How does daily performance affect next-day emotional labor? The mediating roles of evening relaxation and next-morning positive affect

Abstract

The present study examined the daily relationship between job performance. relaxation, positive affect, and emotional labor. Drawing on the effort-recovery model and broaden-and-build theory, we proposed that job performance on a particular day fosters evening relaxation and next-morning positive affect and that this leads to increased deep acting and decreased surface acting the next day. To test our propositions. we conducted 2 diary studies using the experienced sampling method. In Study 1, 93 flight attendants participated in morning and end-of-workday surveys for 5 workdays. In Study 2, 98 hotel employees responded to morning, end-of-workday, and evening surveys for 5 workdays. In both studies, we found positive relationships between daily job performance, evening relaxation, next-morning positive affect. and next-day deep acting. We further found support for the indirect effect of daily job performance on next-day deep acting through evening relaxation and next-morning positive affect. Although next-morning positive affect had a marginally negative relationship with next-day surface acting in Study I. this relationship became nonsignificant when next-morning negative affect was included in the model (Study 2). The robustness of these findings was validated in supplementary analyses.