Exploring the Relationship between Emotional Labor and Organizational Commitment Levels of Teachers

Purpose: Teachers are members of a profession that requires high levels of emotional labor. Committed employees tend to put more effort for their organizations. If so, organizational commitment may be a potential facilitator for teachers to act in line with schools' expectations about emotions. The present research aims to explore the predicting role of teachers' commitments to their schools on their displaying emotional labor during interactions with their students. Research Methods: In this study, 375 teachers, working in elementary, middle, and high schools from a central Black Sea region province of Turkey participated. Data were gathered through the Scale of Emotional Labor in Teaching and the Organizational Commitment Scale. The relationships were analyzed through Pearson's correlation coefficient and hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses. Findings: The findings obtained in this study indicated that teachers' commitments in the identification and internalization dimensions were positively correlated with their level of displaying emotional labor in the surface acting, deep acting, and genuine emotions dimensions. Teachers' commitments in the internalization dimension were determined to be the most significant predictor of each of the three emotional labor strategies. Implications for Research and Practice: The results of the study add a new brick to the teacher emotional labor literature presenting that internalized teacher commitment may be an important factor to sustain teachers display their emotions in line with the school expectations.