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Running Head: EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 1 Emotional Exhaustion among Hotel Employees: The Interactive Effects of Affective Dispositions and Positive Work Reflection
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Running Head: EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 1

Emotional Exhaustion among Hotel Employees: The Interactive Effects of Affective

Dispositions and Positive Work Reflection

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 2

ABSTRACT

Hospitality employees inevitably face emotional exhaustion when performing their jobs. The

purpose of this study was to investigate dispositional antecedents of hospitality employees’

emotional exhaustion, including self-instability, pessimism and affect variability, and how

employees’ affect variability mediates the relations between self-instability and pessimism

and emotional exhaustion. In addition, we explored the moderating role of positive work

reflection on the relation between affect variability and emotional exhaustion. A total of 224

frontline employees in 18 four- and five-star hotels in Ecuador responded to surveys about

their emotions and work lives. The findings suggest that (a) emotional exhaustion was

influenced by affect variability; (b) affect variability mediated the relations between self-

instability and pessimism and emotional exhaustion and (c) the relation between affect

variability and emotional exhaustion was weakened by positive work reflection. The results

highlight the importance of potential low-cost, easily trainable interventions that could help

in attenuating the negative effects of highly variable emotions and the resulting exhaustion

that are prevalent in the hospitality industry. This research is among the first to examine the

dispositional antecedents of emotional exhaustion, and the first to highlight the role of

positive work reflection as a moderating variable that can buffer the negative effect of affect

variability on emotional exhaustion.

Keywords: Emotional exhaustion; affect variability; self-instability; pessimism; positive work

reflection

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 3

Emotional Exhaustion among Hotel Employees: The Interactive Effects of Affective

Dispositions and Positive Work Reflection

The quality of the interaction between customers and frontline employees has a

profound impact on customers’ satisfaction levels, their intentions to repatronize and their

willingness to share positive word-of-mouth about an organization. Hospitality organizations

require employees to focus on flawless service to maintain success in the industry. Employee

demeanor plays an important role in that process, and managing employee emotions and

involving employees in frequent and intense interpersonal contact with customers have both

been recognized as important aspects of maintaining loyal customers (Lee & Ok, 2012).

However, employees are not always good at managing their emotions and they often feel

exhausted (Grandey, 2000). They are confronted with emotional exhaustion, which is a key

aspect of employee burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1981) and is defined as “the extent to which

employees feel emotionally overwhelmed and drained by their work” (Janssen, Lam, &

Huang, 2010, p.788).

Emotional exhaustion gives rise to a number of negative job-related consequences,

including decreased job satisfaction (Lewig & Dollard, 2003), low job performance

(Halbesleben & Bowler, 2007), low organizational citizenship behavior (Cropanzano, Rupp,

& Byrne, 2003), poor general health and psychological and physiological well-being

(Khamisa, Oldenburg, Peltzer, & Ilic, 2015), and eventually high propensity to leave their

jobs (Kraemer & Gouthier, 2014). Against this backdrop, it is critical to understand the

factors that predict emotional exhaustion. Identifying the antecedents of emotional exhaustion

will help hospitality organizations solve of the riddle of why employees remain exhausted

and complain about the workplace. This study sheds light on the ways in which various

factors impact emotional exhaustion and can help hospitality managers to take measures to

reduce employee emotional exhaustion.

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 4

Research has shown that one of the influential predictors of emotional exhaustion is

negative valenced affect because emotional exhaustion involves feelings of negative tone;

being emotionally overextended and drained by one’s work (e.g., Burke, Brief, & George,

1993; Wright & Cropanzano, 1998). In addition to negative affect, affect variability is an

understudied affective disposition that is likely to be related to emotional exhaustion. To

illustrate the meaning of affect variability, an individual characterized by higher levels of

affect variability experiences affect that reaches higher extreme levels and shows greater

deviations from the mean level of affect. Affect variability plays a significant role in

predicting individuals’ psychological and physical functioning, above and beyond average

levels of affect (Eid & Diener, 1999; Gruber, Kogan, Quoidbach, & Mauss, 2013).

