RESEARCH_FILE
Arlie Russell Hochschild
University of California, Berkeley
Known for:Sociologist who introduced the concept of emotional labor — the management of feeling to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job — and showed that service workers pay a measurable psychological cost for performing prescribed emotions
SEE THE PRACTICE
Turn a thought this research explains into one clear move.
THE THOUGHT
“One bad review means I failed as a chef”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“That review describes one service, not my whole kitchen.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Open the review, read it once, and copy only the concrete complaint into a note on your phone. Then close the review and write one sentence under it: ‘What this tells me is about this night only.’ Keep the note private.
Key findings
- 1983
In 'The Managed Heart,' Hochschild analyzed flight attendants and bill collectors to show that service work requires emotional labor — managing one's emotions as a work requirement — and identified two strategies: surface acting (suppressing real feelings and performing required ones) and deep acting (genuinely inducing the required emotion). Both carry psychological costs. Surface acting creates inauthenticity and stress; deep acting risks estrangement from one's own emotional responses, contributing to burnout and identity confusion in service workers. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling ↗