Let's face emotions!

Research on emotional labor has grown exponentially over the last three decades.This research has shown that employees engage in different strategies (especially deep and surface acting) to manage their emotions in client interactions, and that the particular emotional labor strategies they use influences their well-being and performance.However, critical but unresolved questions have remained.Why did previous studies of deep acting outcomes produce inconsistent findings?Is it due to the multidimensional nature of deep acting?Are different subtypes of deep acting (causally) differently associated with emotional labor outcomes?Do surface acting and deep acting exhaustively describe employees' repertoire of emotional labor strategies?In this chapter, we, therefore, review the current state of theoretical and methodical knowledge and identify how researchers can advance the field of emotional labor.