Little research has examined the antecedents of affect variability, and what factors can

protect employees who experience a high level of fluctuations of emotions. Using the

cognitive appraisal theory of emotions (Frijda, 1986), we propose self-instability and

pessimism to be critical factors related to affect variability, and in turn related to emotional

exhaustion. Another important element to consider is how employees’ non-work experiences

during leisure time could attenuate the negative effect of affect variability on emotional

exhaustion. As such, we introduce a potential buffer to reduce the effect of affect variability

on emotional exhaustion: positive work reflection during leisure time. The conceptual model

of this research is depicted in Figure 1.

-----------------------------------------Insert Figure 1 about here

-----------------------------------------

Conceptual Model and Hypotheses

Affect variability and emotional exhaustion

We anticipated that employees’ emotional exhaustion would be influenced by affect

variability. Affect variability is defined as the frequency, speed, and magnitude of

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 5

fluctuations in affective states (Oliver & Simons, 2004). Some individuals are stable in terms

of their affect, whereas others experience fluctuations in their affect that may include extreme

emotional states. High degrees of affect variability render individuals vulnerable to the

sufferings of everyday life. For example, feeling very happy one moment and very unhappy

the next could trigger a physiological stress response, which could alter cortisol profiles

(Human, Whillans, Hoppmann, Klumb, Dickerson, & Dunn, 2015) and have negative long-

term consequences for both psychological and physical health (e.g., Houben, Van Den

Noortgate, & Kuppens, 2015). This could then further translate into emotional exhaustion,

job dissatisfaction, and absenteeism, which have been shown to negatively impact

customer/employee interactions in service contexts (Grandey, 2000).

Emotional exhaustion is characterized by feelings of being overextended, drained and

depleted of one’s resources (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001). According to theory on

personal resource depletion (e.g., Hobfoll, 1989), individuals have limited personal resources

that allow them to engage in various taxing events throughout a day. Completing a variety of

emotional activities – especially in hospitality contexts requiring an effortful regulation of

emotions – could be particularly draining because of the depletion of psychological resources

(e.g., Shani et al., 2014). Individuals with higher affect variability are more likely to have to

engage in affect regulation in order to fulfill the emotional requirements of the job, relative to

those with lower affect variability. Therefore, employees whose affective states are more

variable and erratic could experience a higher depletion of their psychological resources at

work, in comparison to employees whose affective states are more stable. Excessive

consumption of resources is related to unfavorable results, such as lower levels of motivation,

task focus, well-being and psychological health (Hobfoll, 2010), which could ignite a

downward spiral of further emotional exhaustion. Given the aforementioned argument, it is

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 6

expected that affect variability would be positively associated with emotional exhaustion

because of emotional resource depletion and therefore it is hypothesized that:

Hypothesis 1: Affect variability will be positively related to emotional exhaustion.

Antecedents of affect variability

In this study, we examine how self-perceptions are related to affect variability, which

is in turn associated with emotional exhaustion. Self-perceptions are important to understand

emotional traits (Dizen & Berenbaum, 2011). The cognitive appraisal theory of emotions

(Frijda, 1986) conceptualizes self-perceptions as the antecedents to emotional reactions,

which elicit, differentiate, and influence the intensity of different emotions (Dizen &

Berenbaum, 2011). Most of the previous literature has used the cognitive appraisal theory of

emotions to examine which specific cognitive appraisal dimensions predict which discrete

emotions (e.g., a perception of self-blame predicts guilt and fear; Lutwak, Panish, & Ferrari,

2003). This study was based on the expectation that cognitive appraisal theory could also

help in explaining affect variability, since individuals tend to be relatively stable in many

important aspects of their appraisals and perceptions of events (e.g., Peterson & Villanova,

1988), which in turn contributes to their being relatively stable in how they respond

emotionally. Based on the cognitive appraisal theory of emotions, it is posited that affect

variability will be positively associated with instability of self-concept and pessimism.

Self-instability

Self-instability refers to the instability of one’s self-concept (e.g., perceived personal

attributes), self-perceived inconsistency, and temporal instability of self-aspects (Dizen &

Berenbaum, 2011). Individuals higher in self-instability have a less clearly and confidently

defined self-concept, or they have a less organized knowledge of traits, values, episodic and

semantic memories about the self, and have little control of the processing of self-relevant

information (Campbell, Trapnell, Heine, Katz, Lavallee, & Lehman, 1996). According to

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 7

Conley (1984), self-instability is an opinion about the self, a type of individual difference that

can be assessed as a trait and a state that is susceptible to environmental influences.

