Date of Conferral

5-9-2024

Date of Award

May 2024

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Susan Marcus

Abstract

Emergency medical service professionals face frequent demands of emotional labor, requiring them to regulate their emotions to best provide patient care in critical situations and handle emotional upset in the public they serve. Surface acting (faking emotions to meet work expectations) is associated with outcomes like burnout, increased turnover intent, and reduced job satisfaction. Emotional intelligence has been identified as a factor influencing emotional labor strategies; however, more research is needed. This research examined the extent to which dimensions of emotional intelligence (self-emotion appraisal, others’ emotion appraisal, use of emotion, and regulation of emotion) predict emotional labor strategies among emergency medical service professionals. Grandey’s framework of emotional labor was used as a model to examine how demographics, job experience, and emotional intelligence discriminate among types of emotional labor strategies using an anonymous survey research design of 221 EMS professionals. A discriminant function analysis was conducted, and the resulting discriminant functions were statistically significant in placing EMS professionals into groups based on their emotional labor strategies; however, the extent and accuracy of prediction was not substantiative. Suggestions for future research include examining emotional intelligence as a mediating or moderating variable impacting emotional labor and considering emotion regulation profiles specific to the demands of EMS. These results can contribute to positive social change through the continuing education of EMS professionals to cultivate more healthy emotional labor strategies to avoid turnover, burnout, and job satisfaction, with the goal of improving patient care.

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