2025/09/22 by de Amorim Ribeiro, Elisa Maria Barbosa, LEUTWILER, ÉRIKA CINEGAGLIA VIZ
#Education #Emotional Regulation #Emotional work #FOS: Psychology #Gender #Higher Education #Intersectionality #Psychology #Race #Social and Behavioral Sciences
paper · doi:10.17605/osf.io/ts9mw
Emotional Labor (EL) refers to the regulation of emotions to meet organizational display rules. This study aimed to map the types of evidence, concepts, contexts, and inequalities related to EL and the intersectionality of gender and race/ethnicity. Empirical studies with active workers, published between 1983 and 2025, were included without language restriction. Searches were conducted in SciELO, ERIC, Scopus, Web of Science, and Medline databases. Screening was performed by two independent reviewers (kappa = 0.90; 98% agreement) and followed a structured extraction protocol (sample, EL measures, strategies, outcomes, gender/race dimensions). A total of 2,686 articles were initially identified; after removing 1,390 duplicates, 56 studies were included in the synthesis. Findings revealed a predominance of studies with education and healthcare professionals, predominantly female samples, and race/ethnicity rarely reported. Surface acting was consistently associated with burnout, while deep acting often showed protective effects, moderated by organizational and cultural contexts. Results also highlighted disproportionate burdens for women, especially Black and migrant workers, and the invisibility of EL in male-dominated occupations. EL emerges as a central and intersectional phenomenon, although racial dimensions remain underreported. Standardized collection of race/ethnicity data, intersectional analyses, and longitudinal designs are recommended.