of the officers who had worked in the DPS for many years described circumstances where they had given false hope to a patient or relative because they were unsure or unable to perform the kind of emotional labor specific to that context. A common example was giving false hope to the relatives of burn victims based on the percentage and degree of burns to the body. Officers stated that they were most likely to fail in their efforts to engage in deep acting at the end of a series of night shifts, after a series of urgent cases in one shift, or when they failed to dissociate successfully.

Cases involving critically ill children were cited as the most risky in this instance. This is similar for the majority of emergency service personnel, most of whom cited cases involving the death of, or serious injury to, children as the most emotionally challenging (Palmer, 1983). The cases I observed involving children always evoked a different response from officers in that they appeared to work at a faster pace. One officer explained that apart from the fact that many officers had young children themselves, they also felt added pressure to always save the child, regardless of the severity of the case. This demands of officers a dramaturgical performance that is quite distinct from adult cases. The following quote from an officer with 8 years of experience illustrates the extreme emotional and physical pressure officers finds themselves under during the course of attempting to save a child's life:

When you walk into a scene where there's a child who is ill, if it's a SIDS or something, there are so many expectations. The parents, especially with SIDS, know the child's dead. You know the child's dead. But if the child's still warm you have to give them every opportunity.... You see, there's so much expectation on us when we go into a situation we can't turn around and go to pieces because then we're not doing our job.

The death of a child is probably one of the few instances where a strong emotional reaction to a case is legitimized. Although several younger officers expressed angst about this, most officers believed that that an increase in the acceptance of public displays of grief, if only for children, is a positive change within the emotional culture of the DPS.

In summary, the majority of officers interviewed and observed cited emotional labor as an important "tool" in the DPS officers' repertoire of skills. During the course of observation, the officers described a number of surface and deep acting techniques utilized in the performance of emotional labor. These included managing the emotions of patients through extortion and suppression of emotion. The specific techniques also included use of humor to manage anxiety, the avoidance of false hope, emotional distancing through developing tunnel vision, disparaging stereotypes, and the categorization of patients into deserving and undeserving cases. Officers also spoke of the process of hardening through developing an emotional veneer of affective neutrality and professionalism.

One of the most enjoyable and frustrating aspects of paramedical work is the unpredictability of each shift. An officer may be kept busy with many nonurgent cases in the morning, only to find that the afternoon is quiet. Then, just before the end of the shift, the officer may be called to several urgent cases. As such, the paramedic cannot predict exactly what he or she will be doing on any one shift.

Nonurgent cases make up the bulk of an ambulance officer's work, particularly on day shifts and during the early part of night shifts. Although an urgent case involves less technically skilled work than nonurgent cases, it does involve a considerable amount of emotional labor. However, there is no compulsion to perform emotional labor during nonurgent cases, and many officers express ambivalence regarding how much "skill" is involved in these cases. For example, some officers are very frank about their assessment of nonurgent cases as boring, dead end, and no better than "driving a taxi." Although it is highly likely that officers would attend an urgent case during every shift in urban regions, in provincial and rural areas officers may have to settle for weeks of nonurgent cases.

However, although some officers may complain about too little stress, others experience shifts that are almost dangerously frantic. The effects of too much or too little stress in emergency services have been documented by Mitchell (1984). A busy night shift may consist of up to 10 urgent cases, and each of these may be legitimate. The constant pressure to be emotionally "up" for the duration of a shift often takes its toll, and many officers argue that it

3. "YOU WAIT UNTIL YOU GET HOME" 57

takes up to 3 days to recover both physically and emotionally from this. One officer who has a military background described how being "up" for extended periods of time can extract an emotional price off-stage:

We did about six urgent cases in an eight-hour shift recently and each one needed to be urgent. I was up here all the time and I never actually got down. If you do a nine- or ten-hour shift, you just go all the time. You start to get up and up and up and you end up staying there. After fourteen hours, it's a long time to maintain that. When I get home, I just want to veg out.... But everyone else wants company [at home] and I find that hard to cope with at times. It's hard for them to understand, and it's not their fault.

The extraordinary amount of organizational change that has occurred within the DPS in recent years has meant significant changes in the volume of work that an officer is expected to handle. An emphasis on structural efficiency has led the DPS to undertake an efficiency drive, thus resulting in officers having to do more work but with less resources. These changes include a reduction in the number of officers rostered to cover weekend shifts and sick leave, and fewer breaks between cases.

The level of work intensification or "speed-ups" as described by Hochschild (1983) that DPS officers have experienced in recent years are similar to what Hochschild's flight attendants experienced during the 1980s. The DPS officers are now expected to attend more cases during a shift while still providing the same quality of service. This means that there is less time between cases in which to emotionally process the previous job. This workload increase is particularly problematic in urban regions. Officers spoke angrily about the lack of time available to "come down" between jobs, especially from a previously stressful urgent case. Many expressed regret at initially supporting organizational change because they felt it had failed to meet the practical needs of customer service.

Increased expectations to perform more efficiently with less organizational support have ramifications for how officers switch emotionally from one type of case to another. Although most officers make the switch successfully from a nonurgent to an urgent case, the reverse switch is often problematic. Problems arise when officers are sent back out on the road immediately following a difficult emergency code. Officers complained that this was a frequent occurrence, even when the officers involved need to change their clothing. This following quote illustrates how officers negotiate time for themselves in the face of ever-increasing demands to "always be ready":

Like you've done CPR and your car is a mess and they'll be saying on the way back, do you mind doing this job for us and you've got to get on the radio and tell these people, no. I'm not doing it. I'm coming back, and having a shower and I'm going to get changed. So, the way I work it out now is I go and do a case, I do the paper work and I don't call free until I've done that, and if we're run all day long, I will stop and I will have my break.... Whether they know it or not, they'll lose me for 30 minutes. I don't like doing that because there might be an emergency that might be pending, they might be looking for you. But that's the only way I can pace my day.

