Personality and Emotional Labor: 5-Factor Model

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Personality Traits at the Workplace
Emotional Labor
The Big Five Personality Model
The Relationship between Personality Traits and Emotional Labor
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The need to tailor the behavior of individuals in the workplace or organizational settings is crucial for shaping up the corporate culture. In essence, the corporate culture employed by an organization affects the collaboration of employees towards the attainment of shared goals and objectives. In this regard, it is fundamental to integrate specialized knowledge within the organization for improving the aspects of career development, employee attitudes, decision-making processes, consumer behavior, individual assessment, and job analysis.

Therefore, streamlining the behavior of the stakeholders involved in the operations of an organization is essential for facilitating efficiency towards attaining shared targets. Importantly, the personality and emotional aspects of the labor force within an organization hold considerable influence on individual and collective performance. The uniqueness of different people in the workplace environment shows variations in personality. Biological and situational factors influence the construction of a person’s personality. As such, individuals react to issues in the organization differently, owing to their uniqueness. In this case, personality traits account for the different capabilities of individuals when it comes to managing their emotions.

Mostly, the concept of emotional labor arises from the situational aspect of personality development (Grandey, 2015). Thus, the organizational or industrial settings represent the situational forces that shape up the character of individuals involved in the operations of an organization. The development of theories such as the Big Five Personality Model assesses the influence of different variables on emotional labor. Therefore, this paper focuses on personality and emotional labor by integrating the Big Five Personality theory to foster an understanding of the concepts in contemporary organizational settings.

Personality Traits at the Workplace

Individuals’ personality infers to their tactics of responding to the prevailing life experiences. How people portray their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors reveal their personality traits. Every individual is unique in his or her way. The uniqueness is attributed to biological and environmental factors that shape up an individual’s development over time. The personality development process influences any changes in one’s feelings, judgment, and behavior. For this reason, people sense, think, and act differently, denoting the uniqueness of personality traits. Individuals’ distinctive personality traits determine their recognition, interpretation, and response to different stimuli, a situation that influences the expression or suppression of emotions (Grandey, 2015). Thus, an analysis of personality is relevant in understanding the concept of emotional labor since imbalances on emotional expression and repression affect the individual.

Interpersonal relationships play a crucial role in understanding the personality differences among employees in a given organization. Through interpersonal relationships, people uncover their emotions in the process of responding to stimuli generated by others. Nonetheless, when interacting with customers, employees need to behave in a specified manner underlined by the organizational culture (Judge, Simon, Hurst, & Kelley, 2014). Thus, the organization guides the display of emotions during interaction with customers to fulfill the demands of the job description. Owing to personality differences, some employees find it difficult to condition their true emotions. This situation results in psychological disequilibrium that undermines their performance.

In industrial environments, different personality traits fit particular jobs. The person-job fit theory holds that an individual’s attributes and personality considerably influence the decisions he or she makes. Thus, not all people fit in a given job since the occupational demands could face incompatibilities with their personality traits. Further, the compatibility of individuals’ personalities with a given job bolsters their performance unlike the case of incompatible individual characteristics and the assigned job. Since organizations unceasingly seek the improvement of performance among employees, workers’ behavior that is influenced by their personality traits is an important issue of consideration (Maneotis, Grandey, & Krauss, 2014).

In the recent past, psychologists have intensified studies to uncover the connection between employees’ personality and their ability to adapt to a given job. Notably, attributes such as extraversion, openness, and agreeableness can influence individuals to display their feelings differently. People who lack the mentioned qualities among others could have trouble in executing their roles satisfactorily, owing to the emotional demands of their jobs (Grandey & Gabriel, 2015). As such, the issue of emotional labor has become common today since employees raise issues concerning the psychological imbalances experienced when expressing or suppressing their emotions to match job demands.

Emotional Labor

Every individual has a psychological part that shapes up his or her conduct in a particular setting. Emotions constitute a constant and inseparable aspect of human experience that influences people’s organizational life. Thus, individuals’ ability to manage their emotions effectively is instrumental mainly in the workplace environment. For instance, customer care attendants need to portray niceness to the clients, regardless of the pressures that trigger negative emotions in their (care attendants) line of duty. As such, emotional labor entails the portrayal of a suitable emotion (Grandey, 2015). Importantly, the interaction between employees and customers determines the nature of emotions revealed.

