Page 130 - The Disneyization of Society

PERFORMATIVE LABOUR

clients of beauty therapists are often anxious and insecure about their bodies, which
they may believe conform poorly to the feminine ideal. Part of the work of therapists is
to assuage such concerns and to help clients make the best of themselves. In addition, 121
the therapists recognized the need to adopt a friendly, smiling demeanour since creat-
ing the right kind of interaction was crucial to the success of the business.
• Insurance sales agents Agents selling insurance in the field on a door-to-door basis at a
company studied by Leidner – Combined Insurance – were also expected to exhibit emo-
tional labour as part of their role, cultivating friendliness, eye contact and other signs of
such work. 83 Particularly indicative of this aspect of their work is the Positive Mental
Attitude, a philosophy developed by the firm’s founder and to which trainees are intro-
duced. The aim of the programme is in part to motivate future agents but also to
enhance their optimism, enthusiasm and perseverance, which are part of an individual’s
emotional makeup. In addition, the agents were expected to exhibit the traits of friend-
liness and good humour that have been encountered frequently in this chapter.

Is emotional labour bad for you?

One of the distinctive features of Hochschild’s explication of emotional labour is
that she sees it as having a negative impact on those who enact it. This issue is not
integral to the issue of Disneyization, but is worth a brief digression in view of its
significance in terms of the broader implications of Disneyization and because it has
been a focus for debate among writers and researchers concerned with this topic.
Hochschild argued that emotional labour creates a disjuncture between how work-
84
ers act and how they feel and as such damages them psychologically. The worker
must exhibit emotions he or she does not really feel and must suppress emotions he
or she does feel. Workers’ sense of an authentic self is undermined, since emotions
after all belong to a person’s inner realm of self-expression and feeling, and they
become alienated from their inner selves and true feelings. Even though the emo-
tional display may be little more than surface acting, it is nonetheless a form of work
that damages the individual’s sense of self. Such a view would seem to imply that
emotional labourers are deeply disturbed. There is no doubt that some research has
supported such a negative view of emotional labour but it is by no means universal.
85
Like Hochschild, Wouters also studied the work of flight attendants. He found
that they often found it very gratifying when they used their skills to calm the
fears of anxious passengers or when they built up a good relationship with some
of them. Similarly, the beauty therapists studied by Sharma and Black were very
often delighted by their ability to help their clients feel better about themselves. 86
Leidner’s research on insurance agents at Combined Insurance also found that the
requirement to engage in emotional labour did not seem to be interpreted in a
negative way. 87 Three factors seem to be relevant. First, agents selling insurance
door to door were on commission, so they had more to gain directly from the
appropriate display of emotions. Second, they had much more autonomy than
counter staff in a McDonald’s, where Leidner had also conducted research,