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Emotion work and job stressors and
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Dieter Zapf , Claudia Seifert , Barbara Schmutte , Heidrun
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EMOTION WORK AND JOB STRESSORS AND
THEIR EFFECTS ON BURNOUT
DIETER ZAPF*, CLAUDIA SEIFERT, BARBARA SCHMU'ITE,
HEIDRUN MERTINI and MELANIE HOLZ
J. W. Goethe- University, Frankfurt, Germany
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This article reports research on emotion work, organizational as well as social variables as predictors of job
burnout. In burnout research, high emotional demands resulting from interactions with clients are seen as a core
characteristic of service jobs. However, these emotional demands were seldom measured in a direct manner. It
was only recently that emotional demands were included in studies on burnout refemng to the concept of emotion
work (emotional labor). Emotion work is defined as the requirement to display organizationally desired emotions.
A multi-dimensional concept of emotion work was used to analyze the relations of emotion work variables with
organizational and social variables and their joint effect on burnout in five samples including employees working
in children's homes, kindergartens, hotels, banks and call centers. Emotion work variables correlated with organ-
izational stressors and resources. However, hierarchical multiple regression showed a unique contribution of
emotion work variables in the prediction of burnout. Moreover, the analysis of interaction effects of emotional
dissonance and organizational and social stressors showed that for service professionals, the coincidence of these
suessors led to exaggerated levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.

KEY WORDS: Emotional labor, job stressors, burnout

Burnout is a phenomenon which was first investigated in the health care professions
(Maslach, 1982; Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1998; Schaufeli et al., 1993). The management
of emotions comprising the control and adequate expression of one's emotions are con-
sidered a central part of work in these jobs. The interaction with patients, clients or children
demands empathy and emotional involvement which many employees consider more and
more difficult as time goes by. Burnout is an indication of the employees' growing inability
to adequately manage their emotions when interacting with clients.
Interestingly, however, most empirical studies on burnout did not directly measure emo-
tional demands at work, such as: how often do employees have to show or control certain
emotions? Rather, they analyzed organizational and social variables as potential predictors
of burnout. This is shown, for example, in the meta-analysis of Lee and Ashforth (1996)
who analyzed the effects of various predictors on emotional exhaustion, depersonalization
and personal accomplishment, the components of burnout suggested by Maslach and
Jackson (1986). Organizational job stressors such as role conflict, role stress, stressful
events, workload and work pressure showed the strongest associations with emotional
exhaustion. Similar results occurred for depersonalization. For personal accomplishment,
job stressors were not predictive. Rather, the number of work friends was a strong predictor
here. However, among the predictor variables of burnout listed by Lee and Ashforth, there

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 69 798 22963; Fax: +49 69 798 23847; E-mail: d.zapf@psych.uni-frankfurt.de
or dieter.zapf@t-online.de; Website: http://www.rz.uni-frankf~rt.de/F'B/fb05/
psychologie/AbteiVABO/
index.htm.

527

528 D. ZAPF ETAL.

were neither direct measures of emotional demands such as the frequency of displaying
emotions nor indirect indicators such as “caseload” or number of client contacts.
It is only recently that authors have tried to investigate relationships between more direct
measures of emotional demands resulting from the interaction with clients and burnout
(e.g. Abraham, 1998; Adelmann, 1995; Brotheridge and Lee, 1998; Bussing and Glaser,
1999; Grandey, 1998; Morris and Feldman, 1997; Nerdinger and Roper, 1999; Schaubroeck
and Jones, 2000; Zapf et al., 1999; for an overview, see Zapf, in press). These authors referred
to the conceptual work of Hochschild (1983) on emotional labor. Emotional labor or emotion
work refers to the quality of interactions between employees and clients. “Client” is used
here to refer to any person who interacts with an employee, for example, patients, children,
customers, passengers or guests. We will use the term “emotion work” throughout this article
because generally “work” instead of “labor” is used in work and organizational psychology

