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APAD: emotional labor

移花接木 2026-01-06 02:29:13 ( reads)

Emotional labor is an idiom meaning to manage your own or others' emotions to meet job or relationship expectations, often involving suppressing real feelings (like frustration) or faking others (like cheerfulness) for a desired outcome, like a positive customer experience or harmonious home life, and it can lead to stress and burnout. More specifically, workers are expected to regulate their personas during interactions with customers, co-workers, clients, and managers. This includes analysis and decision-making in terms of the expression of emotion, whether actually felt or not, as well as its opposite: the suppression of emotions that are felt but not expressed. This is done so as to produce a certain feeling in the customer or client that will allow the company or organization to succeed.

Coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild, it was originally for paid work (e.g., flight attendants, nurses) but now broadly includes unseen household and relationship tasks, often disproportionately falling on women and marginalized groups. 

Roles that have been identified as requiring emotional labor include those involved in education, public administration, law, childcare, health care, social work,  hospitality,  media,  advocacy,  aviation  and  espionage.


Examples

Job: A waiter smiling at a difficult customer.
Job: A debt collector suppressing sympathy to extract payment.
Home: Remembering birthdays or scheduling doctor's appointments.
Home: Managing family logistics and anticipating needs. 

跟帖(13)

最西边的岛上

2026-01-06 05:39:57

Learned. Emotional labour was exactly what I saw&empathized

最西边的岛上

2026-01-06 05:50:19

when visiting Japan fall of 23. Workers there worked like

移花接木

2026-01-06 10:24:09

Don't have to go far, it's around the corners

7grizzly

2026-01-06 08:40:00

Sounds like a big part of adulting.

最西边的岛上

2026-01-06 08:53:54

& submerged in the society, no more zig when others zag? ;-)

移花接木

2026-01-06 10:23:04

can't not be more true,

最西边的岛上

2026-01-06 09:03:17

Think again, emotional labour is a must to military, right?

移花接木

2026-01-06 10:21:44

No, military is obedient machine, no emotion

最西边的岛上

2026-01-06 10:36:35

Yes Sir, no emotion, just march: left right, left right, ...

JoyAnna.

2026-01-06 15:09:12

提供情绪价值的emotional labor,成年人的世界真不容易

最西边的岛上

2026-01-06 15:49:24

同叹!When young, we wanted 2 grow up fast & C the world; When

最西边的岛上

2026-01-06 15:52:55

in it, we found it's so different from fairytales we read..

移花接木

2026-01-06 17:24:59

这里包含两层意思不仅是控制自己的情绪,还要调动己方以及对方的情绪