One officer expressed the view that management often placed unreasonable expectations on officers regarding emotional switching from one type of code to another, particularly in cases where the patient died:

It used to affect me and I used to wonder why I couldn't be demobilized for a time, because it felt quite cold.... It felt quite cold with regards to administration and management, that they could be so callous as to give me another three geriatrics after I've finished a cot death case or something like that. I started to do things to protect myself, to overcome the emotional states, so it doesn't worry me anymore.

What this officer referred to when discussing "overcoming emotional states" is the emotional process work that occurs between codes either by oneself or with a partner.

Coping and Emotional Labor

Despite the fact that officers now are required to have more academic credentials to gain permanent employment, formal training for emotional labor is still a rare occurrence. At the shop floor level, emotional labor may be considered "the best tool to have." However, in terms of resource allocation for training, technical skills are still given primacy. This has implications for how the DPS approaches the whole issue of emotionality. Younger officers who are being trained as technological experts may be better equipped to cope with the intensity of trauma work because they have developed the technical competence needed to accomplish successfully their work. However, the reality is that a vast majority of the workday is comprised of mundane, nonurgent work. It is during these cases that the bulk of the emotional labor is performed. Conversely, it is after major trauma cases that the bulk of emotional process work is conducted. Even after 100 years, the DPS has yet to successfully prepare officers for this.

This narrative of emotional labor within the DPS also illustrates the degree to which the DPS officers switch constantly from frontstage to backstage regions. If emotion were the only major component of the switch between front-and backstage, officers would find this process straightforward and unproblematic (Lois, 2001; Spitzer & Neely, 1992). However, a major part of the switch from one region to the other is the ability to change from what is essentially a "feminine" demeanor in the front-stage region to one that is conven

3. "YOU WAIT UNTIL YOU GET HOME" 59

tionally masculine in the backstage region. Generally speaking, backstage regions include base stations, truck stops, gas stations, and any place where the officer is not "onstage" and performing emotionally for a public.

In the case of the DPS, backstage emotional process work involves a range of practices, including rapid speech patterns, the telling of "war" stories, and the use of black humor. In extreme cases, backstage processing may involve formal critical incident debriefing, which involvesa counselor alerting officers to signs and symptoms of posttraumatic stress. However, many officers find this level of support inadequate for processing much of what an officer experiences throughout a working shift because of the gendered constraints of male-dominated team dynamics, which influence what is acceptable in backstage areas. Explanations for this phenomena are varied and complex and beyond the scope of this chapter (for a full review, see Boyle, 2002). However, officers do receive considerable emotional support from offstage regions, as discussed in detail next.

THE ROLE OF OFFSTAGE SUPPORT IN THE DPS

To state that spouses provide a significant amount of emotional support to DPS officers is something of an understatement. The expectation that the family, particularly the spouse, will provide offstage emotional support is based on the assumption that a certain kind of emotional gender asymmetry exists within heterosexual relationships. As Duncombe and Marsden (1993, 1995) explained, this gender asymmetry is an indicator of a form of emotional power, which is situated within the wider context of continuing gender inequalities of societal resources and power. Although the central feature of men's lives may be the rational, affectively neutral workplace, "women carry the emotional responsibility for the private sphere" (Duncombe & Marsden, 1995, p. 150). This includes the performance of emotion work that sustains the relationship itself.

During earlier DPS administrations, spouses not only provided emotional support, but were also intensely involved in providing ancillary labor to help run the organization. Spouses assisted in raising funds, provided secretarial assistance, and sometimes acted as surrogate counselors, especially in rural and remote areas. Thus, there was an expectation that wives would be as "wedded" to the organization as their husbands (Finch, 1983).

Although this reliance on women's ancillary labor may have been exploitative in principle and often in practice, the benefit of co-opting women into the service meant that the whole family enjoyed considerable status within the community. Conversely, the local DPS officer was "owned" by the community, which meant that officers and their families were expected to adhere to strict moral and behavioral codes. This applied particularly to senior DPS officers, whose role was to care for the ambulance "family," as well as the whole community.

As community role models and representatives, officers stationed in rural and remote areas often found themselves with no emotional support outside their family. Several rural officers interviewed believed that community members viewed them as "above" feelings or emotion. This hero status meant that officers were expected to perform in a superhuman fashion. It was expected that emotional support either was received from their immediate families, or was something that male DPS officers did not need. Thus, officers were only ever the givers of public emotional support, never the receivers. This situation was even more difficult for young officers who had no significant other or spouse living in the community.

Although most officers who work in urban and provincial centers do not experience this constant blurring of the boundaries between work and home, there is still an implicit assumption by the DPS that officers will receive most of their emotional support offstage. In this study the majority of officers interviewed and/or observed were male and married with children. With the exception of one officer, all officers admitted that they would find it difficult to do their job without the support of their spouse. They also admitted that the emotional stress of ambulance work often placed significant pressure on their relationships. In some cases, they cited this as the main reason for marital breakdown and subsequent divorce.

Officers also believe difficulties arise when there is a tension between balancing how much they disclose to family members about work, and the amount of process work an officer chooses to engage in individually. As one officer illustrated, "protecting" family members from the unpleasant and gruesome parts of the job is in itself an extension of the workday. Therefore, emotional labor continues after hours in the form of shielding the family from the extreme aspects of ambulance work. A station manager explained that "shielding" his wife and children from the more unpleasant aspects of his job was important:

I think my wife has to be fairly unique to be able to put up with some of the stuff I bring home. But I don't bring everything home to her. There are certain things that I won't discuss with her. I told her not to look at my textbooks. The pictures that are in them are just too graphic. I find it distressful to look at them myself, particularly if you've got kids the same age as the kids in the pictures in these books.

Officers also reported that spouses become frustrated when an officer chooses to be selective about how much disclosure occurs at home after a shift. As an officer of over 20 years' standing explained, there is a thin line between deciding what the officer thinks is distressing for the spouse, and guessing what the spouse will want to hear:

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3. "YOU WAIT UNTI L YOU GET HOME" 61

She can say, I can understand the nature of your job but she can't identify with the job. If I go home and tell her what I've seen, she's got to now deal with that problem. And there are very few women in that context who can deal with that situation. No matter how much they say, I want you to tell me. You've got to deal with a lot yourself and talk to people you can trust but still not totally keep your family out of it. That's a mistake. You're going to fall down in a big way if you do that. You've got to do a balancing act, you have to say, I can tell you this much. I can tell you this happened, but I can't tell you that happened.

