CUSTOMER-RELATED SOCIAL STRESSORS AND

EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF

SURFACE AND DEEP ACTING

G

uopinG

S

onG

Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China

H

aiHua

L

iu

Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

The role of surface acting and deep acting in mediating the relationship between customer-
related social stressors (CSS) and emotional exhaustion were examined in this study.
Employees (

N = 310) working in the call-center industry were surveyed. Data were analyzed

using structural equation modeling. Results showed that two CSS components; dispro-
portionate customer expectation and customer verbal aggression, were positively related to
emotional exhaustion, and that surface acting fully mediated the relationship between dis-
proportionate customer expectation and emotional exhaustion. Both theoretical and practical
implications are discussed.

Keywords: customer-related social stressors, emotional exhaustion, surface acting, deep
acting.

Social interaction with customers is a critical component of the work and

employees’ everyday experience in the service industry (Dormann & Zapf, 2004).
Social interaction serves not only as a required means to fulfill the obligation of
providing service to the customer (Barger & Grandey, 2006; Grandey, 2003),
but also involves the employee with resource gains, such as self-efficacy
(Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002) and recognition of social skills (Zapf, 2002).
However, social interaction with customers has its downside for employees and

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY, 2010,

38(10), 1359-1366

© Society for Personality Research (Inc.)
DOI 10.2224/sbp.2010.38.10.1359

1359

Guoping Song, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University,
Xi’an, People’s Republic of China; Haihua Liu, PhD candidate, Department of Psychology, Peking
University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China.
Appreciation is due to anonymous reviewers.
Please address correspondence and reprint requests to: Haihua Liu, Department of Psychology,
Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China. Phone: [phone]; Fax: (010)-
62767663; Email:

[e-mail]

CUSTOMER-RELATED SOCIAL STRESSORS

1360

can be considered as a stress-related construct. It has been studied as the source
of chronic stress outcomes, including burnout (Dormann & Zapf, 2004; Grandey,
Kern, & Frone, 2007).

A body of literature has had as its focus the topic of stress elicited in social

interaction between customers and employees. According to a review by Lee and
Ashforth (1996) and an empirical examination by Dormann and Zapf (2004),
customer-related social stressors (CSS) are predictive of emotional exhaustion,
the core dimension of job burnout. In the study by Dormann and Zapf, CSS were
found to be positively related to emotional exhaustion. In another survey study
it was found that customer verbal aggression reported by call-center employees
was frequent and was positively related to those employees’ emotional exhaustion
(Ben-Zur & Yagil, 2005; Grandey, Dickter, & Sin, 2004; Grandey et al., 2007).

One component of CSS is disproportionate customer expectation characterized

by the employee’s feeling of unfairness. This feeling may arise in situations
where customers try to take advantage of the employee’s time or energy, demand
services disproportionate to the cash value of the transaction, or ask the employee
to do things which should be done by the customers themselves (Dormann &
Zapf, 2004). Another CSS component is verbal aggression from customers, often
labeled as a form of psychological antisocial behavior (Baron & Neuman, 1998).
The quality of the relationship between customer and employee is unidirectional
and is controlled to a large extent by the customer. In addition, certain rules
regarding how employees must regulate their outward behavior to customers,
that is, being polite and smiling no matter how they feel inwardly, confine the
employee’s reaction, but have no effect on the customer’s reaction (Brotheridge
& Grandey, 2002; Hochschild, 1983).

Nevertheless, these authors knew of only a few studies in which the role of

emotional labor in relation to CSS and emotional exhaustion (Dormann & Zapf,
2004; Goldberg & Grandey, 2007) has been examined. It is unclear whether or
not emotional regulation tendencies, such as surface acting and deep acting, serve
as the mediators between customer verbal aggression and emotional exhaustion.
Surface acting refers to effortful modification of expressions, aimed at ensuring

affective delivery prescribed by the service display rules. When this strategy is
utilized, employee’s inner feelings, which are likely to be negative toward the
customer, are not changed.

Deep acting refers to the strategy aimed at changing

inner feelings to fully match both the emotional status and outward expressions

with the requirements of the service rules (Grandey, 2000; Hochschild, 1983).
Surface acting and deep acting play different roles in the stress process. It is
argued that the individual has a limited amount of resources and that resources
depleted in one task would affect subsequent tasks (Baumeister, Bratslavsky,
Muraven, & Tice, 1998). If these assumptions are valid, we reasoned that surface
acting is more resource-consuming than deep acting, because surface acting
entails a continued modification of displayed expressions (Goldberg & Grandey,

CUSTOMER-RELATED SOCIAL STRESSORS

1361

2007). Empirical evidence supports this theoretical proposition. Surface acting
has consistently been found to be positively related to emotional exhaustion but
the relationship between deep acting and emotional exhaustion has been found
to be weak or insignificant (Beal, Trougakos, Weiss, & Green, 2006; Brotheridge
& Grandey, 2002; Grandey, 2003).

