Work engagement as a moderator between emotional labor and burnout

Background: Emotional labor is a unique work stressor that affects psychological well-being of employees. Two forms of emotional labor are identified, namely surface acting (i.e. modify the external emotion only) and deep acting (i.e. regulate both external and internal emotion) and they relate differently to burnout (Hulsheger and Schewe, 2011). This study explores whether work engagement moderates the association between emotional labor and burnout. Methods: Questionnaires were distributed to 254 teachers in China. Maslach Burnout inventory (Maslach and Jackson, 1986), Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2003), and Emotional Labor Scale (Diefendorff, Croyle, and Gosserand, 2005) were used to measure burnout, work engagement, and emotional labor, respectively. Findings: Results show that surface acting was positively related to two burnout dimensions, including emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, whereas deep acting was negatively related to one burnout dimension, namely lack of personal accomplishment. Moderated regression showed that work engagement interacted with surface acting in predicting depersonalization: Employees with lower work engagement and frequently using surface acting tend to report higher level of depersonalization when compared to employees with higher work engagement. Discussion: Strategies to enhance employees’ psychological well-being in the workplace will be discussed, such as strengthening of social support from supervisors and coworker.