Emotionsarbeit im Arbeitsfeld der niedrigschwelligen Drogenhilfe: Bedeutung und Gestaltung von Emotionsregulation in eskalativen Interaktionsprozessen mit der Einrichtungsklientel

ZusammenfassungDie vorliegende Publikation befasst sich mit der Emotionsarbeit im Kontext der niedrigschwelligen Drogenhilfe.Zunächst wird das Emotions-Regulations-Modell nach Alicia Grandey vorgestellt, um dieses dann auf das Arbeitsfeld der niedrigschwelligen Drogenhilfe zu übertragen. Zwei praktische Fallbeispiele veranschaulichen diese theoretischen Ausführungen.Dabei wird deutlich, dass sowohl die Klientel als auch die Mitarbeiter in den Einrichtungen der niedrigschwelligen Drogenhilfe Emotionsarbeit betreiben und dabei so manchen Widrigkeiten entgegenarbeiten müssen. So hat die Klientel unter anderem mit Traumata und deren Folgen oder dem Einfluss psychoaktiver Substanzen zu kämpfen, während die Mitarbeiter Emotionsanforderungen (display rules) der Organisation zu erfüllen haben sowie durch die permanente Konfrontation mit Leid und Elend häufig Überforderungsreaktionen zeigen.Die entstehende kommunikative und emotionale Dysbalance muss durch Emotionsregulation von beiden Parteien immer wieder konfiguriert werden, um sich sicher und erfolgreich miteinander verständigen zu können.

Out of the blue and into it: Autoethnography, emotions and complicated grief

Autoethnography can be an appropriate method for researching complex emotional experiences. However, the highly self-reflexive processes involved in mining personal data are subject to a set of cultural feeling and display rules, which obscure and interfere with emotional engagement. To illustrate this, we present one author’s account of using autoethnography to research traumatic bereavement. We critically revisit three myths about the method: one negative (autoethnography is narcissistically self-indulgent) and two positive (autoethnographic techniques are therapeutic and autoethnographic writing is authentic). Observing some parallels between topic and method, we suggest that both are complicated and non-linear, following convoluted paths. Autoethnographic tales may defy the social rules of verbal tellability, failing to reveal personal insights or offer moral lessons. We conclude that, while we can admire the autoethnographic endeavour towards ‘heartfelt’ scholarship, this should be tempered by a cautiousness about the costs of digging deep.

Parenting with a smile: Display rules, regulatory effort, and parental burnout

Positive parenting prescriptions prevailing in Western countries encourage parents to regulate their emotions and, more specifically, to show more positive emotion to their children and control negative emotions while parenting. The beneficial effect of this practice on child development has been much documented, but its possible costs for parents have been much less researched. The current study borrowed the well-known emotional labor framework from organizational psychology to examine this issue. We sought to answer five questions in particular: (1) Do parents perceive display rules? (i.e., do they feel pressured to up-regulate positive emotions and down-regulate negative emotions while parenting?) (2) Do parents make regulatory efforts to comply with these rules? (3) Is this costly? (4) Is it possible that these regulatory efforts are associated with higher risk of parental burnout? (5) Are there strategies that render this effort less costly? We investigated these questions in a sample of 347 parents. The results revealed that parents perceive emotional display rules, which were associated with more regulatory efforts and then a higher vulnerability to parental burnout. How parents meet display rules also matters, in that regulating emotions superficially (i.e., surface acting) is more detrimental than regulating genuinely (i.e., deep acting). Overall, these results support the translation of the emotional labor framework to the parenting context, which helps us understand how external pressures on parents may increase parental burnout.

Do Customers Regulate their Emotions? Development and Validation of a Model of Customer Emotional Labor

Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, this article integrates service literature on value cocreation with the psychological literature on emotional labor. Highlighting the co-production of services by both customers and employees, this research applies emotional labor theory to customers’ emotion regulation and expression. We explore the argument that customers perceive emotional display rules in service establishments and engage in goaldirected emotion regulation (i.e., customer emotional labor; CEL), using qualitative (Study 1) and quantitative (Study 2) methodologies. Descriptive findings from Study 1 provide evidence for the existence of CEL. Study 2 assesses the psychometric soundness of a newly developed customer display rules scale, and quantitatively tests a conceptual framework by examining antecedents and outcomes of customer emotion regulation. Findings of each study, the implications of this work, and avenues for future service management research are addressed.