The Developmental Characteristics Of Preschool Teachers’Emotional Labor And Its Relation To Emotional Exhaustion

As well as service professions, preschool teaching was a profession that requiredhigh strength of emotional labor. In order to perform these tasks adequately, teachershad to show or exaggerate some emotions, and minimize or suppress the expression ofother emotions. Preschool teachers considered the faking of emotions to be exhausted.An emotional labor perspective may be useful to understand the emotional exhaustionof preschool teacher. The research revised the questionnaire of the preschool teachers’emotional labor strategy. Specifically speaking, the present thesis consisting of fourstudies investigated the relationship between the emotional labor and emotional exhaustion ofpreschool teachers. Study Ⅰ. To test the difference of emotional labor between fourgroups of school age,310preschool teachers were investigated. Study Ⅱ. Based onone-year and three-wave longitudinal study on124preschool teachers, the presentresearch examined the development trend of emotional labor in different dimensions.Study Ⅲ. Structural equation modeling was applied to investigate the transactionalmodels of emotional labor and emotional exhaustion. Study Ⅳ. The goal to examinethe moderating and mediating roles of psychological capital between the emotionallabor and emotional exhaustion of preschool teachers.The results showed that:1. On the whole, the expression of naturally felt emotions developed slowly. Thepreschool teachers were11year of school age, whose the expression of naturally feltemotions entered a rapid growth. With the increase of the school age, deep actinggrowed steadily. In the6~10year of school age group, deep acting reached amaximum value, subsequently declined. In the first5years of school age, surfaceacting showed a growth trend, and then began to fall. Except for less than1year ofschool age group, all the preschool teachers’ emotional labor weren’t balanceddevelopment. As a whole, the expression of naturally felt emotions developed moreslowly than deep acting and surface acting.2. Over the period of one year, the expression of naturally felt emotions of all thepreschool teachers developed gently.3. Over the period of one year, both less than1year of school age group and6~10year of school age group, surface acting developed first gently, and then entered arapid growth. While in more than11years of school age group, deep acting developedfirst stably, then decreased significantly. In less than5years of school age group, deep acting developed gently.4. In less than5years of school age group, surface acting developed first gently,and then entered a rapid growth. Over the period of one year, in the6~10year ofschool age group, surface acting developed gently. While in more than11years ofschool age group, surface acting developed first stably, then decreased significantly.5. It was the reciprocal relation between emotional labor and emotionalexhaustion.6. T1deep acting was significant negatively correlated with T2、T3emotionalexhaustion，T2deep acting was significant negatively correlated with T3emotionalexhaustion. T1surface acting was significant positively correlated with T2emotionalexhaustion. T2surface acting was significant positively correlated with T3emotionalexhaustion. T2emotional exhaustion was significant positively correlated with T3surface acting.7. Both emotional exhaustion and role ambiguity scores were significantnegatively correlated with expression of naturally emotion, deep acting, task-orientedpsychological capital(TOPC) and guanxi-oriented psychological capital(GOPC),while were significant positively correlated with surface acting.8. Preschool teachers with low GOPC reported sharp decreases in emotionalexhaustion as deep acting increased, while high GOPC individuals reported slightlydecreased emotional exhaustion with increased deep acting. Preschool teachers withlow GOPC reported sharp increases in emotional exhaustion as surface actingincreased, while high GOPC individuals reported only slightly increased emotionalexhaustion with increased surface acting.9. Role ambiguity partially mediated the association between deep acting(orsurface acting) and emotional exhaustion.10. For the relationship between surface acting and emotional exhaustion, roleambiguity mediated the moderating effect caused GOPC.