to refer to cognitive or motivational aspects of work (cf. Zapf, in press). Expressing appro-
priate emotions during face-to-face or voice-to-voice interactions acts as a job demand for
many employees in the service industry. Examples are flight attendants who are required to
be friendly even to arrogant or aggressive customers (Hochschild, 1983), nurses or teachers
who have to show empathy towards patients or children or bank employees who have to
signal trustworthiness by putting on a friendly but solemn face. Hochschild drew upon the
work of Goffman (1959) to argue that in practically all social interactions, people tend to play
roles and try to create certain impressions. Impressions include the display of normatively
appropriate emotions following certain display rules. This general social phenomenon also
applies to social interactions at work. Employees are not only required to work on tasks and
exert mental and physical effort. They are also required to manage their emotions as a part
of their job. Usually, flight attendants smile when talking to passengers. Sometimes, how-
ever, they are not in the mood for it, e.g. when they have to deal with arrogant passengers,
when they feel exhausted or when they are in a bad mood after a conflict with a colleague.
Emotion work as part of the job, however, often implies that the display of organizationally
desired emotions is required even in such situations. Accordingly, Zapf (in press) defined
emotion work as the psychological processes necessary to regulate organizationally desired
emotions as part of one’s job. This definition includes the definitions of Moms and Feld-
man (1996, p. 987) who identified emotional labor as the “effort, planning and control
needed to express organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions”.
Depending on the theories one refers to, psychological processes such as perception, goal
development or sensorimotor regulation may not be subsumed under effort, planning and
control. Ashforth and Humphrey’s (1993, p. 90) definition of emotional labor as “the act of
displaying appropriate emotion (i.e. conforming with a display rule)” which aims at the
display of emotions and less at the inner feelings, can also be subsumed under the definition
given above. A similar definition was also provided by Grandey (2000).
Several studies (e.g. Abraham, 1998; Adelmann, 1995; Brotheridge and Lee, 1998;
Morris and Feldman, 1997; Nerdinger and Roper, 1999; Schaubroeck and Jones, 2000;
Zapf et al., 1999) provided initial evidence for relationships between emotion work and
burnout although some of the findings were equivocal. However, so far there are only a few
studies that simultaneously considered various kinds of organizational and social work
characteristics and emotion work at the same time. Therefore, evidence is still lacking as to
whether there is a unique contribution of emotion work to the prediction of burnout. The
purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between emotion work, organiza-
tional stressors and resources and their combined effects. The following questions arise:
( 1) Are there relationships between organizational variables and emotion work? ( 2 ) Is there

EMOTION WORK AND JOB STRESSES 529

a unique contribution of emotion work in the prediction of burnout when emotion work is
combined with other organizational and social variables? Finally, (3) Are there interaction
effects between job stressors and emotion work? In order to provide some answers to these
questions, we will first outline the concept of emotion work used in this study. Second, we
will discuss the conceptual overlap between emotion work and organizational as well as
social stressors and resources which could question the unique meaning of emotion work.
Third, we will discuss how and why emotion work is likely to interact with organizational
stressors.

THE CONCEPT OF EMOTION WORK

The concept of emotion work used in this study is based on an action theory framework
(Zapf et al., 1999). Action theory describes the cognitive processes necessary to execute
goal-oriented actions (Frese and Zapf, 1994; Hacker, 1973, 1998). From this perspective,
emotion work is part of intentional and goal-oriented behavior. Etzioni (1964, p. 4)
describes organizations as “planned units, deliberately structured for the purpose of attaining
specific goals.” To put organizational goals into action, sub-goals are distributed to the
members of the organization by the division of work (e.g. Porter et al., 1975). Every mem-
ber of the organization receives orders to carry out certain tasks. The orders are redefined
into subjective goals by the employees (Hackman, 1969). The redefinition process includes
norms, rules or standards, according to which tasks have to be carried out. In service jobs,
some of these rules refer to the display of emotions towards clients. In the case of a call-
center where employees interact with customers by telephone, there may be rules such as:
talking to customers should not exceed five minutes; customers should be addressed by
their name, or the call-center agents should talk to the customer in a friendly tone through-
out the interaction. Taking over implicit or explicit organizational rules to display emotions
when interacting with a client is part of the redefinition process.
Hochschild ( 1983) described various psychological consequences of emotion work and
posited that emotion work is a special far-reaching form of human exploitation leading to
the alienation of one’s feelings and causing psychological ill health. However, studies that
operationalized such a unidimensional concept of emotion work (e.g. Adelmann, 1995;
Wharton, 1993) could not find the negative relations with psychological strain as suggested
by Hochschild. Therefore, other authors have worked on the differentiation of various
aspects of emotion work, many of them referring to the work of Morris and Feldman
(1996). This was also done in the present study. Emotion work was conceptualized as
a multidimensional construct which poses various demands on the worker. This view
considers the job requirement aspects (Hackman, 1969) or antecedents (Grandey, 2000;
Moms and Feldman, 1996) of emotion work and is congruent with the idea that objective
job characteristics or job stressors created by the organization affect the workers in various
ways (Frese and Zapf, 1988; Spector, 1992). Based on theoretical concepts and empirical
findings first presented by Zapf et al. (1999), five aspects of emotion work could be
differentiated: (1) the requirement to display positive emotions (abbreviated as “positive
emotions”); (2) the requirement to display and handle negative emotions which also
implies a high variety of emotions (“negative emotions”); (3) the requirement to sense the
emotion of the interaction partner (“sensitivity requirements”); (4) the influence on the
social interaction (“interaction control”); and (5) the dissonance between felt and displayed
emotions (“emotional dissonance”).

530 D.ZAPF ETAL.

In line with most empirical studies on emotion work (e.g. Adelmann, 1995; Brotheridge
and Lee, 1998; Morris and Feldman, 1997) we measured the frequency of emotional
display. Factor analyses (Zapf et al., 1999) demonstrated the necessity of distinguishing
between showing positive and showing negative emotions. Showing negative emotions
usually implies demonstrating a high variety of emotions because positive emotions have
to be shown in most of the jobs. Therefore, the requirement to display negative emotions
comes close to the concept of variety of emotion display suggested by Morris and Feldman
( 1996).
The expression of organizationally desired emotions is not an end in itself. Emotions are
shown to have an influence on clients (Kruml and Geddes, 2000). Expressing emotions is
one possible way to influence the clients’ emotions. In the service industry, for example,
customer satisfaction or empathy shown by the service provider are used in the assessment

