Fitter, Happier: Display Rules in Policing

Recent experimental results suggest that when police officers smile, the public will react with enhanced perceptions of those officers. However, emotional labor theory suggests that organizationally mandated emotional displays such as smiling exact costs to the individual worker. We use data from a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of police and criminal psychology 2021-09, Vol.36 (3), p.592-602
Main Authors: Mastracci, Sharon, Adams, Ian T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Burnout
Community relations
Compliance
Costs
Criminology and Criminal Justice
Depersonalization
Emotional labor
Emotions
Fatigue
Human resource management
Intervention
Law and Psychology
Law enforcement
Manual workers
Negative emotions
Physiology
Police
Polls & surveys
Psychology
Public relations
Public sector
Public services
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Summary:Recent experimental results suggest that when police officers smile, the public will react with enhanced perceptions of those officers. However, emotional labor theory suggests that organizationally mandated emotional displays such as smiling exact costs to the individual worker. We use data from a 2020 national survey to test effects of emotional labor—display rules, surface acting, and deep acting—on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization among law enforcement officers. We find that officers experience increased emotional exhaustion and burnout based on their strategies to comply with display rules—whether positive or negative. Emotional effort to attend to display rules exacts costs onto the individual, particularly if they are asked to suppress negative emotions and express unfelt positive ones. Implications for law enforcement and public sector organizations in general are discussed, with the broad recommendation that scholars and practitioners consider addressing public relations in ways that do not exacerbate burnout.
ISSN:0882-0783
1936-6469
DOI:10.1007/s11896-021-09460-z