Hey Poker Face, Lighten Up!
Workers who must present a neutral appearance to customers or clients -- such as those in healthcare or law enforcement -- are using more energy and increasing the risk of burnout than employees who freely express their emotions. HR leaders should consider what coping mechanisms could help.
By Andrew R. McIlvaine
From an early age, most of us have been informed by teachers and parents that the act of frowning requires more effort than smiling.
Well, new research suggests that consistently presenting a neutral demeanor to the world can also sap more energy than maintaining a positive expression.
And in the workplace, that neutrality may cause less energy to be left over for work tasks and increase the risk of burnout. All of this may increase frowns for clients and customers, who are more likely to be unhappy with the service they're getting.
Daniel Beal, assistant professor of psychology at Rice University in Houston, co-authored a study that found workers who are required to avoid either an overly positive or a negative appearance suppress their emotions more than workers in other service-oriented professions.
"It takes energy to suppress emotions, so it's not surprising that workers who must remain neutral are often more rundown or show greater levels of burnout," says Beal, whose study -- "Service Without a Smile: Comparing the Consequences of Neutral and Positive Display Rules" -- will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Beal and his co-authors -- John Trougakos of the University of Toronto and Christine Jackson of Purdue University -- trained participants to perform as poll workers in two different conditions.
In the first experiment, the poll workers were trained to be positive so as to give survey participants a good impression of the organization sponsoring the survey. In the second, workers were trained to be neutral so as not to influence the responses of survey participants.
The researchers found that being neutral required more emotional suppression on the part of the workers than being positive did. It left them with less energy to expend on their tasks and more prone to avoid survey participants who, in turn, were left with a less-positive impression of their organizations.
"It makes sense -- someone smiling and enthusiastic is going to leave you feeling better about the encounter than someone who's completely flat," says Beal.
He notes that other research has documented the effects that "emotionally laborious" jobs can have on employees, including a 2004 paper that used O*NET, a database of job descriptions maintained by the Department of Labor, to identify such occupations.
"More than half of those jobs -- nurse, social worker, police officer, lawyer -- require you to be emotionally neutral; that you be calm, cool and collected," says Beal.
One expert cautions HR leaders not to read too much into the study.
"Beal's study is a bit limited," says Eugene Baker, vice president of employee-assistance programs for OptumHealth Behavioral Solutions in Golden Valley, Minn. "Most people in occupations that require neutrality are trained to be objective and aware of their emotions, unlike the poll workers in this study."
Medical professionals, for example, understand when they're expected to be neutral and when it's permissible to be emotionally expressive, he says.
Nevertheless, it's especially important for employees to have outlets for managing the stress that can arise from having to stay neutral in the midst of difficult situations, he says.
"Sometimes it's as simple as having a support group of peers to discuss how difficult it was and to lend each other support," says Baker.
HR should also keep in mind a growing body of research that suggests being positive at work leads to improved performance and better health, says Bernard Luskin, a psychology professor and CEO of Touro University Worldwide in Westlake Village, Calif.
"Positive behavior leads to positive performance," he says, citing seminal books such as Positive Addiction by William Glasser. "If you're forced to be dour, you internalize your emotions. Eventually, these leak out and undermine your performance and make you less healthy."
"Reappraisal" is another potential coping mechanism for workers who must stay neutral in difficult situations, says Beal. "It's about reinterpreting what's going on so it doesn't seem so bad.
"For example," he says, "if you have a difficult client, you might think about what's causing their behavior -- maybe they have a lousy home life -- so that instead of feeling stressed out by them, you might even feel sorry for them."
Workers who must routinely suppress their emotions -- especially if they're negative emotions -- should learn to master those feelings by understanding what triggers them in the first place, says Baker.
Dealing with the emotional demands of work "is not so much about suppressing your emotions, but recognizing them, consciously managing them and choosing to be more positive," he says.