Most relevant literature on the relation between self-instability and emotional

reactions is part of the extensive research on self-esteem variability, which is defined as the

magnitude of fluctuations in one’s level of self-esteem (Dizen & Berenbaum, 2011). The

existing research suggests that the extent to which people’s self-esteem fluctuates contributes

to changes in their affect. Someone whose self-esteem is consistently threatened or bolstered

differentially over time will experience the concomitant affective reactions associated with

these negative and positive experiences. For instance, Kernis, Grannemann, and Barclay

(1989) demonstrated that self-esteem instability was positively related to variability in mood.

Additionally, past research has also found that self-esteem instability was positively related to

variability in both positive and negative affect (e.g., Rhodewalt, Madrian, & Cheney, 1998).

However, the specific relation between self-instability and affect variability has rarely

been examined (Dizen & Berenbaum, 2011). Based on cognitive appraisal theory, we argue

that a higher level of affect variability will be related to a higher level of instability in

perceptions of self-concept. Individuals higher in self-instability tend to be more vulnerable

to external events. The theory assumes that specific events trigger thoughts and feelings in

one’s self-concept that are most relevant to the immediate context, and are also likely to

similarly stimulate simultaneous arousal and emotions as a natural response to these events.

Therefore, the affect of individuals higher in self-instability will be more positive after

positive events and be more negative after negative events, thus producing higher affect

variability over time (Campbell, Chew, & Scratchley, 1991).

Researchers (e.g., Lee-Flynn, Pomaki, DeLongis, Biesanz, & Puterman, 2011) have

argued that individuals with less self-instability may be less affected by and more able to deal

with the external events or stressors. For instance, individuals who are certain of their self-

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 8

concepts (i.e., low self-instability) are more likely to seek out information that verifies self-

beliefs that they are certain about (Arkin, Oleson, & Carroll, 2013) and less likely to change

their self-beliefs (Swann, Pelham, & Chidester, 1988). Therefore, they are more resilient to

external events. When they deal with external events that are threatening and uncontrollable,

they would respond more effectively by using the clear and certain aspects of the self,

resulting in less affect variability. On the contrary, individuals with unstable self-concepts, or

high self-instability, are more likely to show intense reactions to external events, because

their self-concepts cannot provide them with effective and consistent knowledge of how to

respond (Kernis, Paradise, Whitaker, Wheatman, & Goldman, 2000), resulting in higher

affect variability. Thus, individuals higher in self-instability who feel inauthentic across

different contexts or across different time periods will likely experience higher fluctuations in

affect as well (Campbell et al., 1996). Thus, it is hypothesized that:

Hypothesis 2: Self-instability will be positively related to affect variability.

Pessimism

Additionally, we examine the relation between affect variability and pessimism.

Pessimism is defined as holding negative expectations about future events, or the belief that

adverse results will occur in the future (Kuppens et al., 2007). Kaiser, Major, and McCoy

(2004) argued that a pessimistic outlook involves threatening appraisals and is associated

with greater psychological vulnerability. We believe that investigating sources of

vulnerability, such as pessimism, could help to make sense of variability in employees’

affective responses to work events.

Pessimism has been theorized to influence individuals’ adjustment through its impact

on cognitive appraisals, and has been found to be negatively associated with psychological

adjustment because pessimists tend to appraise stressful events as more taxing and

threatening and are not as able to cope with the events, compared to optimists (Brissete,

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 9

Scheier, & Carver, 2002). Generally, theories on emotion regulation and self-development

suggest that people with poor psychological adjustment are characterized by higher levels of

variability of reported affective experiences over time (Ram, Gerstorf, Lindenberger, &

Smith, 2011). In addition, individuals who are high in pessimism tend to hold low self-beliefs

about their own affect and are low in their capacity to regulate mood. When they feel

confused about their emotional knowledge capability and have low confidence in their own

emotional regulation ability, they would lose control over stressful situations, showing lower

psychological health functioning and higher affect variability (Extremera, Durán, & Rey,

2007). Thus, we predict the following:

Hypothesis 3: Pessimism will be positively related to affect variability.