Several officers reported that they negotiated "routines" with their spouses for dealing with difficult shifts. It is not surprising then, that the longest serving officers were the ones who were willing to discuss these routines and their relative successes or failures. The success of these routines in defusing anger or frustration depended on the spouse being committed to doing this kind of emotional process work. For example, an ambulance "couple" that has been married for over 20 years has developed a routine whereby the officer "signals" to his spouse if he needs emotional space when he comes home:

Over time my wife had learned that if I walk in and my mannerisms are such, then she'll just walk out the other door. She'll just go away and leave me alone for an hour or two. Until I've processed it and dealt with it and put it where it's supposed to go. Then I'll walk out and we'll start from there.

Learning when to "go away" is an expectation with which many spouses have extreme difficulty coping, particularly younger couples with children. One young officer stated that his spouse "hounded" him at the end of every shift to tell her everything that had happened during the day. When he refused to comply, she became frustrated and this often led to marital conflict. The officer's main problem with this situation was that he had little private space in which he could process the day's events and emotions.

By their own admission, many officers became intolerant and irritable at what they perceived as the triviality of life outside the DPS. Requests from spouses to behave like "average" men outside of work and within the family environment, together with shift work and the ensuing irregular sleeping and eating patterns, led to conflict about issues of support. One officer who had recently divorced after 15 years of marriage admitted that his inability to cope with the emotional switch from work to home was one of the major contributing factors to the breakdown of his marriage:

Why am I the Mr. Fixit for everyone? ... I've fixed up fifteen patients' problems today, and then I come home and she's got a migraine and she wants me to cook dinner, and I think, no! I've clocked off. You cook dinner. You get very intolerant.

In addition to providing direct emotional support, spouses often have to deal with the officer frequently being absent from social gatherings. This can lead to tension within the extended family, as the spouse has to do the emotion work of allaying fears as to why the officer is not in attendance. Although the absent father is not all that unusual at school functions, for an officer involved in a traditional heterosexual relationship, continual absences from family events may cause problems as the family may view the marital relationship as dysfunctional or abnormal.

Although there is no evidence to suggest that DPS officers have a higher than average divorce rate, there is some validity in suggesting that officers who have young children are under considerable offstage pressure compared with officers who have served for longer periods and whose families are older and more established. It is argued here that younger, married, and rural officers have the greatest need to develop sound emotional process skills, for it is these groups that may be at greatest risk of emotional exhaustion if their offstage support is inadequate or deficient. Offstage emotional process work may involve something as simple as a short amount of time and space away from family and friends, or it may be as complex as a close relationship with a religious minister or health professional such as a psychologist to help them deal with their emotional conflict (Boyle & Healy, 2003).

CONCLUSION

This chapter attempted to discuss the emotional conflict experienced during emotional process work, and the role of offstage support. Specifically, it examined a study involving the DPS, an emergency service organization where emotions are a central part of the job.

There are a number of reasons why the DPS has not fully recognized and compensated the emotional component of a paramedic's work. The DPS was, and still is, a "harsh" cultural entity, consisting of a paradoxical mix of cultural values and practices, such as display of "softer" emotions to the public (i.e., compassion, empathy, and cheerfulness) and an expectation that officers will not display emotional expressions of grief, remorse, or sadness. In other words, officers were expected to keep up a constant "masculine" demeanor of self-control and stoicism, while simultaneously presenting a "caring" and "feminine" demeanor to patients.

In terms of emotional expression, this expectation is not harsh. This expectation becomes problematic when the organization deems that only a narrow range of feelings can be expressed publicly. Officers who express emotions outside the acceptable range risk harassment and ostracism.

Despite this, officers were generally positive about performing emotional labor. This is in contrast to Hochschild's (1983) findings, where the flight attendants spoke of emotional labor as a burden that often led to a lack of connection with others. Of course, there are specific reasons why there is this dif

3. "YOU WAIT UNTI L YOU GET HOME" 63

ference between the two groups, and some of them have little to do with emotional labor itself. For example, flight attendants are prone to suffer dislocation because of the travel involved. Spending many nights away from home, constant disruption of personal routines, and the stress of flying all combine to create a sense of alienation. In contrast, ambulance officers do not experience the same level of disruption or dislocation, despite the similarities of performing emotional labor.

DPS advertising campaigns explicitly promote men as carers. Many of the posters and television advertisements show male officers in caring poses such as holding the hand of a child or an older person. Indeed, the fact that the DPS has a baby carseat rental service attests to their commitment to be seen as a caring organization. However, men are not usually associated with the act of caring in public. Therefore, officers have to reconcile this traditionally feminine act with the fact that they are still men. Men benefit emotionally from the traditionally patriarchal arrangements that separate home and work. In an orthodox Marxist sense, this means that men are able to sell their labor power because they are able to reproduce emotionally within the private sphere (Milkie & Peltola, 1999). However, this arrangement is contingent on women being available to engage in emotion work at home. The DPS is heavily dependent on this public/private arrangement as a means of providing informal and offstage emotional support to male officers.

As the DPS culture is strongly adherent to hegemonically masculine practices and ideologies (see Connell, 1995), it would be fair to assume that the majority of male DPS officers are heterosexual and practice a conventionally heterosexual lifestyle. Apart from student officers, all officers interviewed or observed were married with children. In most cases. the male officers were the principal earners in the family. Many officers commented on the level of emotional support they received from their spouses, and most believed they could not do their work efficiently if this support was unavailable.

According to some officers, when they are experiencing marital problems, their work performance diminishes. If they are unable to secure emotional support from elsewhere, they are likely to be more vulnerable to emotional stress at work. The DPS then is almost totally dependent on officers receiving emotional support from outside of the organization. The distinction between work and home then becomes blurred as spouses, partners, and occasionally good friends and relatives assume the role of employee assistance counselor. They are, by default, "hidden" employees of the DPS.

