The Relationship between Emotional Labor and Well-beings: The Moderating Effect of Perceived Supervisor Support and Gender

Emotional labor is believed to damage employee well-beings, including life, workplace, and psychological aspects. Supervisors might play an important role in reducing the negative impact of emotional labor. And male and female employee might have different reactions to the emotional labor. Thus, this study investigated the relationship between emotional labor and three dimensions of employee well-being. According to conservation of resource theory, we also explored the moderating effect of perceived supervisors support and gender in the above relationship. 252 Full-time employee in various Taiwan companies participated in this survey study. The result showed that: 1. Emotional labor was negatively related to life, workplace, and psychological well-beings. 2. Perceived supervisor support moderated the relationship between emotional labor and life and workplace well-beings. When subordinates perceived high supervisor support, the relationship between emotional labor and life and workplace well-beings was less negative. 3. Gender has significant different effect on the relationship between emotional labor and workplace well-being. In contrast to female employee, male employee showed higher negative relationship between emotional labor and workplace well-being. The contributions and limitation are discussed, and the suggestions are provided for future research.

Keywords: conservation of resource theory, emotional labor, life well-being, workplace well-being, psychological well-being, perceived supervisor support, and Chinese organization.