of service quality (e.g. Zeithaml and Bitner, 2000). In health care service, calming a nervous
patient is often a prerequisite for adequate medical treatment (Strauss et al., 1980). All
these activities of the service provider aim at influencing the clients’ emotions by displaying
certain emotions. To be able to influence the clients’ emotions, their accurate perception is
an important prerequisite. This is also in accord with concepts of communication psycho-
logy (Riggio, 1986) as well as those of emotional intelligence (Salovey and Mayer, 1990).
Therefore, sensitivity requirements as the necessity to be sensitive and to consider the
emotions of clients is another aspect of the emotion work concept (Zapf et al., 1999). Sens-
itivity requirements are low if there are no or little interactions with clients or if an employee
can display organizationally desired emotions independent of the clients’ feelings. Sensit-
ivity requirements are high, if knowledge of the clients’ emotions is a prerequisite for one’s
own emotional reaction. Sensitivity requirements are positively correlated with emotional
display requirements because the expression of an emotion during an interaction usually is
dependent on the emotion of the interaction partner (Zapf et al., 1999). Only in short routine
interactions might a person express emotions without trying to sense the emotion of others.
Interaction control is part of the emotion work concept. It is a special case of job control
with regard to the social interactions with clients in which emotions have to be displayed
(Zapf et al., 1999). Interaction control is high if the employee can decide when and with
whom he or she interacts and when to start or stop an interaction with a client.
Finally, as most of the other studies of emotion work, we included the concept of emotional
dissonance (e.g. Abraham, 1998; Brotheridge and Lee, 1998; Bussing and Glaser, 1999;
Grandey, 1998; Kruml and Geddes, 2000; Morris and Feldman, 1996,1997; Nerdinger and
Roper, 1999; Zapf et al., 1999; Zerbe, 2000). Emotional dissonance occurs when an employee
is required to express emotions which are not genuinely felt in the particular situation. This
may be considered as a form of person-role conflict, in which a person’s response is in
conflict with role expectations regarding the display of emotions (Abraham, 1998; Rafaeli
and Sutton, 1987). A person may feel nothing when a certain emotion display is required,
or the display rule may require the suppression of undesired emotions and the expression of
neutrality or a positive emotion instead of a negative one. Emotional dissonance has been
studied as resulting from an external demand rather than a reaction to emotion display or a
behavioral strategy (Zapf et al., 1999). In the work of Hochschild (1983), it was emotional
dissonance that was hypothesized to lead to the alienation of one’s feelings which in turn
caused various psychological strains. Studies on emotional dissonance consistently found
correlations with emotional exhaustion (e.g. Abraham, 1998; Brotheridge and Lee, 1998;
Grandey, 1998; Morris and Feldman, 1997; Nerdinger and Roper, 1999; Schaubroeck and
Jones, 2000; Zerbe, 2000).

EMOTION WORK AND JOB STRESSES 53 1

Various approaches to stress research have differentiated between stressors and resources
(Cordes and Dougherty, 1993; Frese and Zapf, 1994; Hobfoll and Freedy, 1993; Kahn
and Byosiere, 1992; Karasek and Theorell, 1990). Although these approaches differ in detail,
they assume that stressors are related to strain variables such as psychosomatic complaints,
exhaustion or depression, whereas resources are assumed to be related to psychological
well-being. Moreover, resources are assumed to function as a buffer against stress (Kahn
and Byosiere, 1992). Based on recent findings on organizational stressors and burnout,
Leiter (1993) proposed a similar model for stressors, resources and burnout, in which stres-
sors and resources are differentially associated with the three burnout dimensions. In this
model, stressors are posited to be more strongly related to emotional exhaustion whereas
the resources are related to personal accomplishments. With regard to both the positive and
negative effects of emotion work, Zapf et al. (1999) posited that the display of positive and

negative emotions as well as sensitivity requirements are not necessarily stressful but
follow the person-environment fit approach. As long as the situational requirements do not
exceed the individual’s abilities, needs and resources, they have a positive effect on
psychological well-being. If abilities, needs and resources are overtaxed, a negative effect
on psychological well-being will occur. In the case of emotion work, emotional dissonance
is an indicator of overtaxing a person’s abilities, needs and resources in a social interaction
with a client. Zapf et al. (1999) found empirical evidence that emotional dissonance was
positively related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization whereas the display of
positive emotions and sensitivity requirements were positively related to personal accom-
plishment. These results indicate that emotion work is not negative per se. Rather, there are
both positive and negative implications of emotion work variables.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONAL, STRESSORS AND
RESOURCES, AND EMOTION WORK

Although there are some studies demonstrating positive relationships between emotion
work and burnout, it is still unclear whether there is a unique contribution of emotion work
in the prediction of burnout. It could be hypothesized that the shared variance between
emotion work and burnout can be explained by the effects of task and organizational vari-
ables. Schaufeli and Enzmann (1 998), for example, argued that there is a conceptual overlap
between task or organization related and interaction related predictors of burnout, since
both depend on the frequency of interactions with clients and on the difficulty of the cases.
First, if there are frequent interactions with clients, time pressure should be reported
because the underlying primary tasks have to be carried out frequently. Another job stres-
sor is “Concentration Necessities” which refers to the frequency of information processing
and high load of the working memory (Semmer et al., 1995, 1999; Zapf, 1993). It is also
likely that high concentration necessities are reported in interactions with clients because
interaction implies sending and receiving information. At the cognitive level, frequent or
long lasting interactions imply frequent information processing and a high memory load
because in most social interactions there is little opportunity to write down information or
store it otherwise. Frequent interactions, however, are also related to most of the emotion
work variables. The longer or the more frequent employees have to interact with clients,
the more often they need to display positive and negative emotions. Accordingly, the more
often they also need to be required to sense the clients’ emotions as well as to display
emotions they do not feel at that particular moment (emotional dissonance).