Accordingly, the purpose in the current study was to empirically test a

hypothesized mediation model consisting of CSS as antecedents, emotional
regulation strategies as mediators, and emotional exhaustion as outcome. Our
theoretical reasoning was based mainly on two lines of previous research: (a)
CSS, especially customer verbal aggression, can predict emotional exhaustion
beyond other stress-related constructs; (b) emotional regulation is influenced by
CSS and surface acting is related to emotional exhaustion (e.g., Martinez-Iñigo,
Totterdell, Alcover, & Holman, 2007).

METHOD

S

ampleS

and

p

rocedure

We distributed 345 questionnaires in three call centers in a telecommunications

company located in South China, of which 310 were returned, resulting in a
response rate of 89.86%. Over half of the respondents (56.30%) were male.
Respondents’ ages ranged from 19 to 53 years old, with a mean age of 28.43 (

SD

= 5.89) years. On average, the respondents had received 14.52 (

SD = 2.15) years

of education (i.e., most people were high school or college graduates).

m

eaSureS

The measures used were first translated from their original English versions into

Chinese by students whose major was in either English or psychology. The scales
were then back-translated into English by bilingual industrial-organizational
psychologists to make sure the Chinese translation was in accordance with the
original English versions.
Customer-related Social Stressors Dormann and Zapf (2004) developed the
original instrument, the aim of which is to assess two aspects of customer-related
social stressors (CSS); disproportionate customer expectations and customer
verbal aggression. A sample item for disproportionate customer expectations is
“Some customers ask us to do things they could do by themselves”. A sample
item for customer verbal aggression is “Customers often shout at us”. Participants
were instructed to evaluate to what extent the situation depicted in each item truly
reflected their interaction with their customers. This evaluation was scored on a
5-point scale, from 1 =

not at all true to 5 = absolutely true. Cronbach’s alpha

coefficients were .79 and .77 for the disproportionate customer expectation and
customer verbal aggression subscales, respectively.

CUSTOMER-RELATED SOCIAL STRESSORS

1362

Surface Acting and Deep Acting Surface acting and deep acting were measured
by items developed by Brotheridge and Lee (1998) and Grandey (2003).
Participants were instructed to rate how often they behaved as described in each
item to be effective at their jobs, with 1 =

never and 5 = always. Five items

measured surface acting (e.g., “Put on an act in order to deal with customers in
an appropriate way” and “Just pretend to have the emotions I need to display for
my job”; Grandey, 2003). Deep acting was measured by three items (e.g., “Try
to actually experience the emotions that I must show” and “Work hard to feel
the emotions that I need to show to others”; Grandey, 2003). Cronbach’s alpha
coefficients were .87 and .84 for surface acting and deep acting, respectively.
Emotional Exhaustion The 7-item Emotional Exhaustion subscale of the
Maslach Burnout Inventory was used to assess emotional exhaustion (Maslach
& Leiter, 1997). A sample item is “I feel emotionally drained from my work”.
Participants rated how often they felt the symptom described in each item on
a 6-point frequency scale (0 =

never to 6 = every day). The Cronbach’s alpha

coefficient of this scale was .88.

RESULTS

Means, standard deviations, and simple correlation coefficients between

studied variables are reported in Table 1. Disproportionate customer expectation
and customer verbal aggression were both positively correlated with workers’
emotional exhaustion (

r = .28, p < .01 and r = .31, p < .01, respectively).

A significant correlation was found between surface acting and emotional
exhaustion (

r = .18, p < .01). Deep acting and emotional exhaustion were not

significantly correlated (

r = -.07, p > .10), but a significant correlation was found

between disproportionate customer expectation and surface acting (

r = .17,

p < .01).

Table 1

m

eanS

, S

tandard

d

eviationS

,

and

c

orrelation

c

oefficientS

for

S

tudy

v

ariableS

Variable

M

SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1. Sex

0.44 0.50

—

2. Age

28.43 5.89 -.12

*

—

3. Years of school

14.52 2.15 -.02

.01

—

4. Disproportionate
customer expectation

3.23

.84 -.04 -.21

**

-.12

*

—

5. Customer verbal aggression 2.11

.89 -.02 -.13

*

-.12

*

.49

**

—

6. Surface acting

3.28 1.00 -.02

.00

.16

**

.17

**

.10

—

7. Deep acting

4.05

.87

.02

.02

.08

.10

-.12

*

.37

**

—

8. Emotional exhaustion

1.65 1.14 -.15

*

-.18

**

.02

.28

**

.31

**

.18

**

-.07

Notes: N = 310.

*

p < .05,

**

p < .01.

