Emotional Regulation at Work: Managing Feelings You Cannot Always Show
At work, faking a feeling you do not have (surface acting) is consistently linked with exhaustion and lower job satisfaction, while trying to actually see the situation differently (deep acting) has weak links to strain and better links to customer satisfaction. Combine deep acting during the shift with real breaks and mentally switching off afterward. When the emotional load comes from understaffing or abusive customers, that is a job design problem to raise, not a personal regulation failure.
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Faking it versus reframing it
Picture a pharmacy counter at 5:45 p.m. A customer yells that the prescription should have been ready an hour ago. Surface acting is the smile you hold while thinking “I'm not paid enough for this.” Deep acting is shifting what you see: “He's been sick all week and probably came straight from work. He's scared he'll go home without it.” Both look similar from the outside. They feel very different from the inside, and the research on them diverges.
Ute Hülsheger and Anna Schewe pooled 95 studies on emotional labor. Surface acting, and the gap between what you feel and what the job requires, had substantial correlations with impaired well-being such as emotional exhaustion (rho between .39 and .48) and negative correlations with job satisfaction and related attitudes (rho between -.24 and -.40). Deep acting had only weak links with strain and positive links with emotional performance (rho = .18) and customer satisfaction (rho = .37). (Hülsheger and Schewe, 2011) These are mostly correlational studies, so they cannot show that surface acting causes exhaustion; exhausted people may also fake more. But the pattern is large and consistent.
The same split appears outside work. In Gross and John's studies, people who habitually hid their emotions reported more negative emotion and weaker relationships than people who habitually reframed. (Gross and John, 2003)
| Approach | What you do | At a service desk | Linked outcomes | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surface acting | Show the expected emotion, keep the real one | Fixed smile, internal fury | Exhaustion, lower satisfaction | Feels efficient, costs more over a shift |
| Deep acting | Change how you see the moment | Thinking about the customer's bad day | Weak links to strain, better customer ratings | Needs a little time and practice |
| Honest, measured expression | Show a version of the real feeling that fits | “I can hear how frustrating this is. Here's what I can do.” | Not separately tested in this meta-analysis | Display rules vary by job and culture |
| Reducing the load | Change the situation itself | Asking for a second person at the 5 p.m. rush | Depends on the organization | Needs a manager who listens |
Before the shift: decide on two reframes
Deep acting is easier when you prepare it. Before a shift or a difficult meeting, write two reframes for the situations you know will come up. For a nurse: “When a family member snaps at me, they are frightened about someone they love.” For a software lead: “When the client changes the scope again, they are under pressure from their own boss.” For a teacher: “The student who argues every point is the one who is paying attention.”
A useful reframe has to be plausible. “This customer is a lovely person” will not survive the second insult. “This customer is having a terrible day and I'm the first person they've reached” might.
During the shift: small resets, not one long hold
Long stretches of holding an expression are where surface acting creeps in. Build in small resets: a slow breath out between customers, thirty seconds in the stockroom, refilling your water before the next call. If you catch yourself fixing a smile over clenched teeth, use one of your prepared reframes before the next interaction rather than pushing through on willpower.
Measured honesty also has a place. “I can hear how frustrating this is. Here's what I can do in the next ten minutes” is truthful, warm enough, and does not require pretending you feel delighted.
After the shift: switching off is part of the job
The evening matters as much as the shift. Johannes Wendsche and Andrea Lohmann-Haislah's meta-analysis of 91 samples (38,124 employees) found that mentally detaching from work during off-hours was associated with less exhaustion, better sleep and higher well-being, with small to medium effects. Doing work-related things after hours was associated with less detachment. (Wendsche and Lohmann-Haislah, 2017) The data are mostly correlational, but they point to concrete habits: a short end-of-day note listing tomorrow's first task, notifications off after a set time, and a transition ritual such as changing clothes, a walk, or a specific playlist on the drive home.
A call center agent's week
Dev handles billing complaints. By Wednesday he notices he is answering every call with the same bright voice and going home numb. He writes two reframes on a sticky note: “They're angry at the bill, not at me” and “Most callers are scared about money.” Between calls he takes one slow exhale before pressing accept. At 6 p.m. he writes tomorrow's first task on a card and leaves his work phone in his locker.
By Friday the calls are no easier, but he is less drained. He also tells his supervisor that the queue regularly runs 40 minutes deep at lunch and asks whether breaks can be staggered. That second step is not about his emotions at all, and it may help more than the first.
Build a one-page shift plan
- List the three moments in a typical day or shift that cost you the most emotionally.
- For each one, write a plausible reframe you could use in the moment, in under fifteen words.
- Choose one micro-reset you can do between interactions without asking permission.
- Write a one-sentence honest expression you could use instead of a fake smile, such as “I understand this is frustrating, and here's what I can do.”