Therefore, the DPS is ill-equipped to cope with a rise in the number of men and women who lack offstage emotional support. The individualistic and masculinist cultural framework within which the DPS operates is unable to provide the kind of emotional support needed by most officers, because as a masculinist culture, it does not recognize that men need public as well as private forms of emotional support. The culture is not tolerant of the existence of

an emotionally complex paramedic, because to do so would require the acknowledgment of multiple masculinities (see Connell, 1995).

DPS officers are allowed to "step out of" the traditional hegemonic frame within the confines of performing emotional labor. However, emotional labor does not terminate when patients leave the hospital. It has process characteristics and extends beyond the boundaries of the narrowly defined service provider-client relationship (Dodier & Camus, 1998, as an example). Failure by the DPS to acknowledge the need for officers to have the time, space, and permission to engage in emotional process work as a valid part of ambulance work and often results in increased levels of emotive dissonance and emotional exhaustion (Thoits, 1991). This does not always occur as a result of the interaction with the patient, but can occur when the officer realizes that the organization objectifies his or her emotional self. This happens when the DPS fails to acknowledge that part of its responsibility to its organizational members is to take into consideration the time needed to replenish the mind, body, and spirit when developing operational procedures and policies (Boyle & Healy, 2003).

Thus, the DPS has privatized this part of its responsibility to officers by asserting that emotional process work is something that should occur primarily in the private sphere of the home and family. Given the state of flux that familial arrangements are in, this strategy holds considerable risk for the organization in question. The DPS has based its strategy on the assumption that most officers are involved in orthodox hegemonic heterosexual relationships where the female spouse sees it as her role to manage the emotions of her male partner.

If support cannot be found within the private sphere, and if traditional male friendships prove to be inadequate in terms of providing emotional support, then this can lead to officers neglecting to engage in emotional process work.

The quote at the beginning of this chapter illustrates nicely the connections between front-stage expectations, and back- and offstage realities. The front-stage emotional culture deems that officers "cope" under all circumstances, regardless of the amount of emotional pressure placed on officers. As representatives of the DPS, the community expects officers to perform at their emotional peak with patients—yet from an organizational perspective, maintaining emotional health is an individual responsibility. Officers have to usually wait until they get home to deal with emotion and receive support, which indicates the lack of recognition classifying emotional process work as actual "work."

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Although the DPS is an organization literally saturated with emotion, emotional support for DPS officers is mainly viewed by the organization as something that needs to primarily occur off-site and not the responsibility of the organization. Although emotional process work occurs during organizational

3. "YOU WAIT UNTI L YOU GET HOME" 65

time, particularly in backstage regions, a closer inspection of the structure and culture of the organization indicate a serious level of emotional denial. Anecdotal evidence suggests that employees appear more likely to engage in acts of resistance if an organization fails to either recognize or legitimate the consequences of emotional labor for front-line employees. In turn, this has implications for the overall level of individual as well organizational well-being.

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Proposed Model

We believe that an additional construct is necessary to conceptually clarify the literature and provide the critical link between the situational demands and state conditions, and the outcome, behavior or act. This alternate and intervening construct is needed to disentangle the response to the organizational requirements before emotional labor is undertaken. One such construct that has been examined in the literature is that of dissonance. We conceive of this dissonance as a perceived emotional state representing the dissonance between

felt emotion, and emotion that is perceived to be required and contend that it arises from situational demands combined with individual differences. Emotional labor in the form of surface acting or deep acting, then, is one possible motivated response to a psychological condition of high perceived dissonance. In Fig. 11.1, we offer our proposed model, and we next discuss the theoretical conceptualizations of each section. We begin with a discussion of dissonance, emotional labor, and their relationship, and then move to a discussion of situational factors, individual differences, and outcomes.

The Affective State of Perceived Emotional Dissonance

As mentioned earlier, we conceive of perceived dissonance as a disconnect between emotions that are genuinely felt and those that are required for the situation (Middleton, 1989). We place a high importance on this state of dissonance because we believe perceived dissonance to be a necessary precursor to emotional labor. A relatively recent but well-supported theory of job satisfaction, affective events theory (AET; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), underscores the critical nature of affective states as precursors to outcomes such as job attitudes and behaviors. Similarly, we consider perceived dissonance to be the affective state necessary for the behavioral response of emotional labor. There have, however, been a number of dissonance constructs (e.g., emotive disso

FIG. 11.1. Proposed research model of perceived emotional dissonance and emotional labor.

nance, emotional deviance, emotional dissonance) utilized in emotional labor research (Kruml & Geddes, 2000; Morris & Feldman, 1997; Zerbe, 2000). Our review of the literature shows generally two types of dissonance: (a) dissonance experienced prior to the behavior of emotional labor, and (b) dissonance experienced after this behavior has occurred. Zerbe (2000) attempted to provide some clarity surrounding the dissonance construct by distinguishing between these two types. Specifically, he described one type of dissonance as, "the degree of mismatch between felt emotions and displayed emotions, or faking" (p. 202). He described the second type of dissonance as "the mismatch between expressed emotions and local norms" (p. 202). Although both forms of dissonance are valid and intuitively appealing, only a mismatch between felt emotion and normative requirements for emotional display captures a purely affective state. Dissonance between felt and displayed emotion (or faking) requires a behavioral response to an affective state. Note that this type of dissonance (faking) is the "labor" of emotional labor and reflects a process whereby

one experiences an affective state and is motivated to deal with it.

Thus, in order to separate clearly emotional states from motivated behavior, we define dissonance as a purely affective state occurring prior to emotional labor. Morris and Feldman (1996) remarked that "It should require little emotional labor to sell products one genuinely believes in" (p. 992). Thus all things being equal, the larger the gap between genuine felt emotion and those required for the situation, the greater perceived dissonance. Again, note that dissonance is not a product of conflict between felt emotions and objective organizational requirements per se (i.e., written rules or supervisor instructions); rather, it is a discrepancy between felt emotions and what the individual perceives to be the required display. Much like the well-known literature on cognitive dissonance, emotional dissonance is likely to create psychological discomfort that individuals are motivated to reduce. We believe that emotional labor is the motivated behavior that individuals employ in an attempt to reconcile their feeling of emotional dissonance.