The moderating effect of positive work reflection

Scholars addressing physiological (Linden, Earle, Gerin, & Christenfeld, 1997) and

organizational (Trougakos, Beal, Green, & Weiss, 2008; Westman & Eden, 1997) strategies

have argued that exposure to processes associated with recovery are crucial for tackling

emotional exhaustion at work. For instance, Trougakos et al. (2008) demonstrated that self-

regulatory breaks (such as low-effort activities and socializing) can help employees replenish

resources and experience more positive affect, compared to breaks that are used for chores.

Research also has shown that several non-work experiences can alleviate the negative effect

of emotional exhaustion and benefit individuals’ well-being. For example, psychological

detachment, or refraining from thinking about work-related events during employees’ leisure

time, predicted decreased emotional exhaustion and increased work engagement (Sonnentag,

Binnewies, & Mojza, 2010). In addition, Lee, Choo, and Hyun (2016) found that recovery

experiences such as psychological detachment, relaxation, and learning a new skill during

off-job hours can benefit employees’ subjective well-being.

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One type of non-work recovery experience that has received relatively little attention

is thinking about the positive side of one’s job during leisure time. According to O’Neill and

Davis (2011), working in hospitality jobs can be especially stressful due to the combination

of coworker-, work overload-, and customer-related stressors. Because of these stressful

situations in hospitality contexts, employees might need to actively think about the positive

side of work during leisure time to replenish their energetic and psychological resources.

Engaging in this type of behavior has been found to reduce blood pressure and health

complaints and to buffer the negative effect of high job demands on well-being (Bono,

Glomb, Shen, Kim, & Koch, 2013).

Positive work reflection during leisure time can assist to build resources and thereby

decrease the experiences of stress (Fritz & Sonnentag, 2006). Positive work reflection

involves realizing the positive side of work and considering what one likes about it. However,

empirical research on positive work reflection during leisure time is scant (Fritz &

Sonnentag, 2005, 2006; Binnewies, Sonnentag, & Mojza, 2009). The lack of literature is

surprising because literature has demonstrated that capitalizing on positive events (e.g., by

considering the good aspects of work) is beneficial for employees’ psychological and

physiological health (Binnewies et al., 2009). Positively reflecting on one’s work is argued to

be resource-providing and it benefits employees’ health and well-being for several reasons

(Bono et al., 2013). First, positively reflecting about work involves a positive reappraisal of

work events or experiences, which can reduce the negative consequences of job-related strain

(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Second, positive work reflection involves thinking about

achieved goals, pleasant events, or supportive relationships when doing one’s job (Fritz &

Sonnentag, 2006). As a result, positive work reflection could build up or increase ones’

resources, such as positive emotions, sense of competence, and self-efficacy, which, in turn,

would benefit employee well-being. Therefore, positive work reflection works as a

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 11

mechanism to regain lost valuable resources and facilitate further resource gains (Westman,

1999).

We anticipate that positive work reflection will weaken the relation between affect

variability and emotional exhaustion. When not positively reflecting about work during

leisure time, the variability in affect remains mentally present and may elicit exhaustion

reactions, including fatigue, anxiety, or impaired sleep. Positive work reflection, however,

entails thinking about fulfilled tasks and other positive events in the workplace, allowing one

to recover and to rebuild psychological resources, hence helping employees with high affect

variability reduce emotional exhaustion. As a result, positive work reflection should attenuate

the positive relation between affect variability and emotional exhaustion: when levels of

positive work reflection during leisure time are high, the relation between affect variability

and emotional exhaustion should be weaker than when levels of reflection are low. Thus, we

predict the following:

Hypothesis 4: Positive work reflection will weaken the relation between affect

variability and emotional exhaustion.

Based on above discussions and hypotheses, it is expected that affect variability

would act as a mediator such that self-instability and pessimism will be related to affect

variability, which will, in turn, be related to emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, it is expected

that this mediation would be moderated by positive work reflection, such that the mediation

effect would be weakened by positive work reflection.

