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 proposedthat job performance on a particular day fosters evening relaxation and next-morning positive affect andthat 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 attendantsparticipated in morning and end-of-workday surveys for 5 workdays. In Study 2, 98 hotel employeesresponded to morning, end-of-workday, and evening surveys for 5 workdays. In both studies, we foundpositive 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 onnext-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 1,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.