Analysis reveals surface acting reduces job satisfaction and organizational commitment in salespeople, suggesting social support may help mitigate negative effects.
Given the importance of salesperson satisfaction and commitment, managers are vested in understanding what variables impact salesperson attitudes. Surface acting, the process by which the employee regulates emotional expression, tends to produce internal tension which can reduce satisfaction and commitment. This impact is relevant in the sales role because emotional display rules change as salespeople span boundaries and because garnering customer commitments through sales presentations can involve faking emotions. Utilizing structural equation modeling, a surface acting model among 235 salespeople is tested. The authors find that surface acting inhibits job satisfaction, as well as suggest social support may offset the harm surface acting poses to organizational commitment. Furthermore, results indicate that training salespeople to internalize others’ emotions (i.e., self-monitoring) increases the success at authentic displays, thus reducing the negative feelings that spill over into feelings about the job.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Mikeska et al. (2015) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: