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Title:

Emotional dissonance in organizations: Antecedents, consequences, and moderators. By:


Abraham, Rebecca, Genetic, Social & General Psychology Monographs, 87567547, May98,
Vol. 124, Issue 2
Database:
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
EMOTIONAL DISSONANCE IN ORGANIZATIONS: ANTECEDENTS, CONSEQUENCES,
AND MODERATORS
Contents
1. The Emotional Dissonance Construct
2. Antecedents, Consequences, and Moderators of Emotional Dissonance
3. Antecedents of Emotional Dissonance
4. Moderators of the Emotional Dissonance-Job Satisfaction Relationship
5. Method
6. Participants
7. Measures
8. Results
9. Discussion
10. REFERENCES
ABSTRACT. Emotional dissonance, or person-role conflict originating from the conflict between
expressed and experienced emotions, was examined. The study was based on a reconceptualization
of the emotional labor construct, with dissonance as a facet rather than a consequence of emotional
labor. The effects of emotional dissonance on organizational criteria were isolated, thereby
explaining some of the conflicting results of earlier studies. Empirically, job autonomy and negative
affectivity as antecedents of emotional dissonance, and emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction as
consequences of emotional dissonance, were explored. Self-monitoring and social support were
tested as moderators of the emotional dissonance-job satisfaction relationship. Significant
relationships with job autonomy, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction were found. Social
support significantly moderated the emotional dissonance-job satisfaction relationship.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE U.S. ECONOMY to a service economy has been rapid. Currently, three
fourths of the gross national product and 9 of every 10 new jobs are related to services (Wharton,
1993; Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Berry, 1990). Concomitant with this transition, there has been a
sharp rise in jobs requiring direct, face-to-face interaction with the final customer. Because
customers' perceptions of quality are partly contingent on the expressed emotions of service
providers, organizations attempt to control the emotional displays of their employees. Adelmann
(1989) estimated that the jobs of fully one third of U.S. workers incorporate elements of emotional
barter: Workers are rewarded specifically for overt displays of feeling. For example, bill collectors are
expected to be hostile, funeral home directors somber, and health service workers nurturing and
caring. The act of expressing organizationally desired emotions during service transactions is termed
emotional labor (Morris & Feldman, 1996).
In an assessment of seven job classes spanning the breadth of employment in the service sector,
Hochschild (1983) identified 48 occupational categories as high in emotional labor, including nursing,
therapy, personnel administration, table serving, and teaching. A study of emotional labor is
warranted from both practical and theoretical perspectives. From a practical standpoint,
organizations need to be aware of the impact of emotional labor in order to maximize the
effectiveness of individuals in frontline, boundary-spanning positions who act as corporate
representatives to the final customer. Theoretically, it is important to place emotional labor within a
contingency framework in order to assess situational influences, including the impact of job
characteristics, personality variables, and organizational characteristics.
In earlier studies, emotional labor was envisioned as a unidimensional construct solely concerned
with the intensity and frequency of emotional displays. In separate studies, researchers investigated
the consequences of frequent, organizationally mandated emotional displays in high-emotional-labor
jobs such as flight attendants (Hochschild, 1983), table servers (Adelmann, 1989), police ofricers
(Stenross & Kleinman, 1989), students (Smith & Kleinman, 1989), and supermarket clerks (Tolich,
1993). In her seminal work, Hochschild (1983) observed deleterious mental health effects of high
emotional labor, including drug and alcohol abuse, headaches, and absenteeism. Richman (1988)
found psychological distress among female medical students confronted with chronically ill patients.
In an extension of those findings to an organizational context, Adelmann (1989) theorized that high
emotional labor is concomitant with job dissatisfaction. Empirical investigations of job satisfaction,
however, did not lend support to that hypothesis. Employees who "tuned out" organizational
demands or used emotional labor to reduce ambiguity by avoiding embarrassing situations
experienced increases in job satisfaction (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Morris & Feldman, 1996).
Tolich (1993) described supermarket clerks who genuinely enjoyed displaying organizationally
prescribed emotions in the form of jokes, entertainment, and special services for customers who
chose their checkout lines. These findings suggest that the construct of emotional labor is inherently
more complex than was originally envisioned and that rival studies measure different underlying
dimensions.
In a recent reconceptualization, Morris and Feldman (1996) posited that the frequency and variety of
emotional displays may evoke positive reactions, whereas emotional dissonance, or the conflict