The organizational culture influences the emotional anticipations between the parties that interact in the corporate setting. Therefore, the norms, values, beliefs, and attitudes upheld by each of the interacting individuals require them to balance their emotions accordingly. Organizations also teach and reinforce the desired emotional labor through myths, symbols, and policies (Humphrey, Ashforth, & Diefendorff, 2015). The organizational culture requires employees to observe particular rules that guide their approach to interactions. For example, the customer care wing at Bharti Airtel, a telecommunications corporation, requires its employees to attend to the needs of its clients with energy and keenness for the sake of improving the experience of the company’s clients. Therefore, display rules influence emotional labor significantly by requiring employees to portray particular emotions while serving customers (Grandey & Gabriel, 2015).

Negative emotional displays also facilitate the execution of occupational roles in particular industries. Normally, most organizations require employees to display friendliness and optimism. Thus, employees should suppress anger and disgust even when interacting with frustrating and annoying customers (Humphrey et al., 2015). For example, security officers could apply negative emotions when interrogating suspects to acquire valuable information necessary for solving the matter at hand. Therefore, the nature of employees’ occupation influences how they manage their emotions while executing their roles and responsibilities. However, in any given situation, employees should always allow the pro-social behavior to override anti-social actions.

Besides the benefits realized by organizations because of employees who display the right emotions while interacting with customers, the former parties experience adversities while performing their tasks. The regular management of emotions while performing tasks alters the natural psychological balances of the employees, thereby affecting their behavior in the end. Notably, some employees avoid expressing their actual feelings in a given interaction setting since the organization conditions them to display their emotions in a specified way. Such incompatible expression leads to the prevalence of emotions in most of the current workplace settings.

Emotional labor triggers weakness among individuals to the extent of resulting in undesirable outcomes (Grandey & Gabriel, 2015). Adverse implications of emotional labor include job-related stress, failure to portray true feelings, and division between self. The adversities of emotional labor usually lead to psychological fatigue, job dissatisfaction, and turnover (Humphrey et al., 2015). Thus, amid the articulation of the suitable or appropriate practice, it costs the employees to fake or restrains their emotions. The issue of emotional labor poses a dilemma for organizations since altering the psychological processes of an individual causes adversities in the name of pursuing profits.

The personality of the individual has a considerable effect on emotional labor, especially in cases where one displays emotional dissonance. As such, persons with the ability to manage their emotions well in a way that displays their true sensation while interacting with others could avoid the issue of emotional labor, thanks to their personality traits. For instance, enthusiastic individuals would freely show their feelings while interacting with clients. Thus, they do not feel as if they are acting in a manner that is out of external pressure but their personality. Since character development is a continuous process, an organization may intervene to tackle the emotional labor issue that is causing dilemmas in contemporary business environments.

Importantly, matching the personality of the employees with the emotional requirements for the job description assigned is crucial in addressing the emotional labor problem (Humphrey et al., 2015). The incorporation of frameworks that facilitate an understanding of the uniqueness of employees and their varying degrees of managing psychological imbalances is crucial. The Big Five personality model is one integral framework that could prove effective in understanding the relationship between personality attributes and emotional labor (Hülsheger, Alberts, Feinholdt, & Lang, 2013).

The Big Five Personality Model

The Big Five personality framework is one of the important models that facilitate the assessment of emotional labor. In 1946, Raymond Cattell developed the Big Five personality theory to uncover the various dimensions responsible for making up an individual’s personality (Judge & Zapata, 2015). The framework has been utilized in the investigation of an array of industrial phenomena, including job performance and satisfaction, organizational behavior, and vocational interests. The five dimensions of an individual’s personality include extraversion, cordiality, neuroticism, meticulousness, and being open to experience (Leutner, Ahmetoglu, Akhtar, & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2014). The mentioned dimensions make it possible to understand the capability of different individuals to manage their emotions in the workplace setting.

The extraversion attribute infers to an individual’s positive activity that ignites a positive mood that leads to greater social interaction, as well as fulfilling interpersonal relations. The extraversion personality dimension usually manifests in people who are chatty, cheery, friendly, and vigorous (Leutner et al., 2014). Thus, in the workplace setting, extraverted individuals demonstrate social capabilities, optimism, and a person-oriented approach to interactions. Importantly, individuals with impressive extraversion scores need not fake or suppress their emotions when offering services to customers. Jobs involving considerable personal interactions suit individuals with extraverted personalities compared to their introverted counterparts. Notably, customers find satisfaction in instances where they experience interactions characterized by sociability, friendliness, and positivity.

