This study examined the relationships of social stressors arising from interactions with civilians and suspects (outsiders) and coworkers and supervisors (insiders) with turnover intention, psychological distress, and emotional exhaustion. It also examined surface acting—a way of faking appropriate emotions—as a mediator of these relationships. Using online survey data collected from 196 police officers, the authors found that social stressors from both sources were related to all three outcomes and that surface acting mediated these relationships. These results extend the literature on emotional labor by demonstrating that models of emotional labor apply to police officers, whose customers differ from those traditionally found in the literature. This study also extends the occupational stress literature by showing that a similar emotional regulation process linking social stressors from customers to strains also holds for social stressors arising from organizational insiders.
Adams, G.A., & Beehr, T.A. ( 1998). Turnover and retirement: A comparison of their similarities and differences. Personnel Psychology, 51, 643-665.
2.
Anshel, M.H. ( 2000). A conceptual model and implications for coping with stressful events in police work. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 27, 375-400.
3.
Arnetz, B., Nevedal, D., Lumley, M., Backman, L., & Lublin, A. ( 2009). Trauma resiliency training for police: Psychophysiological and performance effects. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology , 24, 1-9.
4.
Bakker, A., & Heuven, E. ( 2006). Emotional dissonance, burnout, and in-role performance among nurses and police officers. International Journal of Stress Management, 13, 423-440.
5.
Baron, R.M., & Kenny, D.A. ( 1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.
6.
Bolger, N., DeLongis, A., Kessler, R.C., & Schilling, E.A. (1989). The emotional effects of daily stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 57, 808-818.
7.
Bono, J., Foldes, H., Vinson, G., & Muros, J. ( 2007). Workplace emotions: The role of supervision and leadership . Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1357-1367.
8.
Bowling, N.A., & Beehr, T.A. ( 2006). Workplace harassment from the victim’s perspective: A theoretical model and meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 998-1012.
9.
Brotheridge, C.M., & Lee, R.T. ( 2002). Testing a conservation of resources model of the dynamics of emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology , 7, 57-67.
10.
Brown, J., & Campbell, E. ( 1994). Stress and policing. New York, NY : Wiley.
11.
Bruk-Lee, V., & Spector, P. ( 2006). The social-stressors counterproductive work behaviors link: Are conflicts with supervisors and co-workers the same? Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 11, 145-156.
12.
Burnfield, J., Clark, L., Devendorf, S., & Jex, S. ( 2004, April). Understanding workplace incivility: Scale development and validation. Paper presented at the 19th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, IL.
13.
Caplan, R.D., Cobb, S., French, F.R.P., Van Harrison, R., & Pinneau, S.R. ( 1980). Job demands and worker health. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research.
14.
Collins, P., & Gibbs, C. ( 2003). Stress in police officers: A study of the origins, prevalence and severity of stress related symptoms within a county police force. Occupational Medicine, 53, 256-264.
15.
Cortina, L., & Magley, V. ( 2003). Raising voice, risking retaliation: Events following interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 8, 247-265.
16.
Cortina, L., Magley, V., Williams, J., & Langhout, R. ( 2001). Incivility in the workplace: Incidence and impact . Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 6, 64-80.
17.
Cropanzano, R., Rupp, D., & Byrne, Z. ( 2003). The relationship of emotional exhaustion to work attitudes, job performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 160-169.
18.
Davey, J.D., Obst, P.L., & Sheehan, M.C. ( 2001). Demographic and workplace characteristics which add to the prediction of stress and job satisfaction within the police workplace . Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 16, 29-39.
19.
Dormann, C., & Zapf, D. ( 2004). Customer-related social stressors and burnout . Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 9, 61-82.
20.
Fischer, A.H., Manstead, A.S.R., Evers, C., Timmers, M., & Valk, G. ( 2004). Motives and norms underlying emotion regulation . In P. Philippot & R. S. Feldman (Eds.), The regulation of emotion (pp. 187-212). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
21.
Garcia, L., Nesbary, D., & Gu, J. ( 2004). Perceptual variations of stressors among police officers during an era of decreasing crime. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 20, 33-50.
22.