between expressed and experienced emotions, may cause dissatisfaction. For example,
organizational display rules that require an employee to smile may generate two possible reactions. If
the individual has a natural inclination to smile, this demand is unlikely to have any adverse
consequences. On the other hand, if the individual's experienced emotional displays do not include
smiling, a conflict between expected and experienced emotions may result.
In other words, emotional dissonance as a form of person-role conflict (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek,&
Rosenthal, 1964) between personal and organizationally mandated emotions is a facet of emotional
labor that is distinct from the amount and frequency of emotional expression. As a stressor with
potentially deleterious effects, emotional dissonance is worth investigating because greater
understanding may permit managers to develop effective coping strategies.
My primary purpose in this research was to study the antecedents, consequences, and moderators
of emotional dissonance. The participants were drawn from a cross-section of industries, so that the
results could be more generalizable than is possible from existing studies, which have focused on
specific, high-emotional, labor-service providers, including table servers (Adelmann, 1989), flight
attendants (Hochschild, 1983), and supermarket clerks (Tolich, 1993).
The Emotional Dissonance Construct
Emotional dissonance occurs when an employee's expressed emotions are in conformity with
organizational norms but do not represent his or her true feelings (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987).
Dissonance may originate from faking in good faith--workers accept prescribed emotions even
though those emotions are in conflict with the workers' true beliefs. Whether the effect of such
dissonance on mental well-being is a threat or a palliative appears to be a function of the depth of
emotion involved (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). Hochschild (1983) found that the mental health of
seemingly cheerful flight attendants who accepted the importance of friendliness, but internally hid
their contempt for passengers, was adversely affected. In contrast, Maslach (1978) asserted that for
health service workers, acceptance of emotional detachment as the standard of behavior prevented
burnout that could have been induced by devotion to terminally ill patients.
The other source of emotional dissonance, faking in bad faith, has more serious negative
consequences. Faking in bad faith occurs when employees reject the norms of prescribed behavior--
for example, employees who believe that "pasting on a smile" should not be part of their jobs (Rafaeli
& Sutton, 1987). At the very least, such individuals are likely to be poor employees because they
most likely conform to organizational dictates only when they are being closely monitored. Research
in role theory suggests that such dissonance is a form of person-role conflict, in which a person's
response conflicts with role expectations of the desired level of emotion (Kahn et al., 1964). If the
preferred response is compliance, it may be associated with strong feelings of duplicity. If the
preferred response is resistance, organizational pressure to conform may be progressively increased
until capitulation occurs. In either event, psychological well-being may be threatened (Adelmann,
1989).
Antecedents, Consequences, and Moderators of Emotional Dissonance
What causes emotional dissonance? What is the impact of emotional dissonance on organizational
criteria? To what extent do self-monitoring and social support effectively buffer and (thereby) reduce
the harmful effects of emotional dissonance on job satisfaction? Exploration of these questions
requires the identification of job autonomy and negative affectivity as antecedents, and emotional
exhaustion and job dissatisfaction as consequences of, emotional dissonance, with self-monitoring
and social support set forth as moderators of the dissonance-job satisfaction relationship. These
relationships form the emotional dissonance component of Morris and Feldman's (1996) emotional
labor model (see Figure 1).
Antecedents of Emotional Dissonance
Job autonomy. Job autonomy consists of the degree to which an employee has freedom,
independence, and discretion in performing job tasks (Hackman & Oldham, 1975; Morris & Feldman,
1996). In an autonomous environment, the voluntary rather than the involuntary performance of
emotional displays leads to the suggestion that the service provider has discretion in either
superseding acceptable organizational norms or modifying unacceptable display rules to conform to
experienced emotion, in turn reducing emotional dissonance. Case studies of voluntary performance
of emotional displays have revealed that U.S. meat cutters and Turkish butchers, enjoined to value
their work, upheld it as being honorable (Meara, 1974). Likewise, Tolich (1993) found manifestations
of autonomy among supermarket clerks in the form of inquiries about family members, expedient
processing, and the sharing of intimate personal details with preferred customers (referred to as "my
customer," reciprocating with "my checker"). In both of these cases, autonomy permitted the service
provider to reduce dissonance by exceeding organizational requirements and acting in a manner that
conformed to his or her own experienced emotions.
As an example of the latter form of dissonance reduction, Rafaeli and Sutton (1989) cited cases of
