The differential and asymmetric moderating effect of psychological resilience on the relationship between nurses’ emotional labor and emotional exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion among nurses, which stems from high-intensity emotional labor, is a significant occupational health concern. While existing literature establishes a direct correlation between emotional labor strategies—specifically surface acting and deep acting—and emotional exhaustion, the dynamic regulatory role of core psychological resources (e.g., psychological resilience) in this relationship remains a key theoretical gap. A cross-sectional design was used to survey 527 nurses from 20 hospitals in China. Data were collected using validated scales, and all statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 25.0. The findings indicated that surface acting was positively associated with emotional exhaustion (β = 0.342, 95% CI [0.291, 0.393], p < 0.001), thereby supporting the Resource Loss Spiral hypothesis. In contrast, deep acting exhibited a significant negative association with emotional exhaustion (β = -0.337, 95% CI [-0.389, -0.285], p < 0.001), consistent with the Resource Gain Spiral expectation. A key finding of this study was the differentiated and asymmetric moderating effect of psychological resilience, which significantly mitigated the positive relationship between surface acting and emotional exhaustion (interaction term β = -0.159, 95% CI [-0.214, -0.104], p < 0.001; buffering effect of 63.5%), while simultaneously enhancing the negative relationship between deep acting and emotional exhaustion (interaction term β = 0.183, 95% CI [0.121, 0.245], p < 0.001; gain effect of 237.7%). Notably, the magnitude of the gain effect was 3.7 times greater than that of the buffering effect. This study revealed that nurses’ emotional labor was associated with emotional exhaustion through a dual pathway of “surface-level depletion and deep-level gain”. As a key boundary condition, psychological resilience reshapes the strength of this relationship through a dual moderating mechanism of “buffering-depletion and facilitating-gain”. Theoretically, it expands the dynamic explanatory dimension of COR theory and the Emotional Labor Boundary Condition Theory. Practically, we recommend developing an intervention program integrating psychological resilience training with matched emotional labor strategies to improve resilience levels and maximize the resource gain benefits. Not applicable.