532 D.ZAPF ETAL.

A second issue is the quality of social interactions. Social interactions may be experi-
enced as pleasant, neutral or unpleasant. Pleasant social interactions are characterized by
mutual support and appreciation, unpleasant interactions are typically characterized by
conflicts, misunderstandings, animosities or exaggerated expectations of the interaction
partner. Again, it can be assumed that the quality of the social interactions both affect the
cognitive and emotional aspects of work. Decisions about goals and how to achieve them
may be a more difficult task to manage in complicated situations. Thus, goal attainment
may take longer than planned which in turn contributes to time pressure. Complicated
social interactions may be more unpredictable and contribute to uncertainty of goal
achievement and organizational problems. Uncertainty of goal achievement is an action
theory based concept of a job stressor (Frese and Zapf, 1994; Semmer et al., 1995; Zapf,
1993). Uncertainty is high if goals are unclear, ambiguous or contradictory or if feedback is

lacking or ambiguous so that it is difficult to decide whether or not one is approaching the
goal.
It can be speculated that conflicts between the service provider and his or her client
arise because the work of the service provider is not carried out as expected by the client
due to problems in the work organization (organizational problems as a stressor). A study
by Jimmieson and Griffin (1999), for example, showed that the satisfaction of clients of
health care centers was negatively related to role conflicts in the organization. Thus,
mismanagement and organizational problems may relate to conflicts with clients. Solving
conflicts with clients may prolong the interaction and increase the likelihood of displaying
negative emotions, sensitivity requirements as well as emotional dissonance. In par-
ticular, if organizational problems foster conflicts with clients, it should be more difficult
to display the organizationally desired emotions resulting in higher levels of emotional
dissonance.
Similar arguments hold for resources and emotion work. More complex tasks require
longer interactions with the clients to solve the tasks. In longer interactions, it is unlikely
that a person can display emotions routinely without considering the clients’ emotions.
Thus, sensitivity requirements should be high. Moreover, longer interaction should also
require a variety of emotions because in complex tasks it is likely that the interaction
partners differ in views on how to solve the tasks which should be sometimes accompanied
by negative emotions. Various studies show that complexity and control are positively
associated (e.g. Semmer, 1982; Zapf, 1993). It follows that complexity and control should
be positively correlated with the display of negative emotions and sensitivity requirements.
Finally, Morrison and Feldman (1996) posited that control is negatively associated with
emotional dissonance. Control should either allow the display of the emotions felt or it
should enable employees to avoid situations where they feel unable to display the required
emotions.
In sum, we hypothesized that emotion work variables were correlated with organiza-
tional stressors and resources due to the reasons given above (Hypothesis 1). However, a
total overlap was not assumed. Rather, it was hypothesized that emotion work variables are
able to predict a unique portion of variance in the burnout variables (Hypothesis 2). The
reason is that emotional dissonance is not (only) stressful because of its associations with
various organizational stressors. In this case the negative effects of emotional dissonance
should disappear if organizational variables were partialed out. Rather, it is an independent
stressor. Several explanations have been given for the stressful nature of emotional disson-
ance. Hochschild (1983) argued that emotional dissonance would lead to the alienation
from one’s true feelings which would negatively affect one’s well-being. Recently, Grandey


(2000) referred to theories of emotional regulation which showed that the suppression of
emotion was negatively related to psychological health (Gross, 1998). With regard to the
emotion anger, for example, various studies showed that the suppression of anger was
associated with increased levels of systolic blood pressure and other cardiovascular vari-
ables (Hodapp er al., 1992; Mills er al., 1989). Suppression of emotions is one facet of the
emotional dissonance concept. Thus, it can be concluded that there is a stress mechanism of
emotional dissonance independent of organizational stressors.
We will investigate Hypothesis 2 by comparing the relationships between task character-
istics, social working conditions, emotion work and burnout using hierarchical regression.
If emotion work variables explain a significant amount of variance in burnout, after con-
trolling for task or organizational variables, stressors and social support, this will imply
a unique contribution of emotion work to the prediction of burnout.

Based on the concepts, which posit the co-occurrence of high emotional demands and
a negative organizational environment as being of importance in the development of
burnout, an interaction of emotion work and organizational stressors can be expected.
This can, for example, be explained by theories on multiple stressors which refer to cog-
nitive capacity theories (Wieland-Eckelmann, 1992). These theories assume that given
limited cognitive capacities, they become overtaxed, and stress appears (Schonpflug,
1985). If stressors occupy the same resources (e.g. if attention has to be paid to the prim-
ary task and the interaction task at the same time, cf. Kahneman, 1973) the multiple
stressors may exceed certain capacity thresholds thus leading to effects which are higher
than the additive effects of emotion work and organizational stressors. Another explana-
tion refers to the dual-level social exchange model of Schaufeli et al. (1996). The authors
proposed that reciprocity (i.e. the balance of investments and gains) plays a major role in
the development of burnout. If individuals perceive a relationship as unbalanced they
feel distressed and try to restore reciprocity. Depersonalization can then be regarded as a
way of restoring reciprocity by withdrawing psychologically from the clients (Buunk
and Schaufeli, 1993). According to the dual level exchange model of burnout, lack of
reciprocity can occur at the interpersonal level where emotion work is relevant and at the
organizational level, where task-related and organizational stressors are relevant. Social
workers, for example, cannot expect that their feelings are returned by drug addicts. The
emotional investments in clients have to be balanced by the organization for which they
work, perhaps in the form of recognition, avoiding unreasonable organizational prob-
lems or workload or by receiving social support. If emotion work is high, it is likely that
there is no reciprocity at the interpersonal level. If organizational and social stressors are
high at the same time, and, particularly if the individuals believe that the organization
could do more to reduce such stressors, then the emotional demands at the interpersonal
level may not be seen as balanced at the organizational level. Emotion work has to be
carried out under aggravating circumstances. It follows that the coincidence of high emo-
tion work and high organizational problems should be related to high levels of burnout.
Thus, the third hypothesis is that there are interaction effects of organizational and social
stressors with emotion work. More specifically, we will investigate the interaction
effects with emotional dissonance because almost all studies have shown that emotional
dissonance is a strong stressor (see the review of Zapf, in press). We did not investigate
interaction effects with regard to personal accomplishment because various authors (e.g.
Cordes and Dougherty, 1993; Lee and Ashforth, 1996; Leiter, 1993) as well as our previ-
ous findings suggested that personal accomplishment depends on resources rather than
on stressors.

534 D.ZAPF E T A L .

METHOD

Sample
The following analyses were based on a sample consisting of five subsamples. The first
subsample consisted of employees working in a home for children with special needs and
other social service institutions in South Germany. Fifty-eight percent worked in a chil-
dren’s home and had direct client contact (nurses, team leaders, social workers), 19% also
worked in the children’s home, but had no direct contact to clients (administration, tech-
nical staff). Moreover, 24% were employees with direct client contact in a hospital, and in
other homes for problem children and children with special needs. As in the other samples,
participation was voluntary. The second sample was collected in the hotel business. With

the help of the “BerufsgenossenschaftNahrung” (professional food association), 20 hotels
were included in the study. Fifteen percent had a “HauptschulabschluB” (lower stream
school leaving certificate), 29% had “mittlere Reife” (middle stream school-leaving
certificate), 44% had “Abitur” (high school diploma qualifying for university entrance)
and 11% some type of university degree. Only a minority of 18% did not have a specific
vocational education related to the hotel business. The third sample consisted of particip-
ants who were employed in 14 call-centers of various firms. This sample consisted of
employees who all had voice-to-voice contacts with clients. Seventy-four percent had a
high school diploma qualifying for university entrance (Abitur) or some kind of university
degree. Seventy-six percent received calls but did not call clients themselves (inbound), the
others were preoccupied with both calling and receiving calls (inbound and outbound;
details can be found in Isic et al., 1999). The fourth sample was collected in seven banks.
Forty-three percent of the sample had a specific banking vocational education and another
32% a university degree. The majority of the sample (97%) had more than two years of job
experience. The final sample consisted of employees collected in 70 of the 140 public
kindergartens in one of Germany’s large cities. The kindergartens were systematically
selected to obtain the full variety of kindergartens for the sample. The sample consisted of
almost 50% of the total workforce of the city’s public kindergartens. Twenty-two percent
of the sample possessed some kind of university degree; 35% had visited vocational
schools for kindergarten teachers; 74% had received some kind of high school degree. In
all, 87% had some kind of specific education for their job and 94% of the sample had more
than two years of job experience. Characteristics of the subsamples were summarized in
Table 1.
The subsamples differed in many respects. Therefore, it would be appropriate to test the
hypotheses at the level of these subsamples. This was done by the authors. As a result of
mainly similar results in the subsamples and space limitations as well as our not having a
special focus on differential findings in the subsamples, we report results with regard to the
total sample. Analyses for the subsamples are available from the first author on request.