Hypothesis 5: There is a moderated effect of positive work reflection on the mediation

effect of affect variability. Positive work reflection moderates the indirect effect (via

affect variability) of self-instability and pessimism on emotional exhaustion, such that

this indirect effect is weaker under conditions of greater positive work reflection.

Method

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 12

Data collection

A total of 224 frontline employees in 18 four- and five-star hotels in the three largest

cities in Ecuador participated in a Spanish-language survey. Three of the authors approached

the general managers via personal connections and invited them to distribute the paper-and-

pencil surveys to their employees. The employees were instructed to refer to their current

employment experiences. They were informed that the research was for academic purposes

only, and that their participation was on a voluntary and anonymous basis. The average age

of the respondents was 31.83 (SD = 9.12) and 60% of them were male. Approximately 10%

of the respondents had not finished high school, 30% had high school degrees, 30% had some

university classes completed, and 30% had a bachelor’s degree or higher. The average tenure

in the current organization was 4.73 years (SD = 5.74).

Measures

To make sure that the Spanish survey accurately reflected the original survey in

English, we utilized a back translation method (Brislin, 1980). Specifically, one bilingual

author and one bilingual expert translated the questionnaire from English to Spanish. Next,

two additional bilingual authors translated the Spanish questionnaire back to English to verify

the accuracy of the Spanish version. All measures utilized seven-point Likert scales ranging

from 1 “strongly disagree” to 7 “strongly agree.” The survey contained the following

sections, each derived from previous literature.

Emotional Exhaustion. To measure emotional exhaustion, the nine-item Maslach

Burnout Inventory developed by Maslach and Jackson (1981) was used. One sample item is

“I feel used up at the end of the workday.” Cronbach’s alpha for emotional exhaustion

was .89.

Affect variability. To measure levels of affect variability, we used the 18-item

Affective Lability Scale (Oliver & Simons, 2004). A sample item is “At times I feel just as

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 13

relaxed as everyone else and then within minutes I become so nervous that I feel light-headed

and dizzy.” Cronbach’s alpha for affect variability was .93.

Self-Instability. We measured self-instability using a 12-item scale developed by

Campbell et al. (1996). A sample item from this scale is “My beliefs about myself seem to

change very frequently.” Cronbach’s alpha for self-instability was .81.

Pessimism. We used the Pessimism Scale (Kuppens et al., 2007), which consists of

three items that assess the inclination to believe things that will turn out to be negative. A

sample item is “I often expect the worst.” Cronbach’s alpha for pessimism was .81.

Positive Work Reflection. We measured positive work reflection during leisure time

with one item developed by Fritz and Sonnentag (2005; 2006; i.e., “During leisure time, I

consider the positive aspects of my job”). Earlier research has argued that a single well-

chosen item is sufficient when individuals are asked to rate straight-forward unidimensional

constructs in terms of recent experiences (Fisher & To, 2012).

Data analysis

As shown in Figure 1, we proposed a moderated mediation model, in which affect

variability serves as a mediator and positive work reflection serves as a moderator. Thus,

Hayes’s (2013) PROCESS macro was utilized to analyze the data. Because we have two

independent variables, we ran separate PROCESS models such that one included self-

instability as an independent variable and pessimism as a control variable and the other

included these variables reversed (see Hayes, 2013).

Results

Means, standard deviations, inter-correlations, and reliability estimates for the key

constructs in this study are provided in Table 1. As can be seen, affect variability was

positively related to self-instability (r = .67, p < .01) and pessimism (r = .61, p < .01), and

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emotional exhaustion was positively related to affect variability (r = .51, p < .01). These

findings provided preliminary support for Hypotheses 1-3.

-----------------------------------------Insert Table 1 about here

-----------------------------------------

Hypotheses testing

Affect variability was significantly related to emotional exhaustion, b = 0.41, p < .01,

supporting Hypothesis 1. Self-instability and pessimism were both significantly related to

affect variability, b = 0.55, p < .01 and b = 0.20, p < .01, respectively, supporting Hypotheses

2 and 3. These results are summarized in Table 2. By definition, these relations are the same

regardless of which variable is entered as the independent variable and which one is entered

as the control variable in the PROCESS model.