restaurant managers who implicitly condoned the behavior of waiters and waitresses who displayed
annoyance toward difficult customers, in violation of norms of friendliness. In such situations, internal
feelings have a stronger influence over expressed emotions than norms do.
Miles's (1980) analysis of boundary spanning established the theoretical framework for the job
autonomy-dissonance relationship. Exceeding organizational norms is the domain of boundary
spanners, like supermarket clerks, who are granted discretion to deal with unexpected problems as
they strive to maintain relationships with long-term customers. Discretion of waiters and waitresses to
display true feelings to difficult customers may stem from management's recognition that these are
nonroutine situations for which appropriate standardized responses are nonexistent, rendering it
infeasible for management to prescribe and employees to adhere to standards of behavior.
In the only empirical study exploring the emotional labor-job autonomy relationship, job autonomy
was found to moderate the relationship between emotional labor and well-being among individuals
with high job autonomy who experienced fewer negative effects of emotional labor than those with
low job autonomy (Erickson, 1991). The potential of job autonomy to reduce emotional dissonance
(as a facet of emotional labor) and, consequently, improve well-being may have been responsible for
this moderator effect. This finding led to my first hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Job autonomy has an inverse relationship with emotional dissonance.
Negative affectivity. Affectivity is defined as a general tendency to experience a particular mood (e.g.,
to be happy or sad) or to react to objects (e.g., jobs, people) in a particular way or with particular
emotions (Lazarus, 1993; Morris & Feldman, 1996). In a series of studies, Watson and Clark (1984)
observed that individuals with high negative affectivity take a negative view of life in terms of both
self-perception and the perceptions of others. Over time, such individuals are apt to experience
anxiety and report feelings of distress, discomfort, and dissatisfaction, irrespective of any external
source of stress. Moreover, negative affectivity is the predisposition to accept negative emotions.
Conceptually, individuals who have a predilection toward experiencing negative emotions in
organizations where the display rules require positive emotions are more likely to find divergence
between experienced and prescribed emotions (Morris & Feldman, 1996).
Hypothesis 2: In organizations with positive display rules, negative affectivity has a direct, positive
relationship with emotional dissonance.
Emotional exhaustion. Rafaeli and Sutton's (1987) basic argument was that emotional dissonance is
a form of role conflict. Because role conflict has been found to be antecedent to emotional
exhaustion, it follows that emotional dissonance is, in turn, a predictor of emotional exhaustion.
By virtue of its origination from a clash between personal values (genuine emotions) and role
demands of others in the role set (prescribed emotions) manifested as conflicting emotions,
emotional dissonance is a form of person-role conflict (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). Kahn et al. (1964)
operationalized person-role conflict as "feeling that you have to do things on the job that are against
your better judgment"; "things on the job" may be considered the display of emotions that are
inherently unpleasant. Morris and Feldman (1996) cited the case of debt collectors who experienced
dissonance when they felt sympathy for debtors while they were constrained by their employers to be
harsh and unmerciful.
Person-role stress may generate two possible reactions. An individual with a rigid mental framework
may arrive at the conclusion that failure to match his or her standards to display rules stems from
aberrations in the rules, which must be rejected. In contrast, a flexible person might internalize the
source of emotional discrepancy by attributing it to personal weakness. In either event, there is
incompatibility between organizationally mandated and personally experienced emotions, or
emotional dissonance.
As the pressure for conformity increases with multiple, conflicting organizational demands, continued
attempts to meet those demands lead to frustration and emotional distress, culminating in emotional
exhaustion (Jackson, Schwab, & Schuler, 1986). This causal sequence may be the underlying
reason for research findings that role conflict leads to emotional exhaustion over time among
educators (Jackson et al., 1986) and supervisors (Lee & Ashforth, 1993). Lee and Ashforth's
comparison of different models of burnout (Golembiewski, Munzenrider, & Stevenson, 1986; Leiter &
Maslach, 1988) revealed that the best-fitting model was the revised Leiter and Maslach model
depicting role conflict as directly affecting exhaustion. This finding led to my third hypothesis
Hypothesis 3: Emotional dissonance has a direct, positive relationship with emotional exhaustion.
Job satisfaction. The results of studies that have investigated the emotional labor-job satisfaction
relationship have been inconclusive chiefly because emotional dissonance with potentially negative
consequences has been confounded with the frequency and variety of emotional labor and the
attentiveness to display rules that may be positively associated with job satisfaction (Morris &
