This study aimed to examine the mediating effect of emotional dissonance and the conditional indirect effect of organizational socialization in the relationship between emotional labor and depression among university hospital nurses. Data were collect...
This study aimed to examine the mediating effect of emotional dissonance and the conditional indirect effect of organizational socialization in the relationship between emotional labor and depression among university hospital nurses. Data were collected from 276 nurses working at a university hospital located in City A. Reliability analysis, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, t-tests, and ANOVA were conducted using SPSS V23.0, and Model 4 and Model 14 of the PROCESS macro V4.2 were applied to test the hypothesized paths. The significance of the mediating and conditional indirect effects was verified using 10,000 bootstrap resamples with 95% confidence intervals.
The findings were as follows.
First, significant differences in depression were found according to age, marital status, work unit, length of service, and annual income.
Second, emotional labor had a significant positive effect on both depression and emotional dissonance, emotional dissonance had a significant positive effect on depression, and organizational socialization had a significant negative effect on depression.
Third, emotional dissonance significantly mediated the relationship between emotional labor and depression. Emotional dissonance also significantly mediated the relationships between each sub-dimension of emotional labor — deep acting and surface acting — and depression. However, the mediating effect in the deep acting pathway was relatively weaker than that in the surface acting pathway, indicating that the two strategies lead to depression through emotional dissonance with differing strengths.
Fourth, the moderated mediation effect of organizational socialization was not statistically significant in the pathways from overall emotional labor and deep acting through emotional dissonance to depression. In contrast, the moderated mediation effect of organizational socialization was statistically significant in the pathway from surface acting through emotional dissonance to depression: higher levels of organizational socialization attenuated the negative indirect effect of surface acting on depression through emotional dissonance, supporting the hypothesized buffering role of organizational socialization.
The contributions of this study are as follows. First, by independently examining the pathways of deep acting and surface acting, this study empirically demonstrated that the two sub-dimensions differ qualitatively in the strength and manner of their effects on emotional dissonance and depression. Second, by identifying the indirect pathway through which emotional labor leads to depression via the psychological mechanism of emotional dissonance, this study provides a theoretical framework for a more precise understanding of the process underlying depression among university hospital nurses. Third, by applying a conditional indirect effect model, this study showed that organizational socialization functions as a significant buffer exclusively in the surface acting pathway, demonstrating that distinguishing the sub-dimensions of emotional labor is essential for precisely identifying how protective factors operate. Fourth, by empirically demonstrating that organizational socialization significantly attenuates the pathway from surface acting–induced emotional dissonance to depression, this study provides practical evidence supporting the clinical need for systematic organizational socialization programs for university hospital nurses.