🧠 Journal Summary: The mediating and moderating effects of mindfulness and emotional intelligence

🧠 Journal Summary: The mediating and moderating effects of mindfulness and emotional intelligence on the emotional labor strategies and career resilience of tourism employees

Authors: Xin Zhang, Ruoqi Zhao, Yike Li, Shuhuang Wu, Ting Xiao, Wenhao Pan & Wenlong Wang

Published In: Scientific Reports

🔍 Study Summary

This study investigated the role of emotional labor strategies among Chinese tourism employees within communication contexts. Its primary goal was to explore how mindfulness, acting as a mediating variable, and emotional intelligence, acting as a moderating variable, affect the career resilience of these employees. The research aimed to provide empirical evidence for improving communication efficiency and work motivation in the tourism sector.

💡 Key Concepts

• Emotional Labor Strategies: This refers to how individuals manage their emotions to display expressions or behaviors that meet job expectations. It includes:
  • Surface acting: Adjusting external emotional expressions without changing internal feelings.
  • Deep acting: Regulating and transforming internal emotions to align with organizational needs.
  • Authentic behavior: A natural expression where an employee’s true emotions match the organizational requirements.
• Career Resilience: The ability of employees to cope with pressure, challenges, and uncertainties, and to continuously adapt and grow in their careers, particularly in dynamic industries like tourism.
• Mindfulness: A trait involving actively facing the present, focusing on it, objectively accepting it, and maintaining alertness and quick thinking. It helps individuals acknowledge feelings without criticism or avoidance.
• Emotional Intelligence: An individual’s capacity to evaluate, express, recognize, and effectively utilize their own emotions, guiding their thoughts and behaviors, and managing relationships with others.
• Conservation of Resources (COR) theory: A theory positing that individuals strive to obtain, retain, protect, and build resources, including emotional resources, which can be depleted or built through emotional labor strategies.

📊 Key Insights

• There is a significant correlation between emotional labor strategies, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and career resilience.
• Surface acting behavior has a significant negative predictive effect on mindfulness, suggesting it depletes emotional resources and may weaken career resilience.
• Authentic behavior significantly and positively predicts both mindfulness and career resilience.
• Mindfulness can directly and positively predict career resilience.
• Mindfulness serves as a mediating variable between authentic behavior and career resilience, meaning authentic emotional expression fosters mindfulness, which in turn enhances resilience.
• Emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between mindfulness and career resilience, allowing employees to be more sensitive to others’ emotions and convey their own effectively, thereby strengthening the positive impact of mindfulness on resilience.

📘 Example Application

In a hotel setting, management could implement mindfulness training programs for customer service staff. This training would encourage employees to practice authentic emotional expression rather than just surface acting when dealing with challenging guests. By fostering mindfulness, employees would be better equipped to manage their stress and emotional exhaustion, leading to increased job satisfaction and a greater sense of achievement.

With higher emotional intelligence, these employees could also better understand and respond to guest needs, enhancing both service quality and their own career resilience within the demanding hospitality industry.

💬 Comment from Dr. Dwi Suryanto

The findings of this study underscore the critical interplay between emotional regulation, self-awareness, and resilience in demanding service environments like tourism. It provides valuable insights for organizations seeking to enhance employee well-being and performance by not just focusing on external behaviors but also nurturing internal psychological resources.

Understanding these dynamics can help cultivate a more resilient workforce capable of navigating challenges effectively.

📌 Takeaway

Authentic emotional expression, coupled with mindfulness and emotional intelligence, significantly enhances an employee’s ability to cope with workplace demands and build lasting career resilience. Investing in emotional well-being and self-awareness training can lead to a more adaptable and effective workforce.