Emotional Labor: A Motivated Behavioral Response

to Perceived Dissonance

We argue that individuals typically engage in one of two strategies for dealing with a situation of perceived dissonance. These strategies are similar to Hochschild's (1983) and Grandey's (2000) mechanisms for managing emotional demands, but do not include the appraisal of the affective state (perceived dissonance). The first behavioral strategy for managing perceived dissonance, "surface acting," is accomplished when an individual simulates emotion that is appropriate for the situation. An example of surface acting would be when a customer service representative smiles and acts warmly in the face of an abrasive and disrespectful customer who churns up feelings of anger and resent

11. PERCEIVE D DISSONANC E AND EMOTIONAL LABOR 195

ment. The expression of positive emotion is fitting for the customer-service context, but negative emotion is being experienced.

A second strategy for managing perceived dissonance is through the process of "deep acting," in which the individual endeavors to experience the emotion that is appropriate for the situation. In this case, the individual is actually changing the feeling experienced prior to the behavior by changing the underlying causes, or the mental construction of the feeling state (e.g., cognitive reappraisal). Changing the feeling can occur by evoking or suppressing an emotion, or through trained imagination (Hochschild, 1983). For example, a ticket counter agent may imagine himself successfully completing transactions and noticing the smiles on customers' faces. As Grandey (2003) implied, deep acting may require advanced emotional regulatory skills.

In sum, Hochschild claimed that surface acting can be likened to compliance, while deep acting strategy can be likened to conversion. Both strategies can be adaptive (i.e., allow for productive performance) in terms of dealing with perceived dissonance. Over the long term, deep acting should be more adaptive in that it allows the individual to internalize a role, and thus reduce the level of perceived dissonance (as shown by the feedback loop in Fig. 11.1). Regardless of adaptability, both strategies are based on the notion of acting—that is, manufacturing a substitute for the emotion one genuinely wants to display. Thus, surface and deep acting may temper perceived dissonance, but are unlikely to eliminate completely the source of the motivation to act, or perceived dissonance.

Extending Hochschild's typology, Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) noted that there are instances in which the sanctioned emotion corresponds to the felt emotion, as is ordinarily the case in medical emergencies. Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) and Tews and Glomb (2000) classified this match between genuine emotion and the situational requirements as a third and important way of accomplishing emotional labor. Yet, note that we propose that if one does not perceive dissonance, one will not be motivated to engage in behaviors that might be described as emotional labor. Regardless of the organization's normative requirements, if one does not experience dissonance, there will be no motivation to act, to "put on a face", and thus, no emotional labor—the emotional display will be genuine. If an employee is required by the organization to act pleasantly, and he or she does not perceive this to be emotionally taxing, there will be no necessity for him or her to "act" pleasantly. In fact, a match between organizational requirements and felt emotion may even facilitate or emotionally energize an individual to display particular emotions and would most likely appear to be effortless. Taken together then, perceived dissonance and emotional labor represent the entire emotion regulation process as Grandey (2000) discussed; however, our framework separates situational factors, emotional states, and behaviors: Perceived dissonance is the perceptual state of appraisal of the situational factors, and emotional labor is the behavioral strategy chosen to manage the dissonant state.

As noted, we view emotional labor as one potential and typical response to perceived dissonance. There are then, multiple other strategies for reconciling the state of perceived emotional dissonance, including withdrawing from the task or interaction completely (e.g., hanging up on a customer); becoming hostile or aggressive (e.g., raising one's voice); becoming violent (e.g., physically attacking a customer); or using passive-aggressive behavior (e.g., acting polite during the interaction and then sabotaging a customer's order afterward). These behaviors, however, are unlikely to be viewed by the organization as constructive and representative of appropriate protocol or policy and therefore, are likely to be punished or at least heavily discouraged. Because both emotional labor strategies (surface acting and deep acting) are attempts to produce organizationally desired and rewarded behavior, they are likely to be the strategy of choice utilized by individuals attempting to reduce perceived emotional dissonance, while reaping organizational benefits and rewards (e.g., promotions). Thus, depending on the situational requirements, the actual behavioral display could be positive or negative (e.g., A debt collector must be intimidating and downright hostile at times to be successful). Although this chapter does not directly address at length the numerous possible responses beyond labor, we do present some of them in the model to emphasize their potential importance in future research. Thus, Fig. 11.1 is illustrative, not exhaustive.

Situational Demands of Perceived Dissonance

As stated earlier, our premise is that much of the early work on emotional labor is descriptive of an emotional state influenced by a variety of factors. Given the proposed model, our attempt here is to identify situational demands that impact perceived dissonance and thus indirectly impact emotional labor. We discuss two categories of situational demands we believe largely contribute to the perception of dissonance and subsequent emotional labor. As the model depicts, these situational demands are comprised of (a) job-specific demands, including characteristics of the job, and (b) emotion-specific demands, including emotional characteristics of the job, display rule norms, and a special case of display rules, customer expectations. Interestingly, these variables have all appeared in prior research on emotional labor; however, many have actually been labeled as dimensions of the emotional labor construct (e.g., display rules and frequency of emotional display), and not as situational factors. Our view is that these important variables work together to create the critical environmental stimuli that may lead to an appraisal of perceived dissonance, and subsequent emotional labor acts.

Job Characteristics. Humphrey (2000) suggested that the critical psychological states resulting from job characteristics (Hackman & Oldham, 1975) clearly impact affective conditions like job satisfaction and thus they should

11. PERCEIVE D DISSONANC E AND EMOTIONA L LABO R 197

strongly impact secondary work behavior ("behavior that is influenced by the work task, but not actually part of the task," p. 239) including emotional displays. He further argued that job characteristics influence the social context of the work environment. Thus, job characteristics are powerful contextual factors that contribute to an individual's affective state. In our terms, the affective state of perceived emotional dissonance should similarly be impacted by job characteristics.