CUSTOMER-RELATED SOCIAL STRESSORS

1363

Measurement model testing results are presented in Table 2. As indicated by the

fit indices, the model fit of the measurement model was acceptable. In addition,
all the scale items (i.e., indicators) loaded significantly onto their corresponding
latent constructs, demonstrating clear distinction among all the latent constructs
included in this model. Therefore, the measurement model appears well suited to
test further structural equation models.

Table 2

m

odel

t

eSting

r

eSultS

Model

c

2

df

NNFI

CFI

RMSEA

Δc

2

(Δ

df)

1. Measurement model

881.88

340

.91

.92

.076

—

2. Model 1

881.88

340

.91

.92

.076

—

3. Model 2

883.93

343

.91

.92

.076

2.05 (3)

Note: N = 310. NNFI = nonnormed fit index; CFI = comparative fit index; RMSEA = root mean
square error of approximation. Δc

2

(Δ

df) reports the differences in chi-square and degree of freedom

between the modified model and the hypothesized model.

We found that CSS, especially customer verbal aggression, can predict

emotional exhaustion beyond other stress-related constructs. Emotional regulation
is influenced by CSS and surface acting is related to emotional exhaustion. In
testing the hypothesized model structural equation modeling yielded acceptable
model fit (see Table 2). However, neither the structural path from deep acting
to emotional exhaustion nor the structural path from disproportionate customer
expectation to emotional exhaustion was significant. Therefore, we removed
these nonsignificant paths from Model 1 to test a refined Model 2. The model fit
of this refined model was also acceptable, not being significantly different from
the measurement model, Δc

2

(3) = 2.05,

p > .10.

Disproportionate

customer expectation

Customer verbal

aggression

Surface

acting

Deep

acting

Emotional

exhaustion

.21

.17

.32

-.45

.48

Figure 1. Standardized estimates for the selected mediation model.
Note: All paths are significant at p < .01.

CUSTOMER-RELATED SOCIAL STRESSORS

1364

The standardized solution for the refined model (i.e., Model 2) is presented

in Figure 1. Specifically, disproportionate customer expectation was positively
related to both surface acting (γ = .21, p < .01) and deep acting (γ = .48, p <

.01). Customer verbal aggression was not significantly related to surface acting.
The path from surface acting to emotional exhaustion was significant (γ = .17,

p < .01), whereas the path from deep acting to emotional exhaustion was not
significant. More importantly, the Sobel test showed that the indirect effect
of disproportionate customer expectation on emotional exhaustion via surface
acting was significant; indirect effect = .07 (

SE = .03), z = 2.53, p < .05. Finally,

the direct effect of customer verbal aggression on emotional exhaustion was
significant, γ = .32, p < .01.

DISCUSSION

In this study we examined the mediating role played by emotional regulation

strategies in linking customer-related social stressors (CSS) and emotional
exhaustion. Our findings confirmed the positive relationship between two
types of CSS (i.e., disproportionate customer expectation and customer verbal
aggression) and emotional exhaustion found in a previous study (Dormann &
Zapf, 2004). In addition, our findings help clarify the mechanism linking CSS to
emotional exhaustion, a mechanism that has not been examined previously from
the perspective of emotional labor.

Our findings in this study are consistent with those of previous studies (Barger

& Grandey, 2006; Beal et al., 2006; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Grandey,
2003) in that surface acting was significantly related to emotional exhaustion
while deep acting was not. A critical discrepancy between surface acting and
deep acting is that the former regulation tendency includes modification of
expressions delivered while the latter focuses on adjustment of inner feelings to
match the emotional state with the one required by the display rules (Grandey,
2000, 2003; Hochschild, 1983). To comply with the norms in the work setting,
engaging in surface acting requires an additional effort of constantly supervising
and modifying expressions displayed and this process consumes more energy
(Goldberg & Grandey, 2007). As resources available are limited, surface acting
is likely to lead to emotional exhaustion.

Further, we found it interesting that customer verbal aggression did not impact

emotional exhaustion through surface acting. This may suggest that surface
acting is, indeed, an emotional regulatory strategy infrequently used in the face
of customer verbal aggression. This may be because customer verbal aggression
usually signals a high level of transgression of the service exchange norm.
Therefore, it could be difficult for employees to regulate their reactions toward
this type of transgression.

CUSTOMER-RELATED SOCIAL STRESSORS

1365

Results from our study also have some practical implications. Confirmation

of the relationship between CSS and emotional exhaustion might encourage
managers and employees to allocate more organizational resources to strengthen
the potential buffering factors identified in previous studies, such as job
autonomy (Grandey, Fisk, & Steiner, 2005). Additionally, because surface acting
and deep acting play different roles in the CSS-emotional exhaustion process,
employees might benefit more from (or lose less) in resource conservation, if
they are encouraged and trained to engage more in deep acting.

Finally, common method bias may have resulted from the cross-sectional

design of our study and/or from the self-report measures we used. Common
method bias may have inflated the relationship estimates obtained in the current
analysis. Therefore, our findings should be interpreted with these limitations in
mind.

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