The effect of teachers’ emotional labour on teaching satisfaction: moderation of emotional intelligence

Teachers can be seen as emotional workers often needing to be sensitive to the demands that their work makes on their emotions, and skilful in regulating their feelings, but few quantitative studies have examined this issue systematically. Using hierarchical regression analysis to examine this issue, this study investigates teachers’ perceptions of the relationships among the emotional job demands, emotional intelligence, emotional labour strategies and teaching satisfaction, with a particular focus on the moderating role of emotional intelligence. The results of a survey of 1281 Chinese teachers reveal that teachers’ perceptions of emotional job demands and emotional intelligence significantly predict the three emotional labour strategies. Emotional intelligence significantly moderates the impact of emotional job demands on surface acting and expression of naturally felt emotion but not deep acting. Even after controlling for emotional job demands and emotional intelligence, deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotion still have a positive influence on teachers’ teaching satisfaction. Deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotion are more effective emotional labour strategies for teachers. A teacher development programme is suggested to make teachers clear about these emotional demands and different emotional labour strategies, and enhance teachers’ emotional intelligence.