To date, research on emotional labor and job characteristics has focused primarily on job autonomy. For example, Morris and Feldman (1997) reported a negative relationship between autonomy and emotional dissonance. Pugliesi (1999) explored the relationship between emotional labor and certain characteristics of the job among university employees. She found negative correlations between emotional labor and job characteristics such as control (autonomy) and complexity (skill required, level of challenge, variety and intrinsic interest) of the job. Other research yielded similar results (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1989; Wharton, 1993). Yet beyond skill variety and autonomy, very little research exists linking other job characteristics to emotions. However, given the effects found for autonomy, we argue that other job characteristics might impact perceived dissonance similarly. For example, individuals who experience a high degree of meaningfulness via skill variety, task identity, and task significance are likely to experience a more positive psychological state (Humphrey, 2000). This state should positively influence individuals' emotional appraisal of their work situation and lead to lower perceived emotional dissonance, or at least make it easier to maintain a positive emotional state. Similarly, high responsibility (autonomy) and knowledge of results (feedback) from the job should lead to a lesser degree of perceived emotional dissonance.

Display Rule Norms. Display rules can be conceptualized as societal, occupational, and organizational norms that provide structure for service transactions (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Ekman, 1973a; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1989). Display rules serve to regulate the type of sanctioned expression in a given situation, as well as the degree to which it is expressed. In an organizational service setting, display rules are often highly explicit to ensure consistency of service. Additionally, display rules are found in all types of organizational communication, including handbooks, performance appraisals, and new employee orientation classes. For example, at the Ritz-Carlton hotels, employees are required to memorize service credo cards, which explicitly state what is meant by service, and which all employees carry on their person at all times. One service "basic" reads, "Smile—We are on stage. Always maintain positive eye contact. Use proper vocabulary with our guests (e.g., "Good morning", "Certainly" and "My pleasure")." Service employees are "on stage" in the sense that these display rules require employees to become actors (Grandey, 2001), acting out organizationally required emotions that may not be congruent with their own personal emotions.

Empirical research demonstrating a link between display rules and emotional labor has provided mixed results. For instance, Hochschild (1983) found that explicit display rules for flight attendants heavily impacted their behavior on the job. In contrast, Morris and Feldman (1997) found that the explicitness of display rules was negatively related to the frequency of emotional labor. These differences are most likely due to the discrepancies in conceptualizations of the construct. As we mentioned, it is important to disentangle the stimulus (e.g., the organizational context) from an individual's internal state (e.g., the felt experience). Our model suggests that an incongruence between the desired emotional expression required by the organization and the felt emotion of the individual creates an experience of perceived dissonance. Therefore, highly explicit display rules would exacerbate the importance of sanctioned emotional expression and create a larger gap between required and felt emotion. Thus, the less latitude employees have (i.e., the more explicit the display rules) in expressing their own felt emotions in lieu of organizationally sanctioned emotion, the greater is the possible perceived dissonance.

Customer Expectations. Schneider and Bowen (1999) asserted, "By concentrating on [customer] needs, we have an opportunity to delve more deeply into the customer's internal states to offer managers insights about how to create customer delight, as well as how to avoid customer outrage" (p. 38). In addition, they highlighted multiple needs customers expect to receive from service transactions that contribute to positive organizational outcomes, including keeping promises and commitments, help when needed, and friendliness, honesty, and politeness. Similarly, Zeithamal, Parasuraman, and Berry (1990) found that customer evaluations are a function of 10 dimensions, including responsiveness, courtesy, credibility, access, communication, and understanding (in Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993, p. 91). Clearly, customer needs and criteria for good service are laden with emotional content (e.g., "Greet every customer with a smile"). Thus, customer expectations are a special and highly salient type of display rule.

For example, a customer can easily interpret a simple sigh exuded by a customer service agent to mean "I don't care about you—I want to go home," when in fact the agent may simply be tired. Recently, Pugh (2001) found a positive relationship between the display of positive emotion by bank employees and customer positive affect. Similarly, Daus (2001) found converging evidence from a laboratory experiment where expression of positive emotion contributed to higher evaluations of performance for waiters/waitresses. This research confirms what organizations have intuitively known for years—positive employee displays satisfy customers. Organizations are increasingly advertising and educating their customers about this relationship, and customers now approach service exchanges with clear expectations for what good service should look like (e.g., Delta Airline's slogan, "We love to fly and it shows").

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11. PERCEIVED DISSONANCE AND EMOTIONA L LABOR 199

Thus, for some organizations, customers will have incredibly high service expectations, including expectations for how employees will display emotions. These expectations often are built into the fabric of the organization and serve as yet another source of information about how employees should behave in customer service interactions. Yet the paradox is that this may be taxing to employees because organizations that promise customers consistent top-notch service thereby increase the emotional requirements of their employees. We therefore propose that customers' expectations will be positively associated with the perceived dissonance of employees.

Emotional Job Characteristics. Service-role jobs vary considerably across industries and job categories. Logically, these jobs also differ in their emotional characteristics, or the specific type and level of emotional expression inherent in the job itself. These specific emotional characteristics of the job may lead to variance in how an individual actually feels on the job. Therefore, we include them in our model as predictors of perceived dissonance. Three emotional job characteristics that have appeared in prior research are the frequency of emotional display or interaction, duration of emotion display or interaction, and variety of emotions required. Again, these have previously been presented as dimensions of the emotional labor construct (Hochschild, 1983; Morris & Feldman, 1996, 1997). We separate them from the behavior of emotional labor as Grandey (2000) did, and extend her work to conceptualize them as precursors to perceived dissonance.

Frequency of emotional display or interaction can be defined as the rate of emotional displays or interactions between service providers and clients (Grandey, 2000; Hochschild, 1983; Morris & Feldman, 1997). Some jobs inherently require higher frequencies of emotional displays than others. For example, a cashier at a busy fast-food restaurant may be required to serve hundreds of people in one shift, whereas a concierge at a small hotel may only service a handful of people in a day. In their study of supermarket cashiers, Rafaeli and Sutton (1990) found that during particularly busy hours, cashiers displayed fewer positive emotions. Other research has shown both positive (Brotheridge & Lee, 1998) and negative (Grandey, 1999) relationships between frequency and emotional labor. Note that these studies did not measure the impact of frequency on the emotional state, but rather the impact of frequency on behavior, which may explain the inconsistent findings. The state should impact behavior more strongly than contextual circumstances (Wakefield, 1989). Therefore, for any particular job, the greater the frequency of emotional display required, the more likely it is that an individual will experience a higher degree of perceived emotional dissonance.

