Page 131 - The Disneyization of Society

THE DISNEYIZATION OF SOCIETY

because they were out in the field more or less on their own. When engaging in
emotional labour they were therefore able to inject more of their own personali-
122 ties into the interaction. Third, the potential customer has to be persuaded to
engage in any interaction at all with the agent. As a result, agents often got a thrill
out of being able to engage in conversations with people when cold-calling them
and even more so when they sold them a product.
This suggests that the supposed negative consequences of emotional labour
may be contingent on the nature of the jobs concerned, such as the amount of
autonomy. It has also been suggested that sometimes frontline service workers
provide what has been called ‘philanthropic emotional labour’. 88 This occurs
when service workers essentially display emotional labour because they want to
(for example, because they like the person they are serving or because he or she is
a regular) rather than because it is part of their job or because they will get some
kind of financial advantage, such as tips, for doing so. This form of emotional
labour has also been discerned in relation to a study of British airline cabin crews,
such as when a female crew member went beyond the call of duty to help and
restore the dignity of a very sick passenger. Such displays of emotional labour are
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unlikely to occasion the kinds of adverse consequences for the self that so
concerned Hochschild and indeed point to a further way in which emotional
labour can be something that sometimes is enjoyed in its own right.
Research by Wharton on emotional labour in a bank and large hospital in the
USA confirms that emotional labour does not necessarily result in adverse psycho-
90
logical consequences for the individual. Around a half of workers in these organi-
zations had jobs that required at least some emotional labour. Wharton’s research
shows that emotional labour is problematic for some people depending on their
personalities and on the kind of work they are engaged in. For example, as regards
the second of these two factors that influence the response to emotional labour,
Wharton confirmed the suggestion that autonomy in a job can help to shield work-
ers who perform emotional labour from the negative psychological consequences
that Hochschild emphasized. In itself, emotional labour does not necessarily result
in such negative effects as emotional exhaustion and job dissatisfaction.
One further reason why emotional labour does not necessarily result in damaging
psychological effects is that many workers who are enjoined to display emotions
are able to distance themselves from the effects of emotional labour and to engage
in other tactics of resistance to the requirement of displaying emotions. This is an
issue that will further be touched upon in the next chapter.

Aesthetic Labour at the Disney Theme Parks and Beyond

In some discussions of and research into emotional labour the worker’s appearance
forms part of the analysis. For example, in research into airline cabin crews, it is