Feldman, 1996). Morris and Feldman's findings revealed no relationship attributable to emotional
detachment (Leidner, 1989; Staw, Bell, & Clausen, 1986; Wharton, 1993); positive relationships
attributable to the potential of organizational display rules to reduce uncertainty or avoid
embarrassing situations (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993); and a negative relationship based on
employee unhappiness at having to express organizationally desired emotions (Arielmann, 1989).
Two studies, one theoretical and the other empirical, provide some clarification of the issue of job
satisfaction and emotional labor. Lawler (1973) argued for the use of discrepancy theory in
establishing a conceptual framework for studying job satisfaction. In a general sense, job satisfaction
arises from differences between actual outcomes received and some other outcome level. Received
outcomes below the other outcome level result in job dissatisfaction. By the same token, if received
outcomes include genuine emotions and other outcomes consist of norms for emotional expression,
their mutual discrepancy or dissonance results in job dissatisfaction. Rutter and Fielding (1988)
identified sources of job stress among British prison officers and the impact of that stress on job
satisfaction. As a source of job stress, the need to suppress emotions was found to be significantly
inversely correlated with job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 4: Emotional dissonance has an inverse relationship with job satisfaction.
Moderators of the Emotional Dissonance-Job Satisfaction Relationship
Self-monitoring. Synder (1974) defined self-monitoring as the ability to control expressive behavior to
match the expression and self-presentation of others in social situations. The construct of self-
monitoring is multidimensional, with components of acting and other-directedness (Riggio &
Friedman, 1982), both of which are necessary to reduce the harmful effects of dissonance. Other-
directedness results in social sensitivity and knowledge of established practices, leading to the
internalization of prescribed norms for emotional expression. Acting refers to posed responsiveness--
that is, the adjustment of behavior to conform to norms. Intuitively, if behavior takes the form of
emotional expression, people who are high self-monitors will use cues based on emotional
appropriateness to bring their own emotional displays into convergence. The innate desire and ability
to conform, even in situations with considerable emotional dissonance, may, at least partly, alleviate
job dissatisfaction.
In an investigation of the performance of boundary-spanning field representatives, Caldwell and
O'Reilly (1982) observed that successful performance was contingent on self-monitoring capability.
People who were high self-monitors used persuasion more effectively to communicate with multiple
groups, including franchisees, managers, and suppliers. Caldwell and O'Reilly conjectured that the
superior performance of high self-monitors could be partly attributed to greater job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 5: Self-monitoring moderates the relationship between emotional dissonance and job
satisfaction; high self-monitors experience less job dissatisfaction resulting from emotional
dissonance than low self-monitors do.
Social support. Researchers on stress have documented numerous cases in which the support
provided by large social networks of family, spouse, and friends has had a buffering effect on stress,
because those networks afford protection from the harmful effects of stressful conditions. Individuals
confronted with multiple demands that strain their coping capabilities have drawn on the support of
social networks to avoid being overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness and loss of self-esteem (see
Cohen & Wills, 1985, for a review).
House (1981) posited that harmonious interactions between group members may have been the
source of increased productivity at a Volvo plant where work-flow processes were redesigned from
single task per worker to group projects. Cobb and Kasl's (1977) profile of workers who had recently
become unemployed showed substantially less psychological distress and fewer physical disorders,
including rheumatoid arthritis and high cholesterol, among terminees with higher spousal and family
social support.
It follows that boundary spanners subjected to conflicting personal and organizational emotional
demands may seek counsel from and vent their true feelings to colleagues, thereby preventing
dissonance from adversely affecting job satisfaction. Hochschild (1983) cited examples of informal
meetings among groups of flight attendants, who lifted restraints on their own behavior by openly
exhibiting anger and annoyance as they exchanged anecdotes about difficult passengers.
Hypothesis 6: Social support moderates the relationship between emotional dissonance and job
satisfaction; individuals with high levels of social support are less likely than those with low social
support to experience negative effects of emotional dissonance on job satisfaction.
Method
Participants
Customer-service representatives (N- 110) in the telecommunications, entertainment, food service,
and clothing retail industries in the southeastern United States were asked to participate in the study.
A variety of industries were chosen in order to obtain different levels of emotional dissonance. Four