Duration of emotional display or interaction is generally referred to as duration. Service interactions that are relatively short tend to follow a scripted interaction schema (Rafaeli, 1989) and require less emotional effort. As the duration increases, so does the level of emotional effort required to go beyond the social script in order to comply with organizational demands. Back to our previous example: The cashier at the fast-food restaurant may on average spend about 3 or 4 minutes with a customer, whereas the concierge at the hotel may spend upward of 10 to 15 minutes working with a customer planning entire outings. Thus, the concierge's job requires him or her to engage in positive emotional displays for more extended periods. Long durations could lead to a feeling of heightened perceived dissonance if in fact the discrepancy between what the job requires from the concierge and how he or she feels is too great. Thus, we propose that the longer the duration of interaction, potentially the greater is the amount of perceived dissonance.

Certain jobs require a greater variety of emotions to comply with organizational requirements. For example, some occupations "often require frequent changes of emotions that are displayed: positive emotions to build enthusiasm, negative emotions to support discipline and neutrality of emotions to demonstrate fairness and professionalism" (Morris & Feldman, 1996, p. 992). In the theatrical arts, actors often talk about "range" in reference to the ability to play a wide variety of characters and across multiple genres (e.g., slapstick comedy vs. Shakespearean theater). Similarly, service employees are often called on to express a wide range of emotions in order to successfully perform on the job. Some of these emotional expressions may even contradict one another. For example, an employee might force a smile while communicating a tough policy issue to a customer in a firm voice. Few researchers have explored this idea empirically, but there are similar theoretical conceptions (Grandey, 2000; Wharton & Erickson, 1993). Our proposition is that jobs requiring a wide range of emotions and/or multiple emotions to express simultaneously have a greater impact on one's emotional state than jobs requiring only a few emotions to be expressed. Much like cognitive load, perceived dissonance could increase under such circumstances.

The situational demands just outlined seem to contribute to an individual's overall affective state. Clearly, a single property may not produce a significant change in the emotional state; however, the cumulative effect contributes to the experienced state. Thus, it should be acknowledged that although the main effect of any single antecedent may impact perceived dissonance (positively or negatively), the potential interactions are likely to yield more complex types of relationships and may strengthen, weaken or nullify the main effects.¹

The Direct and Moderating Effect of Individual Differences

In this model, perceived dissonance mediates the relationship between situational demands and emotional labor. All things being equal, a number of indi-

We thank Blake Ashforth for bringing this important point to our attention.

11. PERCEIVE D DISSONANC E AND EMOTIONAL LABOR 201

vidual difference variables could potentially influence the amount of perceived dissonance experienced, thereby impacting subsequent emotional labor and concomitant outcomes. In other words, some individuals might never experience a high degree of perceived dissonance whereas others might be plagued by it, even given identical antecedent conditions. It follows logically then that individual differences may also differentially affect the emotional labor process. In all, individual difference variables might influence the perceived dissonance-labor relationship. Directly, individual differences may impact the amount of perceived dissonance one experiences and the type and level of emotional labor undertaken. Individual differences may also moderate the relationship between situational demands and perceived dissonance, as well as the relationship between perceived emotional dissonance and emotional labor. We next use examples of individual differences from the extant literature to illustrate some of these potential pathways of influence.

Role Internalization. Role internalization or identification denotes the degree to which individuals identify with the job (or job values). Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) asserted that role internalization is a potential outcome of compliance with display rules over time. Morris and Feldman (1997) confirmed that assertion, demonstrating that longer duration of emotional labor results in greater internalization of role expectations. We do not disagree with this perspective; however, there may be a case for role internalization as an individual difference variable directly influencing perceived dissonance. Specifically, individuals who have internalized their career role as a "customer service" employee are likely to experience less perceived dissonance than individuals who have career identities in opposition to service. For example, an individual who has worked for multiple years in one service company may accept a job in a similar service company, multiple times within the same industry. Although each job is different, he or she is likely to incur similar role expectations on the new job and may have already internalized the standard industry display expectations. For instance, the task requirements of depart-ment-store sales clerks may be substantially different in terms of procedures, but rather similar in terms of customer service. Thus, the individual begins to view "customer service agent" as a career descriptor, much as an accountant (or other professional categories) might, and internalizes or transforms into the role. For these individuals, emotional expression is not a chore but rather second nature; it is what they do. Recently, Ashforth and Tomiuk (2000) further delved into this construct empirically, and proposed that role internalization leads to an experience of "deep authenticity" whereby "one's emotional expression or display is consistent with the display rules of a specific identity that one has internalized (or wants to internalize) as a reflection of self—re

gardless of whether the expression genuinely reflects one's currentfeelings" (p. 195). According to these authors, deep authenticity should lead to either no emotional dissonance (our construct of perceived dissonance) or, at worst, low emotional dissonance (when the temporary affective state is incongruent with normative requirements). Therefore, we propose that role internalization should buffer the effect of situational demands, as well as directly impact perceived dissonance, leading to less perceived dissonance.

Emotional Intelligence. Another construct that would seem intuitively to influence directly perceived dissonance is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence focuses on an individual's ability to both interpret emotional information (both internal and external) and manage it in an adaptive manner. Most importantly for the discussion of emotional labor, emotional intelligence (through mood maintenance) is an ability that allows people to better regulate their emotions compared to others (Ciarrochi, Chan, & Caputi, 2000; Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000; Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Mayer and colleagues (Mayer et al., 2000; Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Salovey & Mayer, 1990) argued that emotional intelligence has four important components. First, it involves the ability to perceive and appraise emotion, both verbally and nonverbally. For example, emotionally intelligent individuals are better at accurately identifying various emotional expressions on individuals' faces (Ekman, Friesen, & Ancoli, 1980), as well as at appraising emotional content in art or music, than nonemotionally intelligent individuals. This ability would seem vital for jobs where reading emotions of customers and clients is a critical precursor to interacting with them effectively.

