Att bli bestulen på sina känslor -En kvalitativ studie om det emotionella lönearbetets betydelse för de socialarelationerna

Sammanfattning: Nowadays the service industry is heavily influenced by a commercialization of theemployees' feelings. In order to gain loyal customers the employees have to be complaisantand accomplish a good relationship with the customers. If the employees are having a badday or are in a bad mood they therefore need to perform emotional labour to be able toexpress the expected feelings related to the service industry. The purpose of this study is tocontribute with knowledge about how the performance of emotional labour work influencesyoung female store employees' private social relations. We also aim to provide anunderstanding of to what extent emotional labour is performed and which other aspects maybe relevant regarding emotional labour. The results of this study is based on qualitativeinterviews with young female store employees, who are working or in the recent months haveworked with service within the retail industry. The theoretical framework consists of ErvingGoffman’s theory of The dramaturgical perspective along with Arlie Hochschild’s conceptsof feeling rules, emotional work and emotional labour . The results of the study showed thatthe interviewees perform emotional labour with surface acting more often than deep acting.What is also demonstrated in the results is that interactions with customers matters for theinterviewees’ mood and energy in their private life. The final conclusion of this study is thatmost of the interviewees, more or less are experiencing emotional labour to affect theirprivate social relations.