Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
International Summer School on Aviation Psychology and Human Factors, Graz, Avusturya, 3 - 07 Temmuz 2023
During service interactions, airline service employees engage in managing authentic or inauthentic emotions (Hochschild, 1983). Cabin crew members spend hours interacting with the public face-to-face each day. This constant interaction with the customers requires them to express emotions prescribed by the company. For instance, despite exhaustion and extended flights, flight attendants must remain smiling when communicating with passengers. This act of managing emotions and emotional expressions to fulfill organizational requirements for emotional display during service work is referred to as emotional labor (Hochschild, 1983). Airlines often require their employees to display a certain image. Thus, employees may show unfelt emotions, hide their real feelings, or display inauthentic emotions (i.e., surface acting) or modify their internal feelings to create the emotions necessary to display the rule (i.e., deep acting) (Gabriel et al. 2015).
The antecedents and consequences of emotional labor have been extensively studied over the past decades. To name a few, personality traits, low self-efficacy, lower levels of organizational support, work climate, emotional dissonance have been demonstrated as potential antecedents (Hochschild, 1983; Kim & Back, 2012; Ulufer & Soran, 2019). Burnout, increased levels of stress, impairments in job performance dissatisfaction with the work environment, low organizational commitment, service misbehavior and turnover intentions have been identified as potential consequences (Chen & Chen, 2012; Chen & Kao, 2012; Kim & Back, 2012; Okabe et al, 2017).
Most of the studies focusing on emotional labor among cabin crew members is conducted in WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Developed) countries (Muthukrishna et al., 2020). Experience and socialization of emotions, appraisal of emotional events and elicitation of emotions in interpersonal interactions differ across cultures and different cultures have different rules for displaying emotions, workers from those cultures are likely apply those rules in the workplace (Camras et al., 1992; Kitayama et al., 2000; Mesquita, 2001; Stipek, 1998). Hence, it is important to investigate emotional labor among cabin crew members in different countries. To address this gap in the literature, the current review aims to provide an in-depth examination of emotional labor among cabin crew members residing in Turkey.
For the purposes of the current study, we conducted a literature search by entering the following keywords: “emotional labor, emotional work, emotional investment, surface acting, deep acting, genuine acting, cabin crew, flight attendant, Turkey”. Publications were included if the data was collected in Turkey, the full text was provided, an empirical procedure was followed, the participants were cabin crew members, and the articles were written in Turkish or English. The initial search resulted in a total of 20 publications. Four of the publications were duplicates and removed.
By synthesizing the existing studies, we found that emotional labor is a highly prevalent phenomenon among Turkish cabin crew members. They often suppress their emotions and experience emotional conflict, which in turn results in feelings of meaninglessness, powerlessness, and isolation. Furthermore, cabin crew members exhibiting superficial behaviors feel more unfamiliar with their job and professions, and they are more likely to experience burnout and decrease in job performance (İpek, 2020; Joreyeva, 2021; Çolak, 2022). Not surprisingly, we found that flight attendants exhibit more emotional labor and superficial acting than cabin chiefs (Mutlu & Böke, 2020). Finally, we identified a gender difference, such that male cabin crew members exhibit more emotional labor than female cabin crew members (Çeken & Aktaş, 2019; Ulufer & Soran, 2019). Our findings contribute to the understanding of emotional labor among cabin crew members and shed light on its implications for their psychological health and work-related outcomes. The results underscore the need for targeted interventions and policies to support cabin crew members in managing emotional labor effectively, ultimately improving their job satisfaction, performance, and overall quality of life.