A Study On The Relationship Between Emotional Labor, Occupational Identity And Job Burnout In Primary And Middle School Teachers

Emotional labor is one of new research fields in organizational behavior and educational psychology. As to elementary and middle school teachers who devote much emotional effort to work, the emotional labor not only influences their physical and mental health and job performance, but also has a great impact on students’ achievements and pychological development.A sample of368elementary and middle school teachers in C city was tested by perception of emotional display rules scale, elementary and middle school teachers’ emotional labor strategies scale, teacher’s professional identity scale and burnout inventory. This research was used to investigate the current situation of teachers’ emotional labor which included perception of emotional display rules and emotional labor strategies, and explore the relationship of emtional labor, professional identity and job burnout. The main conclusions of this study were:(1) As a whole, the teachers from elementary and middle schools could understand school’s emotional display rules well, especially the expression rules of positive emotion. Active deep acting and passive deep acting were the main emotional labor strategies of these teachers. Besides, the teachers with high professional identity also had job burnout.(2) Emotional labor, professional identity and job burnout had significant differences in demographic variables. For example, emotional labor differed in gender, marriage, the type of school, headship, age, the length of teaching services, subject and professional title. Professional identity was influenced by marriage and professional title. Teachers had different level of job burnout in gender, marriage, the type of school, headship, main teacher, age, the length of teaching services and professional title.(3) Emotional labor had a significantly positive correlation with professional identity and had a significantly negative correlation with job burnout. Professional identity was significantly and negatively correlated with job burnout.(4) Professional identity prediced emtional labor significantly. Expression rules of positive emotion was significantly predicted by occupational values and professional behavior inclination. Active deep acting was obviously predicted by role values and the sense of occupational belonging. And passive deep acting was predicted by role values and professional behavior inclination.(5) Emotional labor and professional identity predicted job burnout significantly. Emotional exhaustion was predicted by surface acting, role values and the sense of occupational belonging. Depersonalization was predicted by surface acting, the sense of occupational belonging, active deep acting, role values and professional behavior inclination. Besides, decreased personal accomplishment was predicted by active deep acting, professional behavior inclination and role values.(6) Emotional labor mediated the relationship between professional identity and job burnout. Active deep acting had significant partial mediating effect not only on the relationship of role values and depersonalization, but also on the relationaip of sense of occupational belonging and depersonalization, and the relationship of role values and decreased personal accomplishment.