The optimism in extraverted employees makes it easy for them to portray positive emotions in the process of service delivery. Therefore, extraverted employees rarely experience emotional labor, owing to their social and ambitious approach to personal interaction (Hülsheger et al., 2013). The extraverted personalities in the corporate world play an integral role in fostering the brand image of different competitors. The optimism and social energy generated by employees win the trust of employees, thus contributing to satisfaction (Judge & Zapata, 2015). For example, Microsoft Corporation is one of the companies that engage their clients in highly social interaction through various platforms, including social media. As a result, the company is currently the leading sought-after technology corporation in the world. Therefore, extraverted employees display insignificant signs of emotional labor. Thus, their exceptional performance leads to the improvement of the organization’s competitiveness.

Neuroticism infers to the degree to which an individual can manage his or her emotions, both positive and negative. The level of one’s neuroticism could be either high or low. Personalities characterized by low levels of neuroticism portray emotional stability through their calmness, confidence, and security. On the other hand, persons with high neuroticism demonstrate negative feelings, including job-related stress, burnout, and work dissatisfaction (Leutner et al., 2014). Notably, high neuroticism triggers employees to generate negative responses in their interactions due to their poor capability of reacting positively to environmental stimuli.

Conversely, individuals with low neuroticism respond positively to interactions since considerable stimuli are required to aggravate their psychological equilibrium. In this regard, the issue of emotional labor merely affects individuals with the ability to respond positively to varying workplace experiences (Leutner et al., 2014). Such individuals never allow moodiness to interfere with their line of work. Thus, they eliminate nervousness in the execution of their tasks. Individuals affected by high neuroticism showcase considerable dissonant emotions in the execution of their duties at the workplace. The inharmonious emotional labor triggered by neuroticism undermines the effectiveness of personal interactions since it pressures the individual to apply a great deal of psychological effort to curtail negative emotions (Leutner et al., 2014).

As such, in problematic instances, neurotics reveal depression, insecurity, and poor coping mechanisms. The need to suppress negative feelings triggers neurotics to experience emotional labor since they strive to maintain their interactions with customers. For instance, several cases of poor customer service by the Bank of America has led to account holders considering to open accounts with other banks, a move that has affected the performance of the 13th largest corporation globally. Therefore, high neuroticism undermines the ability of employees to manage their negative emotions effectively, thereby resulting in emotional labor.

Conscientiousness entails the demonstration of responsibility, self-discipline, and dutiful actions. The attributes that characterize conscientious individuals include hard work, competence, organization, and problem-solving capabilities. Further, individuals with a conscientious personality show carefulness in following the required display rules in the organization (Judge & Zapata, 2015). Therefore, conscientious individuals usually strive to display positive emotions while trying their best to suppress negative emotions when interacting with others in the process of performing their roles and responsibilities. Additionally, organizations that require employees to engage in constant interpersonal exchanges benefit considerably from conscientious personalities (Judge et al., 2014).

The reason for the above claim is that such individuals express their positive feeling freely and effortlessly. They also suppress dissonant emotions that result in conflict in the workplace. Essentially, the organizational culture established at the workplace instills the required norms among conscientious individuals easily since they uphold the responsibility and the essence of the careful execution of their roles (Maneotis et al., 2014). Further, training employees is a crucial aspect since it instills aspects such as the required display rules when interacting with others. For example, the company continually seeks to train its employees to listen carefully and/or attend to the demands of clients and customers, thus contributing to the development of conscientious personalities in its workforce. Therefore, meticulous personalities in an organization reduce the proneness of emotional labor.

Agreeable personalities depict tolerance, trust, compassion, care, forgiveness, cooperation, and self-sacrifice. Individuals with agreeable personalities strive to avoid attributes such as envy, unkindness, self-centeredness, indifference, and competitiveness (Leutner et al., 2014). Organizations characterized by employees who uphold agreeableness experience significant compliance with norms, including display rules. Besides the rule-abiding attribute of agreeable people, the respective individuals also possess profound interpersonal skills. Hence, they are appropriate for jobs that require constant interaction with customers.