-----------------------------------------Insert Table 2 about here

-----------------------------------------

Hypothesis 4 proposed that positive work reflection would moderate the relation

between affect variability and emotional exhaustion. The predicted interaction (affect

variability X positive work reflection) was statistically significant, b = -0.10, p < .01,

supporting Hypothesis 4. The simple slope for affect variability at higher levels of positive

work reflection (1 SD above the mean) was 0.42, p < .01, and at lower levels of positive work

reflection (1 SD below the mean) was 0.85, p < .01. This moderation effect is graphically

depicted in Figure 2, such that the effect of affect variability on emotional exhaustion was

weaker when individuals have higher positive work reflection.

-----------------------------------------Insert Figure 2 about here

-----------------------------------------

Hypothesis 5 proposed the conditional indirect effects such that the indirect relations

between self-instability/pessimism and emotional exhaustion would be moderated by positive

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 15

work reflection. The conditional indirect effects are presented in Tables 3A and 3B.

Specifically, the indirect effects of self-instability and pessimism under higher levels of

positive work reflection, b = 0.12 and b = 0.04, respectively, are lower than those of under

lower levels of positive work reflection, b = 0.33 and b = 0.12, respectively. Hayes’ (2013)

index of moderated mediation also provides a test for the strength of the mediator at different

levels of the moderator. The index was found to be significant when self-instability was

entered as the independent variable (controlling for the effect of pessimism), effect = -0.05,

SE = .02, 95% CI (-0.09, -0.02), and when pessimism was entered as the independent

variable (controlling for the effect of pessimism), effect = -0.02, SE = .01, 95% CI (-0.04, -

0.01). Thus, these tests indicate that the impact of self-instability and pessimism on emotional

exhaustion through affect variability decreases as positive work reflection increases, in

support of Hypothesis 5.

-------------------------------------------Insert Table 3A and 3B about here-------------------------------------------

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to investigate the antecedents of emotional exhaustion

and the interactive effect of affective dispositions and positive work reflection on employee

emotional exhaustion in a hospitality context. Based on prior research, we anticipated that

emotional exhaustion would be influenced by affect variability, and affect variability would

be more prevalent among employees with higher self-instability and pessimism. In addition,

we expected that positive work reflection during leisure time would weaken the relation

between affect variability and emotional exhaustion. The results of the empirical tests fully

supported the research model: self-perception variables (i.e., self-instability and pessimism)

predicted affect variability and that greater variability in affect was related to increased

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 16

emotional exhaustion. In addition, positive work reflection weakened the positive relation

between affect variability and emotional exhaustion.

The results are helpful in understanding the swinging of the “emotional pendulum”

and its association with emotional exhaustion. Specifically, individuals whose affect varied

more exhibited higher levels of emotional exhaustion compared to individuals with lower

variability in affect. The evidence suggests that less emotional exhaustion is characterized by

lower affective fluctuations that are more homeostatically tied to baseline levels. It is

plausible to assume that individuals with stable affective trajectories have a sense of control

and security, relating to an optimal level of well-being. If one’s emotions are characterized as

swinging and dramatically changing, one’s life becomes less coherent and more exhausting.

This contributes to resource depletion theory: in a hospitality setting, individuals with higher

affect variability are more likely to have to engage in effortful emotion regulation to match

display rules and therefore expend their emotional resources; thus, a depletion of resources as

a consequence of affect variability evokes emotional exhaustion.

Our results also suggest a moderating role of positive work reflection during leisure

time. This finding is consistent with the framework of positive psychology that discusses

positive conditions and processes that contribute to one’s optimal functioning (Binnewies et

al., 2009; Gable & Haidt, 2005; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Capitalizing on

positive work reflection as a positive appraisal of work experience could serve as activating

cognitive behaviors that help to build personal and social resources to benefit employees

(Daniel & Sonnentag, 2014). The resources were found to help to buffer the negative effect

of affective variability on emotional exhaustion in this study. In addition to this moderating

effect, we also found that positive work reflection was significantly and negatively correlated

with emotional exhaustion. Therefore, the more employees think about the positive aspects of

their jobs during leisure time, the less likely it is that they will experience emotional

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exhaustion. This finding indicates that positive work reflection, as a unique construct,

functions as a fundamental basis for other job-related attitudes and perceptions.

