Flight Attendants’ Emotional Labor and Exhaustion in the Taiwanese Airline Industry

Cheng-Ping CHANG, Ju-Mei CHIU

.

DOI: 10.4236/jssm.2009.24036                

Abstract

Few research studies have discussed the two variables of emotional labor and emotional exhaustion, and even fewer have examined flight attendants as the research subject. The current study employed a questionnaire method to examine 353 Taiwanese flight attendants’ feelings about emotional labor, the status of their emotional exhaustion, and the relationship between emotional labor and emotional exhaustion. The research results indicate that: 1) while the degree of emotional labor operating on female flight attendants is on the medium to high side, the attendants’ perception of emotional exhaustion is only medium; 2) female flight attendants’ emotional labor has a significant positive correlation with their emotional exhaustion; and 3) among the perspectives of emotional labor, the qualities of “deep emotional masking” and “multiformity” have a significant predictive effect on emotional exhaustion.

Keywords

Flight Attendant, Emotional Labor, Emotional Exhaustion

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	S. J. Yuan, “The steward obeys the positive research of hardworking ability and passenger’s satisfaction dependence,” Department of Marketing and Distribution Management National Kaohsing First University of Science and Technology Master's thesis, 2005.
[2]	H. C. Beh and P. McLaughlin, “Effect of long flights on the cognitive performance of air crew,” Perceptual and Motor Skills, Vol. 84, pp. 319–322, 1997.
[3]	S. C. Liang and A. T. Hsieh, “Burnout and workplace deviance among flight attendants in Taiwan,” Psychological Reports, Vol. 101, pp. 457–468, 2007.
[4]	A. R. Hochschild, “The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling,” Berkley, University of California Press, 1983.
[5]	A. S. Wharton, “The affective consequences of service work: Managing emotions on the job,” Work and Occupations, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 205–232, 1993.
[6]	E. Goffman, “The Presentation of self in everyday life, Doubleday and Co,” New York, NY, 1959.
[7]	J. A. Morris and D. C. Feldman, “The dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of emotional labor,” Academy of Management Review, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 986–1010, 1996.
[8]	M. J. Morris and D. C. Feldman, “Managing emotions in the workplace,” Journal of Managerial Issues, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 257–274, 1997.
[9]	M. J. Saxton, J. S. Phillips, and R. N. Blakeney, “The changing nature of work,” San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 365–410, 1991.
[10]	C. L. Cordes and T. W. Dougherty, “A review and integration of research on job burnout,” Academy of Management Review, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 621–656, 1993.
[11]	S. E. Jaskson, R. Schwab, and R. S. Schuler, “Toward an understanding of the burnout phenomenon,” Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 71, No. 1, pp. 630–640, 1986.
[12]	C. Maslach, “Burnout: The cost of caring,” Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982.
[13]	C. Maslach and S. E. Jackson, “Maslach burnout,” San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1986.
[14]	A. Rafaeli and R. I. Sutton, “The expression of emotion in organizational life,” Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 1–42, 1989.
[15]	L. C. Wang, “Role’s pressure influences the course discussion that mood exhausts,” Department of Business Administration, Institute of Behavior Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Master’s thesis, 1999.
[16]	S. P. Lin, “Organize the development of the form of amount of load of labor service of mood,” Sun Yat-Sen Management Review, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 427–447, 2000.
[17]	C. Maslach and M. P. Leiter, “The truth about burnout,” San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1997.
[18]	P. K. Adelmann, “Emotional labor and employee well-being,” Doctoral Dissertation, The University of Michigan, 1989.