Emotional intelligence also consists of the ability to assimilate emotions into perceptual and cognitive processes. Thus, emotionally intelligent individuals are better able to be flexible when planning, to generate more creative solutions, and to redirect attention and motivation (e.g., directing feelings away from trivial problems toward those of higher priority) (Mayer et al., 2000; Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Thus, the emotionally intelligent customer service agent should be better able to maintain focus during particularly busy times, allowing for creative and emotionally appropriate responses to impatient customers.

Third, emotional intelligence consists of the ability to reason about and understand emotions. A person with this higher level ability would have the capacity to understand, for example, how emotions progress from one to another (Mayer, 2001; Mayer et al., 2000). It would certainly seem to be an asset for a customer service agent to be able to recognize when and how frustration in a customer could lead to anger, which could progress to rage.

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Finally, emotional intelligence involves the ability of regulation or management of emotion in oneself and in others. This is perhaps the key ability involved in emotional labor. The central mechanism for regulating emotions is mood manipulation. In the self, individuals are generally motivated to maintain or prolong pleasant moods and curtail unpleasant moods—"mood mainte

11. PERCEIVE D DISSONANCE AND EMOTIONAL LABO R 203

nance" and "mood repair," respectively (Isen, 1985). An emotionally intelligent customer service representative who recognizes her own and her customers' moods may be able to utilize the information to better serve her customers. For example, if she knew she was in a bad mood, she might try extra hard to avoid displaying this to her customers (Berkowitz, Jaffee, Jo, & Troccoli, 2000). As such, this ability inherently involves emotional expression that encompasses empathy (Ciarrochi et al., 2000; Fox & Spector, 2000; Hogan, 1969; Mayer et al., 2000; Mayer, DiPaolo, & Salovey, 1990). Empathetic responses lead to genuineness and appropriate behaviors, whereas a lack of empathy leads to ill-mannered behaviors. Empathy, then, is critically important in jobs that tend to require emotional labor.

Highly emotionally intelligent individuals are likely to experience less perceived emotional dissonance, based on their ability to effectively interpret and regulate their own and others' emotional states. Emotional intelligence may directly and indirectly influence the type of emotional labor undertaken and skill at emotional labor. In fact, recent research (Jordan, Ashkanasy, & Hartel, 2000) indeed demonstrated a significant moderating relationship of emotional intelligence on emotional labor. Thus, we propose that emotional intelligence abilities will directly affect perceived emotional dissonance, as well as moderate the perceived dissonance-emotional labor relationship.

Positive and Negative Affectivity. Positive and negative affectivity (PA/ NA) have particular relevance to our model. According to Watson (2000), "Affective traits/temperaments provide a 'set point' that is characteristic for each individual but differs across individuals. Mood varies around this set point" (p. 18). Given that this set point is variable across individuals, PA/NA may directly influence the amount of perceived dissonance an individual experiences. A person who is higher in positive affectivity may perceive less dissonance across situations. Generally, persons high in positive affectivity perceive things more positively, and persons high on negative affectivity generally perceive things more negatively. Recent research has focused on the role of positive and negative affectivity as a moderator of situation-response relationships (Munz et al., 1996; Williams, Gavin, & Williams, 1996). Specifically, PA and NA are assumed to substantively affect other variables and their relationships through perceptual, temperamental, and instrumental processes. For example, to the degree that employees with high NA perceive more stringent display rules (perceptual), have stronger negative reactions to internal and external stimuli (temperamental), and behave to evoke environmental reactions (instrumental), then NA will moderate the perceived dissonance-labor relationship. Similarly, Abraham (1999) suggested that individuals high in negative affectivity tended to experience a conflict between expressed (positive) and felt (negative) emotions in organizations that demand the expression of positive emotions. She found that negative affectivity moderated the relationship between emotional

dissonance and job satisfaction, whereas it mediated the relationship with emotional exhaustion.

In all, we believe that individual differences augment the understanding of the perceived dissonance-emotional labor process. The three individual differences highlighted in our model were used to illustrate the importance of individual difference variables in this process. Clearly, there are a wide range of individual difference variables that might be intuitively hypothesized (e.g., self-monitoring, public vs. private self). Future research is critical to establish the relevance and role of individual differences and their direct and/or indirect effects.

Individual and Organizational Outcomes

There is little doubt that emotions play out in various ways and are deeply embedded in organizational life. As such, research on emotions has been concerned with important individual and organizational constructs (e.g., job satisfaction, stress, burnout, organizational justice) that have strong direct and indirect effects on organizational success (Nord & Fox, 1995).

Our model suggests that there are a number of significant individual and organizational consequences of high perceived dissonance and subsequent emotional labor. It is important to note that in the short term, organizations may clearly benefit from individuals engaging in emotional labor; however, over time individuals may become increasingly emotionally exhausted, which could lead to a family of deleterious behaviors (e.g., burnout and performance) or, in extreme cases, a choice to employ a less appropriate strategy (e.g., workplace violence).

In other words, we recognize that the next subsection paints a rather gloomy scenario such that engaging in emotional labor in the long term leads to primarily deleterious outcomes and that all service employees will incur negative outcomes. This is not entirely our intention. Clearly, there are satisfied, authentic, lifelong employees who exist in service roles. Indeed, there are some positive effects that may emerge in the short term. However, based on our definition, the lifelong service employee is unlikely to be experiencing significant and prolonged periods of emotional dissonance. Individuals who are engaging in emotional labor behavior do so because they labor to reconcile a dissonant state. Thus, if one does not experience this dissonance, one will not be required to act incongruously with one's own genuine feelings and thus it is not laborious to act. As mentioned earlier, individual differences or situational demands that buffer or eliminate these effects or an interaction of the two may contribute to low perceived emotional dissonance.

Our discussion of outcomes covers three general categories, some of which are interrelated and include job-related attitudes and behaviors, physical and psychological well-being, and withdrawal behaviors. The following is not in

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