Practical implications

Practitioners can benefit from this study in understanding the antecedents of

emotional exhaustion in hospitality organizations and finding ways to manage it more

effectively. The results suggest that affect variability was influenced by self-instability and

pessimism. Managers could use the current results in selection and hiring processes and

identify those candidates who are prone to be less emotionally variable and pessimistic and

have less self-instability. HR managers could measure applicants’ self-instability, pessimism

and affect variability in the application forms or employment tests. There are other behavioral

indicators that may be easier to observe. For example, selfish behaviors could indicate

pessimism (Salekin, 2002), and attentional difficulties could indicate self-instability (Parnas

& Sass, 2001). Affect variability could be indicated by difficulties in remembering details,

making decisions or concentrating (Wender, 1998). Managers could use those behavioral

indicators to infer the applicants’ traits. There are also other related traits that HR may

already measure, such as neuroticism (Griffith et al., 2010) and emotional intelligence (Leible

& Snell, 2004). Those indicators could help managers to detect whether the applicants are

more prone to become exhausted in the workplace and make hiring decisions.

Managers could actively use interventions to reduce emotional exhaustion and

promote well-being and psychological health for their employees. Specifically, it is suggested

that psychological interventions could be most successful in companies when these

interventions reduce variability in affective states, as opposed to only concentrating on

enhancing employees’ peak positive experiences. For instance, implementing innovative

practices such as regularly practicing on-site yoga and encouraging meditative breaks would

help employees to reduce affect variability and stress (Deshpande, 2012). Employers may

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 18

also assist employees to schedule micro-breaks to help them regulate emotions (Trougakos et

al., 2008), such as a paid 15-minute rest period for each 2-hour work period. Additional

training in deep acting and how to deal with difficult customers can also be implemented, so

that employees feel more in control and thus less likely to suffer from ups and downs

(Sawyerr, Srinivas, & Wang, 2009). Mangers could also provide supportive management or

coaching to reduce affective variability and emotional exhaustion (Gyllensten & Palmer,

2005). Although the difficulty to estimate the return on investment of such programs could

not be ignored, we suggest that it is an important step that managers should make to broaden

their role in enhancing employees’ quality of life, even though those programs may not

directly tackle hazards including work overload or lack of control (Gyllensten & Palmer,

2005). In fact, those programs are not initially difficult for organizations and implementing

these types of programs can be efficacious in the long run (see Long & Christian, 2015;

Wenk-Sormaz, 2005). In addition, Lourijsen, Houtman, Kompier, Grundemann (1999)

demonstrated that the estimated benefits exceeded costs of such emotional exhaustion

reducing interventions within a hospital context.

In addition, it is vital that positive work reflection during leisure time should be

encouraged because it not only directly reduces emotional exhaustion but also buffers the

negative effect of affect variability and may prevent emotional exhaustion before it occurs.

Managers should encourage employees to reflect about the positive side of work during

leisure time, and those efforts should especially be targeted at emotionally labile employees.

Interventions could include providing positive feedback (Battmann, 1988), rewarding

employees for important achievements and enhancing a supportive group climate (Elovainio,

Kivimaki, Eccles, & Sinervo, 2002), encouraging employees to have fun at work and

generating positive events for employees (Tews, Michel, & Allen, 2014; Tews, Michel, &

Stafford, 2013). Organizations could also updates to their employees (e.g., newsletters) that

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 19

highlight the positive aspects of the job (e.g., employee benefits or positive guest

experiences) in an effort to elicit positive reflections about their jobs. Such interventions

should also be timed to follow events of emotional upheaval among employees, such as

layoffs and crisis situations.

Limitations and future research directions

The authors acknowledge the following limitations of this study and identify some

future research directions. This research employed a cross-sectional approach. Future

research can utilize an experience sampling methodology (ESM; Hektner, Schmidt, &

Csikszentmihalyi, 2007), which permits researchers to track employees’ levels of state

emotions over time to investigate within-person processes and allows a better understanding

of the contingencies of behavior (Scollon, Prieto, & Diener, 2003). Utilizing ESM also helps

researchers to address limitations associated with retrospective methods. Future research

could also use latent growth curve modeling (Preacher, Wichman, MacCallum, & Briggs,

2008) to identify the change trajectories of employees’ emotions.