Instruments
Organizational stressors and resources were measured with the “Instrument for Stress-
oriented Job Analysis” ISTA 6.0 (Semmer et al., 1995, 1999). On the basis of an action
theory approach, job characteristics were classified into regulation requirements (job
complexity) and regulation possibilities (task control) which are considered as resources
for the present analyses. In addition, this approach comprised regulation problems which


Table 1 Sample description

Sample N Response MeanAge Percent Occupations
rate (%) Women

Handicapped 83 -‘ 38 80 Nurses, educators, social workers,
children’s home administrative and technical staff
Hotels 175 29 80%between 71 Frontline officers, waiters or waitresses,
18 and 32h administrative staff
Call center 250 50 31 75 Call center agents in banking, insurance,
airline industry
Bank 122 -I 31 50 Banking employees
Kindergartens 611 67 39 94 Kindergarten educators, social workers,
technical staff
Total sample 1241 - 36 88

Notes: Distribution of questionnaires was organized by the institutions. They were not able to report the response rate.
To ensure anonymity, we were only able to use age categories (18-22,23-28;. . , 6 3 4 7 ) .Category mean was used for the
hotel sample.

were defined as negatively affecting the cognitive regulation of actions. Regulation
problems represent an action theory concept of psychological stressors which negatively
affect the regulation of action. (cf. Frese and Zapf, 1994; Semmer et al., 1999; Zapf, 1993).
Job complexity assessed the complexity of the decisions and planning processes required
to fulfill the task (example-item: “Colleague A has to plan in detail how the task can be
solved. Colleague B’s tasks do not require any planning processes. Which job is more
similar to yours?’). Job control as a resource refers to the number and kind of decision
possibilities concerning the tasks (example-item: “Is it possible in your job to make one’s
own decisions how to carry out the tasks?’).
Task and organizational stressors comprised uncertainty, organizational problems, con-
centration necessities and time pressure. Uncertainty aims at unclear or contradictory
goals, conditions or outcomes of actions and included contradictory or unclear orders
(e.g. “How often you get contradictory orders?’). Organizational problems ask for prob-
lems in the work organizations which typically cause additional effort to carry out the
tasks. Examples are working with material of poor quality or not getting information in
time (e.g. “A has to use tricks to be able to fulfil hidher work. B is equipped in such a way
that he/she can manage without additional effort. Which job is similar to yours?’). Time
pressure refers to problems caused by the speed and quantity of information processing:
action regulation cannot occur as planned within a given time frame (e.g. “How often do
you have to work during your break because there is so much work?’). Concentration
Necessities refer to the problem of information overload of the working memory during
action execution. In this case, too much concurrent information is required in the working
memory in order to accomplish the task. (e.g. “Do you have to make mental notes of things
which are difficult to remember (number of units, names, addresses, codes, file names,
folders, etc.?’). Response categories ranged from 1 to 5 (e.g. “very little” to “very much” or
“very seldom” to “very often”).

Social stressors. A scale developed by Frese and Zapf (1987) was used which comprised
social animosities, conflicts with colleagues and supervisors, and a negative group climate
(e.g. “My supervisor pushes all the time”, “One has to pay for the mistakes of others”).
Response on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (absolutely) was required.

536 D. ZAPFETAL.

Social support. Social support was measured using Frese’s (1989) German adaption of the
social support scales developed by House and Caplan (Caplan et al., 1975). The items (e.g.
“How much can each of these people be relied on when things get tough at work?’) were
answered with reference to supervisors and colleagues. The support items were rated on a
four-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 4 (absolutely).
Emotion work was measured using the Frankfurt Emotion Work Scales (FEWS) (Zapf
et al., 1999). Five dimensions were operationalized. Positive Emotion refers to the require-
ment to show pleasant emotions (example-item: “In your job how often does it occur that
you have to display pleasant emotions towards your clients?’)).Negative emotions ask for
the display and treatment of unpleasant emotions (example-item: “How often does it occur
in yourjob that you have to display unpleasant emotions towards your clients?’). Sensitivity
requirements measure whether empathy or knowledge about clients’ current feelings are

required by the job (example-item: “Does your job require paying attention to the feelings
of your clients?’). Interaction Control refers to the degree of influence an employee has in
social interactions with clients (example-item: “Can you decide when to finish an interaction
with a client?”). Items of Emotional Dissonance refer to the display of unfelt emotions and
to the suppression of felt but organizationally undesired emotions (example-item: “Person
A can openly display hidher true feelings - Person B has to display feelings toward clients
which do not match hidher true feelings. What is your job like?’). Response categories of
the emotion work subscales range from 1 to 5 (“very seldom” to “very often”).
Burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment) was
measured using the Maslach Burnout Inventory - German version of Bussing and Perrar
(1992). Emotional exhaustion measures one’s feeling of being frustrated and perceiving
work with people as very demanding. Depersonalization comprises the tendency to treat
clients as objects and to become indifferent and apathetic with regard to clients. Personal
Accomplishment includes the feeling of having energy to do things and of being able to
meet one’s aspirations. A seven-point scale (1-7) was used for the burnout items. The
descriptive data of the scales are summarized in Table 2. Correlations of all study variables
are shown in Table 3.