research coordinators and I met with groups of participants over a 2-week period. Each group was
informed that the focus of the study was emotions; however, to avoid response bias, we did not
elaborate. Questionnaires were distributed and responses collected at a single setting for each
group. Four surveys were deemed unusable; therefore, the final number of participants was 106. Of
those, 44 (41%) were men, 50 (47%) were women, and 12 participants failed to report gender; the
mean age was 27.74 years (SD - 8.83). Organizational tenure averaged 6.5 years (SD = 6.0).
Measures
Age, gender, and organizational tenure were specified as control variables, to control for interrater
variability.
Hackman and Oldham's (1975) 3-item Job Autonomy subscale of the 21item Job Diagnostic Survey
served as the measure of job autonomy. Alpha coefficients in past studies have clustered at .73
(Dunham, 1976; Pierce & Dunham, 1978); the alpha coefficient (.74) for the present study was
comparable, indicating acceptable reliability. Construct validity of the Job Diagnostic Survey with
component subscales of Skill Variety, Task Identity, Task Significance, and Job Autonomy has been
established through four factor structures converging to the requisite dimensions (Abdel-Halim, 1978;
Dunham, Aldag, & Brief, 1977; Katz, 1978).
Holbrook's (1981) four-item, 7-point bipolar Affect Scale measuring both positive and negative
affectivity was used in accordance with Watson and Clark's (1984) and Watson and Tellegen's
(1985) contention that the two forms of affectivity are bipolar dimensions of a single construct.
Construct validity was established by a unidimensional factor structure with all items loading on a
single factor (Holbrook, 1981). The scale has high reliability: alpha values of .83 to .95 were reported
in the present and earlier studies (Holbrook, 1981; Leigh, 1984).
Emotional dissonance was measured with two categories of items from Adelmann's (1989)
Emotional Labor Scale. The first category measured the extent to which emotional expression was
expected as part of the job. Items included "To what degree do you think making the customer feel
important is expected of you as part of your job?" and "To what degree do you think concealing any
negative feelings about the customer is expected of you as part of your job?" The second category
consisted of identical questions rephrased to reflect the degree to which the respondent would
actually display prescribed emotions. Corresponding items included "To what degree do you think
you should actually make the customer feel important, or conceal negative feelings about the
customer?" The differences between parallel items from the two categories were computed;
dissonance was the degree to which the intensity of actual feelings was less than expressed feelings.
The 21-item Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI; Maslach, 1978), with three constituent subscales
measuring emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization, were the basis
for the measurement of emotional exhaustion. The Emotional Exhaustion subscale is a nine-item, 7-
point measure anchored by intensity ratings ranging from very mild, barely noticeable (1) to major,
very strong (7). The use of this scale in numerous studies (see Maslach & Jackson, 1985, for a
review) has confirmed its reliability and validity. For example, Iwanicki and Schwab (1981) obtained a
three-factor structure with negative correlations between the Personal Accomplishment subscale and
the other subscales, with internal consistency reliability estimates averaging from .89 to .90 for the
Emotional Exhaustion subscale.
Job satisfaction was measured by Hackman and Oldham's (1975) five-item, 7-point Job Satisfaction
subscale of the Job Diagnostic Survey. Cronbach's alphas of .76, .77, and .74 in successive studies
confirmed internal consistency reliability (Hackman & Lawler, 1971; Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Wall,
Clegg, & Jackson, 1978).
Self-monitoring was measured by Synder's (1974) 25-item, Self-Monitoring Scale. Synder (1974)
obtained a Kuder-Richardson 20 reliability value of .70 and a test-retest reliability of.83, similar to the
.75 value obtained in the present study. Discriminant validity was established through negative
correlations with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (q & Marlowe, 1964) and with the
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Psychopathic Deviate Scale, and because there was no
relationship with the Machiavellianism (Christie & Geis, 1970), Achievement Anxiety (Alpert & Haber,
1960), and Inner-Other Directedhess (Kassarjian, 1962) scales. Other validity evidence consists of
high self-monitoring scores for stage actors and low scores for patients in psychiatric wards.
Social support was measured by 17 items pertaining to support and understanding from family and
friends from Caplan's (1976) Social Support Scale. Directions were modified, with co-workers
forming the source of social support. Reliabilities were acceptable: The present study's estimate was
equivalent to Jayaratne and Chess's (1984) value of .87.
Results
Hypotheses 1 through 4. were tested with structural equations; Hypotheses 5 and 6 were tested with
moderated hierarchical regressions. The proposed model depicted in Figure 1 consists of 2
exogenous variables (job autonomy and negative affectivity) and two latent endogenous variables
(emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction). The Amos 3.6 computer program, providing maximum
likelihood estimates of parameters in path models, is a more realistic data analysis procedure for the
social sciences, based on its capacity to incorporate measurement error and correlate residuals
(Erickson, 1991; Lavee, 1988).
As the most widely used test statistic, a statistically significant chi-square in structural equations
models suggests a significant discrepancy between the data and the hypothesized model. Models
that have significant chi-square values are deficient. Other measures include fit indices that are more
robust measures than the chi-square, because they are less influenced by sample size and are
resistant to multinormality (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1984). Fit index values above 0.9 are prerequisite for
satisfactory model fit.
With relative fit and Tucker-Lewis indices below 0.90 (RFI = 0.60, TLI = 0.61) and a significant
chi[2](5,N = 106) = 151.743, p < .011, the proposed model was rejected. The model was revised with
the omission of negative affectivity (the only parameter estimate that failed to achieve significance in
the proposed model; see Table 1). The revised model achieved adequate fit, with an insignificant
chi[2](1,N = 106) = 2.467, p > .05, and all fit indices above the threshold of 0.90. All remaining
parameter estimates, including autonomy to dissonance, dissonance to exhaustion, and dissonance
to job satisfaction, were significant (p < .05) in the hypothesized direction, supporting Hypotheses 1,
3, and 4. Hypothesis 2, pertaining to the explanation of dissonance by negative affectivity, was
rejected.
Two moderated hierarchical regressions were performed, with self-monitoring and social support as
respective moderators of the dissonance-job satisfaction relationship. The procedure involves the
stepwise entry of blocks of variables with control variables entered first, followed by main variables at
the second level, and interactions at the third level. These are highly restricted regressions, with any
variance attributable to the moderator effect's being measured only after accounting for all the
variance attributable to main effects.
Age, gender, and organizational tenure were entered at the first level, followed by emotional
dissonance and self-monitoring or social support at the second level, and finally, the dissonance-self-
monitoring or dissonance-social support interaction. Self-monitoring failed to explain a significant
amount of the variance in job satisfaction, with the overall R[2] of this model being a marginal 2%
(see Table 2). Hypothesis 6 was supported: Social support explained 16% of the variance in job
satisfaction, t(91) = 4.97, p < .01, and the emotional dissonance-social support interaction explained
a significant 6% of the variance in job satisfaction, t(91) = 2.65, p < .01. Both linear and curvilinear
forms (quadratic and cubic functional forms) were tested for both regressions. None of the curvilinear
functional forms contributed to more variance than the linear models did. A separate regression
containing both self-monitoring and social support as predictors was used to test the significance of
the emotional dissonance/self-monitoting/social support interaction. No significant interactions were
found.
To explore the moderator effect of social support, I divided the sample into high- and low-social-
support groups. Regressions were repeated for each subgroup, with the high-social-support
subgroup exhibiting a positive relationship between emotional dissonance and job satisfaction (see
Figure 2). As a coping strategy, high social support is powerful enough to prevent dissonance from
adversely affecting job satisfaction. The model depicting all significant relationships in the revised
model, with moderator effects, is shown in Figure 3.
Discussion
This study has provided evidence that establishes emotional dissonance as an independent
construct, distinct from the frequency and variety of emotional labor. In other words, the results attest
to the robustness of the Morris-Feldman (1996) conceptualization of emotional labor as a facet rather
than a consequence of emotional labor, with its unique antecedents, consequences, and moderators.
Cognitively, the existence of emotional dissonance in organizational life leads to personal
fragmentation of the self. Because external behavior, with its emphasis on controlled emotional
displays, is primarily an artifice, an individual's personal repertory of emotions becomes estranged
from the true self (Erickson, 1991). Over time, this estrangement may lead to emotional exhaustion
and job dissatisfaction.
In an era of corporate downsizing, restructuring, and rapid technological change, society may be
experiencing rising levels of emotional dissonance as employees strive to bring felt emotions into
convergence with norms for the sake of job security. With the inevitable onset of job dissatisfaction
and emotional exhaustion, organizations must determine whether they are willing to accept the costs
of widespread emotional estrangement and alienation, or if they wish to be proactive in preventing
the harmful effects of emotional dissonance. Two methods for possibly reducing dissonance include
granting greater job autonomy and encouraging social support.
Research has demonstrated that job autonomy reduces dissonance and moderates the emotional
labor/psychological well-being relationship (Erickson, 1991). In addition, the beneficial impact of job