- Choose one switch-off ritual for the end of the day and do it for a week.
When the problem is the job, not you
Grandey's model includes organizational factors such as supervisor support, not just individual skill. (Grandey, 2000) If the emotional load comes from chronic understaffing, impossible targets, or customers allowed to abuse staff, no reframe will fix it. Raise it as a work design issue: “We have one person on the desk at the busiest hour, and complaints double then. Can we add a second person from 4 to 6?” If you are being harassed or threatened at work, report it through your employer's channels, and contact local emergency services if you are in danger.
For the communication side of hard work moments, see communication under pressure and giving and receiving feedback. Emotional intelligence at work covers the broader picture, and managing frustration helps with the blocked-goal moments that fill most workdays. The work-focused EQ test and the emotional regulation hub are good next stops.
Key takeaways
- Surface acting (faking) is consistently linked with exhaustion; deep acting (reframing) has weak links to strain.
- Prepare two plausible reframes before a shift rather than improvising under pressure.
- Small resets during the day and real switching off afterward both matter.
- Chronic understaffing or customer abuse is a job design problem to raise, not a personal failing.
Use the free EQTiger assessment to choose a starting point for reflection. Read what the assessment includes and the limitations before interpreting your result.
Research notes
Grandey, 2000: This theoretical paper defines emotional labor as regulating feelings and expressions to meet a job’s display rules and models it with emotion-regulation theory, including individual differences and organizational factors such as supervisor support.
Alicia A. Grandey (2000). Emotional regulation in the workplace: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5(1), 95-110. doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.5.1.95
Hülsheger and Schewe, 2011: Across 95 studies, surface acting and the gap between felt and required emotions correlated with impaired well-being (rho between .39 and .48), while deep acting showed weak links to strain and positive links to emotional performance and customer satisfaction (rho .18 and .37).
Ute R. Hülsheger, Anna F. Schewe (2011). On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: A meta-analysis of three decades of research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. doi.org/10.1037/a0022876
Gross and John, 2003: Across five studies, people who habitually reappraised reported more positive and less negative emotion, better social functioning and higher well-being, while habitual suppressors showed the opposite pattern; the design is correlational and mostly self-report.
James J. Gross, Oliver P. John (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348
Wendsche and Lohmann-Haislah, 2017: Across 91 samples of 38,124 employees, mentally switching off from work in off-hours correlated with less exhaustion, better sleep and higher well-being (small to medium effects), and doing work tasks after hours correlated with less switching off.
Johannes Wendsche, Andrea Lohmann-Haislah (2017). A Meta-Analysis on Antecedents and Outcomes of Detachment from Work. Frontiers in Psychology. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02072
2 questions
Questions
What is the difference between surface acting and deep acting?
Surface acting means showing an emotion you do not feel, like a forced smile, while the real feeling stays the same underneath. Deep acting means trying to actually feel the expected emotion, for example by thinking about what the customer is dealing with.
Is it unprofessional to show emotion at work?
Showing some emotion is normal and often helpful. The question is whether the way you show it fits the setting and the goal. Calmly saying “I’m concerned about this deadline” is emotional and professional at the same time.
Related
- No. 01Emotional Intelligence at Work: Where It Actually HelpsEmotional intelligence is modestly related to job performance, with corrected correlations of about .24 to .30 in a large meta-analysis, and the link is clearest in jobs with heavy emotional labor such as service and care work. How you handle required emotions matters: faking feelings (surface acting) is linked to strain, while genuinely reframing the situation (deep acting) is linked to better service. EI scores, including EQTiger’s, should not be used to hire or promote people.
- No. 02Communication Under Pressure: Make the Next Step ClearUnder pressure, use a fixed structure so you do not have to invent one: Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation (SBAR), a format hospitals adopted for urgent handoffs. Close the loop by having the other person repeat the key instruction and confirming it. Name your stress in one plain sentence rather than hiding it, since suppressing emotion in conversation disrupted communication in experiments, and make it easy for people to report blockers early.
- No. 03Giving and Receiving Feedback Without the GuessworkFeedback helps performance on average, but not reliably: in a meta-analysis of 607 effects, more than a third of feedback interventions made performance worse, and feedback worked less well the more it pulled attention to the person rather than the task. Effective feedback names the goal, the gap and the next step, and is about the work rather than the worker. Receiving it well starts with asking for a specific example before you defend or accept the verdict.
- No. 04Managing Frustration When Something Keeps Blocking YouFrustration is the feeling of a goal being blocked, so the useful first question is whether you can remove the block. Venting, hitting things or replaying the problem tends to keep anger high: a meta-analysis of 154 studies found arousal-lowering activities reduced anger and aggression while arousal-raising ones did not. Calm down first, then either fix the block or, if it truly cannot be fixed, change how you read it.
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