The Differential Impacts of State Surface Acting and Between-Person Expressive Suppression on Daily Emotional Experiences

The Differential Impacts of State Surface Acting and Between-Person Expressive Suppression on Daily Emotional Experiences

Surface acting is a form of emotional labor involving the modification of external emotional expression without changing internal feelings. While consistently linked to negative psychological outcomes, less is known about how momentary changes in surface acting influence daily life or how these influences interact with between-person differences in emotion regulation. The current study used an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) design to examine how within-person variability and between-person differences in both surface acting and expressive suppression predict subsequent positive and negative affect. Participants (N = 70) provided momentary reports over the course of five days. Using multilevel modeling to disaggregate within-person and between-person variance for all predictors, results indicated that momentary (within-person) fluctuations in surface acting and expressive suppression did not significantly predict subsequent affect. However, between- person differences in surface acting approached a significant positive association with subsequent negative affect, whereas between-person expressive suppression was not a significant predictor in the fully specified model. These findings highlight the importance of statistically accounting for both within-person and between-person processes, suggesting that a general tendency toward surface acting may have a more pronounced impact on daily negative mood than momentary regulatory shifts.