autonomy on job satisfaction and well-being has been demonstrated (Kalleberg & Griffin, 1978)
through its potential to bolster confidence and self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977; Erickson, 1991).
Erickson distinguished between lack of control in manufacturing from service industries, with the
former creating powerlessness over the immediate work process and the latter producing the more
debilitating powerlessness over the self and emotions. To the extent that job autonomy permits a
restoration of control over emotions, it may serve to prevent the fragmentation of the self and
estrangement.
Social support emerged as a strong moderator of the emotional dissonance-job satisfaction
relationship. The emotional support provided by co-workers may reverse the deleterious 'effects of
emotional dissonance. Organizations should provide opportunities for socialization through the
formation of informal networks for the expression of genuine emotion. Future studies should
empirically investigate the impact of dissonance, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, on other
organizational criteria, including self-esteem, anxiety (Morris & Feldman, 1996), turnover, and
absenteeism.
The placement of emotional dissonance within the framework of role theory as a form of role conflict
suggests that reactions to dissonance may be contingent on personality and that personality may act
as a moderator of relationships between emotional dissonance and organizational outcomes. Kahn
et al. (1964) found that extroverted and flexible individuals suffer less loss of confidence, respect,
and trust in the organization and less tension in high-conflict situations. Both extroverts and flexible
(other-directed) individuals become more sociable under conditions of high conflict, suggesting the
effective use of social support as a coping strategy. It follows that emotional dissonance may have
less aversive effects on extroverts and flexible persons.
Abraham (1997) found that thinking styles moderate the role conflict-job satisfaction relationship.
Thinking styles are based on Sternberg's (1990) theory of mental self-government; Sternberg
concluded that contextually intelligent persons seek harmony between their abilities and preferred
styles by capitalizing on their strengths and compensating for their weaknesses. The judicial thinking
style--the ability to judge and evaluate existing structures--seems appropriate as a coping strategy for
dissonance because the judicial stylist is capable of undertaking an analysis and comparison of his
or her own emotional displays with prescribed norms. Consequently, the moderation of the
relationship between emotional dissonance and job satisfaction, tension, anxiety, self-esteem, and
emotional exhaustion by extroversion-introversion, flexibility-rigidity, and thinking styles must be
tested empirically.
By identifying emotional dissonance as one of the sources of the negative impact of emotional labor
on job satisfaction, the present study has partially succeeded in explaining Adelmann's (1989)
dissonance-job satisfaction findings; future research should determine the impact of the other facets
of emotional labor, namely, the frequency of emotional display, the variety of expressed emotions,
and attentiveness to required display rules.
The lack of significance of self-monitoring as a moderator of the dissonance-job satisfaction
relationship may arise from the sample used; because selfmonitoring is closely related to
organizational level, managers and professional staff display stronger self-monitoring capabilities
than the lower level service employees who were the participants in this study.
There is a need to identify moderators and mediators of the emotional dissonance-emotional
exhaustion relationship. In a supplementary analysis, selfmonitoring and social support were both
tested as moderators, followed by a test of self-monitoring as a mediator of the dissonance-emotional
exhaustion relationship. No significant relationships were found. Hochschild (1983) and Morris and
Feldman (1996) conjectured that emotional dissonance may result in role internalization, which may
moderate its relationship with psychological wellbeing. If this argument is extended to emotional
exhaustion, self-monitoring may be further along the causal sequence from emotional dissonance to
psychological well-being. Emotional dissonance may cause role internalization as the individual
attempts to absorb organizational display rules; the desire to act according to organizational criteria
causes self-monitoring to ensure successful internalization; and self-monitoring, in turn, reduces job
dissatisfaction or emotional exhaustion.
This study was an initial attempt to define and relate a facet of emotional labor to organizational
outcomes. Future research should extend this analysis to other dimensions of the construct in order
to develop a comprehensive framework.
This study was conducted at the Department of Business and Administrative Studies of the Farquhar
Center for Undergraduate Studies, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The
study was supported in part by research funds from the Farquhar Center.
Address correspondence to Rebecca Abraham, Farquhar Center for Undergraduate Studies, Nova
Southeastern University, 3301 College Ave, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314;
email:abraham@polaris.ncs.nova.edu.
TABLE 1