Notably, individuals with such a personality expose their emotions to other parties easily, thus making the interactions somewhat natural, amid following the established display rules. The lack of aggressiveness among delightful people helps them to conquer negative emotions. Thus, they overcome emotional labor. Importantly, such individuals aim at establishing respectful and honest relations with others, thereby improving the quality of interpersonal relationships, as well as interactions in the organizational surroundings (Judge et al., 2014). Further, the extent of sincerity and closeness pursued by agreeable persons makes it possible to reveal their true emotions since they engage others positively.

The openness-to-experience dimension mirrors an individual’s intellect, authenticity, curiosity, creativity, and broad-mindedness (Judge & Zapata, 2015). Noticeably, open-minded people have an in-depth awareness of their environment besides seeking to assess and/or widen their experiences unceasingly. However, openness and interpersonal relationships have an inverse correlation. Therefore, openness-to-experience personality is weak in interpersonal skills. Important to note, interpersonal interactions play an integral part in streamlining relationships, especially in customer service. Mainly, the characteristics acquired by individuals who are open to experience undermine the ability to conceal their original feelings (Maneotis et al., 2014). For instance, employees with the attributes embraced by individuals who demonstrate the openness-to-experience personality may trigger the poor customer service experienced by American airlines’ customers. Failure to manage the required emotions during interpersonal exchanges subjects the individual to emotional labor while performing his or her tasks compared to individuals who are less open to the experience.

The Relationship between Personality Traits and Emotional Labor

The uniqueness of different individuals influences their management of emotions. In the organizational environment, personalities that support effective interpersonal relationships rarely experience emotional labor, owing to their ability to express or conquer the expected emotions. As previously mentioned, the Big Five personality model reveals how extraverted, conscientious, and agreeable personalities undergo less emotional labor (Judge et al., 2014). On the other hand, persons with characteristics that denote neuroticism and openness to experience find it difficult to conceal their true or negative emotions. Thus, they experience the pressures of emotional labor (Leutner et al., 2014). Therefore, personalities that experience insignificant cases of emotional labor would fit well in customer service provisions since they possess strong interpersonal qualities.

Conclusion

Personality differences in the corporate workforce considerably influence the issue of emotional labor. The uniqueness of individuals determines their approaches to the management of emotions in interpersonal relationships. As earlier noted, personalities characterized by agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion demonstrate impressive capacity to display and conquer different emotions, thereby enriching the interpersonal transactions between employees and customers. Conversely, people who are associated with openness to experience and neuroticism have poor interpersonal skills. Thus, the respective individuals have trouble hiding the emotions that would affect their performance negatively. Moreover, personality and emotional labor have a significant relationship that affects the contemporary service industries.

References

Grandey, A. A. (2015). Smiling for a wage: What emotional labor teaches us about emotion regulation. Psychological Inquiry, 26(1), 54-60.

Grandey, A. A., & Gabriel, A. S. (2015). Emotional labor at a crossroads: Where do we go from here? Annual Review Organizational Psychology, 2(1), 323-349.

Hülsheger, U. R., Alberts, H. J., Feinholdt, A., & Lang, J. W. (2013). Benefits of mindfulness at work: The role of mindfulness in emotion regulation, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(2), 310-325.

Humphrey, R. H., Ashforth, B. E., & Diefendorff, J. M. (2015). The bright side of emotional labor. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(6), 749-769.

Judge, T. A., & Zapata, C. P. (2015). The person–situation debate revisited: Effect of situation strength and trait activation on the validity of the Big Five personality traits in predicting job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 58(4), 1149-1179.

Judge, T. A., Simon, L. S., Hurst, C., & Kelley, K. (2014). What I experienced yesterday is who I am today: Relationship of work motivations and behaviors to within-individual variation in the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(2), 199-221.

Leutner, F., Ahmetoglu, G., Akhtar, R., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2014). The relationship between the entrepreneurial personality and the Big Five personality traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 63(1), 58-63.

Maneotis, S. M., Grandey, A. A., & Krauss, A. D. (2014). Understanding the “why” as well as the “how”: Service performance is a function of prosocial motives and emotional labor. Human Performance, 27(1), 80-97.

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