Following Display Rules in Good or Bad Faith?: Customer Orientation as a Moderator of the Display Rule-Emotional Labor Relationship

Organizational display rules (e.g., oservice with a smileo) have had mixed relationships with employee emotional laboreither in the form of obad faitho surface acting (suppressing or faking expressions) or ogood faitho deep acting (modifying inner feelings). We draw on the motivational perspective of emotional labor to argue that individual differences in customer orientation will directly and indirectly relate to these acting strategies in response to display rules. With a survey of more than 500 working adults in customer contact positions, and controlling for affective disposition, we find that customer orientation directly increases ogood faitho acting while it moderates the relationship of display rules with obad faitho acting.