Emotion Labor with Parents as a Mediator of Family Communication Patterns and Young Adult Children’s Mental Well-being

This study tested the degree to which emotion labor with parents mediates the associations between family communication patterns (i.e., conversation and conformity orientations) and young adult children’s mental well-being. Participants included 223 young adult children who reported on the frequencies with which they engaged in surface acting and deep acting with their mother and father. Whereas conversation orientation inversely predicted surface acting and deep acting with both parents, conformity orientation positively predicted surface acting with mother and moderated the inverse associations between conversation orientation and surface acting with both parents. Bootstrapping analyses revealed significant indirect effects for conversation orientation on young adults’ mental well-being through surface acting with both parents. Conversely, there were indirect effects for conformity orientation on mental well-being only through surface and deep acting with mother.