Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Differences In Emotional Labor Across Cultures: A Comparison Of Chinese And U.S. Service Workers, Joseph A. Allen, James M. Diefendorff, Yufeng Ma

Psychology Faculty Publications

Purpose In the global economy, the need for understanding cross-cultural differences and the customer service-related processes involved in emotional labor is evident. The current study attempts to examine this issue by developing and testing hypotheses pertaining to cross-cultural differences between U.S. and Chinese service workers on the levels of display rule perceptions, emotion regulation, and burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization) as well as the relationships among these variables.

Design/Methodology/Approach Data was collected from service workers in the U.S. (n=280) and China (n=231). We tested for measurement differences, mean differences, and differences in the relationships among emotional labor …