Table 2 Descriptive data of study variables
~ ~~

Mean SD Coeficient Range Numberof
a items

Job complexity 3.41 0.75 .7 1 1-5 5
Task control 3.44 0.94 .88 1-5 5
Uncertainty 2.36 0.76 .73 1-5 5
Organizational problems 2.53 0.67 .72 1-5 5
Concentration necessities 3.22 0.84 .74 1-5 5
Time pressure 3.13 0.86 .80 1-5 5
Social stressors 1.74 0.52 .90 1-5 8
Support supervisor 2.93 0.72 .86 1-4 4
Support colleagues 3.11 0.57 .83 1-4 4
Positive emotions 3.46 0.82 .5 1 1-5 3
Negative emotions 2.94 0.89 .69 1-5 3
Sensitivity requirements 3.49 1.03 .85 1-5 3
Interaction control 2.70 0.82 .55 1-5 3
Emotional dissonance 2.99 0.83 .79 1-5 5
Emotional exhaustion 2.53 1.03 .88 1-7 9
Depersonalization I .99 0.88 .65 1-7 5
Personal accomplishment 4.64 0.99 .79 1-7 8

Note: I035 < N < 1235.


Table 3 Intercorrelation of study variables

Age Gender Comp. Control Uncert. Org. P. Concen. TimeP. Soc.Srr. Sup.S. Sup. C. P0s.E. Neg. E. Sensit. Inter. C. Emo. D. E.Exh. Depers.

Age
Gender -.08
Complexity .03 .05
Control .17 -.06 .36
Uncertainty -.I6 .09 .21 -.20
Organizat. problems -.Ol -.02 .19 .01 .42
Concentration nec. -06 .02 .53 .I9 .37 .29
Time pressure -.I 1 .05 .31 -.03 .39 .28 .58
Social stressors -.08 .02 .07 -.lo .45 .36 .I9 .29
Support supervisor -.06 .01 -.02 .I4 -.34 -.36 -.09 -.I7 -.52
Support colleagues -.13 -.09 .06 .08 -.I1 -.I7 .02 -.06 -.31 .39
Positive emotions -. 19 -.08 .23 .01 .I5 .03 .39 .30 .08 .OO .13
Negative emotions -.03 -. 13 .29 .25 .I8 .I4 .40 .I5 .08 -.03 .08 .38
Sensitivity requirem. -.06 -.08 .33 .15 .20 .16 .40 .2 1 .08 -.05 .07 .52 .47
Interaction control .I2 -.06 .I0 .43 -.22 -.w -.02 -.12 -.09 .I2 .07 .03 .I3 .09
Emotional dissonance -.27 .O1 .10 -.33 .37 .I6 .32 .36 .23 -.16 -.01 .41 .20 .34 -.21
Emotionalexhaustion -.01 -49 .07 -.lo .38 .34 .28 .36 .37 -.26 -.I7 .I2 .21 .I9 -.I0 .30
Depersonalization -.I9 .08 .OO -.23 .33 .20 .19 .26 .30 -.20 -.I4 .ll .I1 .09 -.I2 .36 .52
Personal accomplish. .02 .00 .27 .I 1 -.02 -.I1 .24 .13 -.lo .14 .I6 .35 .I7 .31 .I0 .07 -.I5 -.I0
Note: 1035<N< 1235;pc.Ol a t r z . 0 8 .

538 D. ZAPF ETAL.

RESULTS

In Table 3, the display of positive and negative emotions and sensitivity requirements were
positively correlated with job complexity. Correlations with task control were somewhat
lower. Emotional dissonance showed a negative correlation of -.33 with task control.
Moreover, emotional dissonance showed the highest correlation with uncertainty and time
pressure. Finally, the positive correlations of all emotion work variables except interaction
control with concentration necessities and time pressure may indicate that all these variables
were dependent on high caseload. In sum, as predicted in Hypothesis 1, the correlations
between emotion work, task and organizational stressors and resources show that there is
some overlap among these variables.
The results for the unique contribution of emotion work on burnout which is not covered by

other predictors (Hypothesis 2) are shown in Table 4. The Table shows regressions of burnout
on emotion work variables on the left and hierarchical regression with task and organizational
variables, social variables and emotion work on the right. In both cases, age and gender were
used as covariates. If emotion work variables only were considered, they accounted for 12.0%
of the variance of emotional exhaustion. If emotion work variables were entered into the
regression after task and organizational variables and social variables, they accounted for an
additional 3% of the variance. Uncertainty, organizational problems, time pressure, social
stressors, negative emotions and emotional dissonance were significant predictors. The p of
emotional dissonance was reduced from .29 to .14 when all variables were considered.
Similar results occurred for depersonalization. Again, emotional dissonance was a strong
predictor here. Even when entered into the regression after task and organizational and
social variables, emotional dissonance showed the highest p weight.
A somewhat different picture appeared for personal accomplishment. First, the differ-
ence between explained variance by emotion work entered into the regression equation
alone which was 13.8%and emotion work entered after task and organizational and social
variables which was 7.4%,was lower compared with the respective results for emotional
exhaustion and depersonalization. This indicates that the overlap of the variables was
lower here. Second, the pattern of significant predictors was different. Job complexity was
a significant predictor of personal accomplishment as well as organizational problems and
concentration necessities. Note that concentration necessities were positively related to
personal accomplishment. In contrast to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization
where emotional dissonance was the most important predictor, the display of positive emo-
tions and sensitivity requirements were predictors of personal accomplishment. The more
frequently positive emotions were displayed and the more sensitivity was required, the
higher the sense of personal accomplishment attained.
In addition to the analyses presented so far, we were interested in the effects of indirect
measures of emotion work such as caseload or number of difficult clients on burnout.
Schaufeli and Enzmann ( 1 998) concluded in their review that these indirect measures were
often of no significant meaning in previous studies. We were not able to systematically ana-
lyze this in the total sample. However, we were able to carry out some analyses at the level
of subsamples. In the call center sample, correlating emotional exhaustion with the number
of talks per hour, the length of the talks or any product of these variables and the number of
working hours per day or per week did not exceed the zero-order correlation of working
hours per day and emotional exhaustion which was .18 (p < .O l), whereas the zero-order
correlation of emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion of the call center sample
was .48 (p < .01) (Zapf et al., 1999). Similarly, the percentage of time the hotel employees