Gershon, R., Barocas, B., Canton, A., Li, X., & Vlahov, D. ( 2009). Mental, physical, and behavioral outcomes associated with perceived stress in police officers. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 39, 275-289.
23.
Goldberg, L.S., & Grandey, A.A. ( 2007). Display rules versus display autonomy: Emotion regulation, emotional exhaustion, and task performance in a call center simulation . Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12, 301-318.
24.
Graf, F. ( 1986). The relationship between social support and occupational stress among police officers. Journal of Police Science & Administration, 14, 178-186.
25.
Grandey, A.A. ( 2000). Emotion regulation in the workplace: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology , 5, 95-110.
26.
Grandey, A.A. ( 2003). When "the show must go on": Surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 86-96.
27.
Grandey, A.A., Dickter, D., & Sin, H.P. ( 2004). The customer is not always right: Customer verbal aggression toward service employees. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 25, 397-418.
28.
Grandey, A.A., Kern, J.H., & Frone, M.R. ( 2007). Verbal abuse from outsiders versus insiders: Comparing frequency, impact on emotional exhaustion, and the role of emotional labor . Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12, 63-79.
29.
Granello, D., & Wheaton, J. ( 2004). On-line data collection: Strategies for research . Journal of Counseling and Development, 82, 387-393.
30.
Gross, J. ( 1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2, 271-299.
31.
Hahn, S. ( 2000). The effects of locus of control on daily exposure, coping and reactivity to work interpersonal stressors: A diary study. Personality and Individual Differences, 29, 729-748.
32.
Hochschild, A.R. ( 1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling . Berkeley: University of California Press.
33.
Judge, T., Woolf, E., Fluegge, E., & Hurst, C. ( 2009). Is emotional labor more difficult for some than for others? A multilevel, experience-sampling study. Personnel Psychology , 62, 57-88.
34.
Keashly, L., Trott, V., & MacLean, L. ( 1994). Abusive behavior in the workplace: A preliminary investigation . Violence and Victims, 9, 341-357.
35.
Morash, M., Haarr, R., & Kwak, D. ( 2006). Multilevel influences on police stress. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 22, 26-43.
36.
Morash, M., Kwak, D., Hoffman, V., Lee, C., Cho, S., & Moon, B. ( 2008). Stressors, coping resources and strategies, and police stress in South Korea. Journal of Criminal Justice , 36, 231-239.
37.
Narayanan, L., Menon, S., & Spector, P. ( 1999). A cross-cultural comparison of job stressors and reactions among employees holding comparable jobs in two countries. International Journal of Stress Management, 6, 197-212.
38.
Nunnally, J.C., & Bernstein, I.H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
39.
Pasillas, R., Follette, V., & Perumean-Chaney, S. (2006). Occupational stress and psychological functioning in law enforcement officers. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 21, 41-53.
40.
Rafaeli, A., & Sutton, R. ( 1987). Expression of emotion as part of the work role . Academy of Management Review, 12, 23-37.
41.
Rupp, D.E., & Spencer, S. ( 2006). When customers lash out: The effect of customer interactional injustice on emotional labor and the mediating role of discrete emotions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 971-978.
42.
Slate, R., Johnson, W., & Colbert, S. ( 2007). Police stress: A structural model. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 22, 102-112.
43.
Tepper, B.J. ( 2007). Abusive supervision in work organizations: Review, synthesis, and research agenda. Journal of Management, 33, 261-289.
44.
Totterdell, P., & Holman, D. ( 2003). Emotion regulation in customer service roles: Testing a model of emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 8, 55-73.
45.
Van Der Doef, M., & Maes, S. ( 1999). The job demand-control (-support) model and psychological well-being: A review of 20 years of empirical research. Work and Stress, 13, 87-114.
46.
van Gelderen, B., Heuven, E., van Veldhoven, M., Zeelenberg, M., & Croon, M. ( 2007). Psychological strain and emotional labor among police-officers: A diary study. Journal of Vocational Behavior , 71, 446-459.
47.
Waters, J., & Ussery, W. ( 2007). Police stress: History, contributing factors, symptoms, and interventions. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 30, 169-188.
48.
Wharton, A.S. ( 1993). The affective consequences of service work. Work and Occupations, 20, 205-232.