Parameter Estimates for Paths in the Proposed and Revised Models

Legends:

A = Path description
B = Standardized path estimates: Proposed model
C = Standardized path estimates: Revised model

A B C

Job autonomy-->Emotional dissonance 0.214[*] 0.258[*]
Negative affectivity-->Emotional dissonance 0.080 --
Emotional dissonance-->Emotional exhaustion 0.322[*] 0.322[*]
Emotional dissonance-->Job satisfaction 0.227[*] 0.279[*]
chi[2] 151.743[***] 2.467
NFI 0.87 0.99
RFI 0.60 0.97
IFL 0.87 0.99
TLI 0.61 0.98
CFI 0.87 0.99

Note. NFI = normed fit index. RFI = relative fit index. IFI =
incremental fit index. TLI = TuckerLewis index. CFI = comparative
fit index. [*]p < .05. [***]p < .001.

TABLE 2

Summary of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Variables
Moderating the Emotional Dissonance-Job Satisfaction Relationship
(N = 160)

Legends:

A = Variable
B = Model 1: Beta
C = Model 1: t
D = Model 2: Beta
E = Model 2: t

A B C D E

Step 1
Age .06 -.41 -.06 -.41
Gender .01 .16 .02 .16
Tenure .01 .01 .06 .01
Step 2
Emotional
dissonance (ED) -.09 -.83 -.53 -2.79[**]
Self-monitoring
(SM) .11 1.08
Social support
(SS) 1.84 4.97[***]
Step 3
ED x SM -.33 -.31
ED x SS 1.74 2.65[**]

Note. For Model 1, R2 = .00 for Step 1; AR2 = .00 for Step 2; AR2
= .02 for Step 3 (ns). For Model 2, R2 = .00 for Step 1 (ns); AR2
= .18 for Step 2 (p < .01); AR2 = .06 for Step 3 (p < .01).
[**]p < .01. [***]p < .001.
GRAPH: FIGURE 2. Social support as a moderator of the emotional dissonance-job satisfaction
relationship.
DIAGRAM: FIGURE 1. The proposed emotional dissonance model.
DIAGRAM: FIGURE 3. The revised emotional dissonance model.
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~~~~~~~~
By REBECCA ABRAHAM, Farquhar Center for Undergraduate Studies, Nova Southeastern
University

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