Table 4 Organizational variables, social variables, emotion work and their effects on burnout: hierarchical multiple regressions

Emotional exhaustion DepersoMlization Personal accomplishment

B R2 AR’ B R’ AR2 p R2 AR2 4 R’ AR’ /3 R’ Ah” /3 R2 AR2

Step 1
Covariates 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.7 4.1 4.1* 4.1 4.1* 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
Age -.01 -.01 -.17* -.17* .04 .04
Gender -.09* -.09* . I o* .lo* .04 .04
Step 2 22.4 21.7* 17.5 13.4* 11.1 10.8* =!
Complexity -.05 -.06 .18* 2
Control -.04 -.20* -.02 Q
Uncertainty .22* .16* -.08
Organizational problems .19* .05 -.15* x
Concentration necessities - .11* >
.20* z
Time pressure .22* .09 .04 W
Step3 25.1 2.7* 19.6 2.1* 12.4 1.3* $
Social stressors .17* .12* -.03 m
Support supervisor .02 -.01 1
.06 icr
Support colleagues -.07 -.07 .08 13
m
Step 4 12.7 12.0* 28.3 3.2* 16.4 12.3* 23.3 3.7* 14.1 13.8* 19.8 7.4* g
Positive emotions -.09* -.08 -.lo* -.09* .28* .23*
Negative emotions .14* .12* .lo* .11* .02 -.01
Sensitivity requirements .07 .05 -.01 .oo .16* .15*
Interaction control -.07 .oo -.09* .oo .02 .o 1
Emotional dissonance .29* .14* .35* .21* -.09 -.lo*

Note: Emotional exhaustion: N = I 102; Depersonalization: N = 9 5 0 Personal accomplishment: N = 949; * p < .01.
Multiple regression on the left: covariates and emotion work variables; Multiple regression on the right: covariates, organizational, social and emotion work variables.

VI
W
W

540 D. ZAPF ET AL.

spent with customers correlated .13 (p c .09) with emotional exhaustion, whereas the
correlation of emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion in this sample was .33
@< .Ol) (Zapf et al., 1999). However, different results occurred for personal accomplishment
in this subsample. The percentage of time spent with customers correlated .41 @<.01)
with personal accomplishment. This correlation is similar in size to the one in this sub-
sample between requirements for displaying positive emotions and personal accomplishment
(.44, p < .01) and between sensitivity requirements and personal accomplishment (.44,
p < .O 1). These results underscore the positive implications of interaction work. Moreover,
the requirement to display positive emotions and sensitivity requirements accompanies the
meaningfulness of the relationship and is reflected in one’s sense of personal accomplishment.
Variables describing the formal characteristics of interaction in the call center sample
showed the highest correlation between duration of interaction with customers and personal

accomplishment (.12, p < .07) whereas positive emotions correlated .28 (p < .Ol) with
personal accomplishment. These results support the view of Schaufeli and Enzmann (1998)
that indirect measures of emotion work are only barely correlated with emotional exhaus-
tion, whereas more substantial correlations could be found for personal accomplishment.
The third hypothesis referred to potential interaction effects between organizational
and social stressors and emotion work and the effect on burnout. W e investigated interac-

Table 5 Interaction effects of organizational and social stressors and emotional dissonance on
emotional exhaustion and depersonalization

Emotional exhaustion Depersonalization

B R2 AR2 P R2 AR?
Srep I
Age -.02 0.7 0.7* -.18** 4.2 4.2
Gender -.08* ,09**
Step 2
Uncertainty (U) .32** 18.0 17.3** .22** 18.3 14.1**
Emotional dissonance (E) .19** .25**
Step 3
Interaction U*E .08** 18.7 0.7** .08** 18.9 0.6**
Step 2
Organizat. problems (0) .29** 17.4 16.7** .14** 16.2 12.0**
Siep 3
Interaction O*E .08** 18.0 0.6** .os 16.4 0.2
Srep 2
Concentration nec. (C) .20** 12.5 11.8** .08* 15.0 10.8**
Srep 3
Interaction C*E .07 13.0 o.s* .08** 15.7 0.7**
Srep 2
Time pressure (T) .28** 16.1 1S.4** .14** 15.7 11.5**
Step 3
Interaction T*E .08** 16.7 0.6** .09** 16.5 0.8**
Step 2
Social stressors (S) .33** 19.6 18.9** .23** 19.3 15.1**
Step 3
Interaction S*E .os 19.8 0.2 .04 19.5 0.2

N o w : N > IOOO, Gender: 1 women, 2 men; * p < .OS; < .Ol,
**p

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