Abstract
The present study examined the impact of gender, display rule
demands, and affective personality traits on emotional exhaustion
in a sample of 232 Pakistani customer services representatives of
cellular companies and banks. Emotion Work Requirements Scale
(Best, Downey, & Jones, 1997) was used to measure display rule
demands; emotional exhaustion was measured using Erickson and
Ritter's (2001) Emotional Exhaustion Scale; while affectivity was
measured through Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Watson,
Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) and Emotional Intelligence Scale (Wong
& Law, 2002). Analysis revealed that women employees were
significantly higher on emotional exhaustion and hiding negative
emotions as compared to their men counterparts. The final
hierarchical regression model demonstrated that display rule
demands, i.e. hiding negative emotions, negative affectivity, and
emotional intelligence were positive predictors of emotional
exhaustion whereas positive affectivity turned out to be a negative
predictor of emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, Sobel test (Sobel,
1982) indicated that negative affectivity fully mediated the relation
between display rule demands of hiding negative emotions and
emotional exhaustion. Limitations and suggestions for future
studies have been discussed.