Future research could examine whether perceived instability regarding one’s

significant others (parents or close friends) cause affect variability in the individual. In

addition, our study focused on emotional exhaustion as a dependent variable. In the future,

researchers may want to extend the scope of the dependent variables and include behavioral

or physiological measures that are important in hospitality research (e.g., physical/mental

health, absenteeism) that are also likely to be affected by affect variability. Other moderators

such as psychological detachment (Sonnentag & Bayer, 2005) and respite activities during

work (Trougakos et al., 2008) that could weaken the relation between affect variability and

emotional exhaustion are also worthy of investigation.

Conclusion

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 20

The dispositional antecedents of emotional exhaustion is a topic that has not been

fully investigated in the hospitality literature. By examining the antecedents of emotional

exhaustion with a sample of frontline employees in Ecuador, we demonstrated that self-

instability and pessimism were positively associated with affect variability, which, in turn,

increased emotional exhaustion. In addition, it is demonstrated that positive work reflection

weakened the relation between affect variability and emotional exhaustion. Those findings

have implications for managing employee’s exhaustion and understanding affect with a

unique sample of frontline employees.

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 21

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TABLE 1

Descriptive statistics and correlations among variables

M SD 1 2 3 4 51. Self-instability 2.86 1.13 (.81)2. Pessimism 2.19 1.28 .61** (.81)3. Affect variability 2.73 1.16 .67** .55** (.93)4. Positive work reflection 4.61 2.08 -.02 -.07 .06 --5. Emotional exhaustion 3.02 1.37 .44* .53** .51** -.15* (.89)Note. n = 224 * p < .05; ** p < .01. The internal consistency reliability estimates are presented on the diagonal.

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 30

TABLE 2

Results for moderated mediation

Predictors Coefficien

t

t LLCI ULCIAffect variability regressed on:

Constant -2.02** -13.06 -2.33 -1.72Pessimism 0.20** 3.59 0.09 0.31Self-instability 0.55** 8.59 0.42 0.68

R2 = .69, p < .01

Emotional exhaustion regressed on:Constant 2.23** 8.49 1.72 2.75Pessimism 0.35** 4.71 0.20 0.49Affect variability (AV) 0.41** 4.73 0.24 0.58Self-instability 0.01 0.06 -0.17 0.20Positive work reflection (PWR) -0.12** -3.28 -0.18 -0.05Interaction (AV X PWR) -0.10** -3.30 -0.15 -0.04

R2 = .64, p < .01Note. n = 224 * p < .05 ** p < .01.

LLCI: 95% Lower Level Confidence Interval; ULCI: 95% Upper Level Confidence Interval.

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 31

TABLE 3A

Conditional effect of self-instability on emotional exhaustion through affect variability

for various values of positive work reflection

Mediator Positive work reflection Effect SE LLCI ULCI

Affect variability -1 SD 0.33 0.07 0.19 0.480 0.23 0.06 0.12 0.35

+1 SD 0.12 0.07 -0.01 0.24

TABLE 3B

Conditional effect of pessimism on emotional exhaustion through affect variability for

various values of positive work reflection

Mediator Positive Work Reflection Effect SE LLCI ULCI

Affect variability -1 SD 0.12 0.05 0.04 0.240 0.08 0.04 0.03 0.18

+1 SD 0.04 0.03 0.00 0.13

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 32

FIGURE 1.

Conceptual model of the antecedents of hospitality employee emotional exhaustion

Positive Work Reflection during leisure time

Employee self-instabilityEmployee pessimism

Employee emotional exhaustion

Employee affect variability

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EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AMONG HOTEL EMPLOYEES 33

FIGURE 2.

The moderating role of positive work reflection

Low AV High AV2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

Low PWRHigh PWR

Em

otio

nal E

xhau

stio

n

Note. AV = Affect Variability, PWR = Positive Work Reflection.