Unmanaged Heart Essay, Research Paper

Can a person?s heart be controlled? Do all people go have some form of

emotional management or emotional labor in their lives? In the book, The Managed

Heart, written by Arlie Hochschild , discusses the issues of emotional labor and

emotional management. In the book, it describes the difference between the two

issues and gives Hochschild?s opinion on those issues. The first issue is

emotional management. This is where the fight attendants learn how to deal with

certain situations that they might encounter. Basically, they are taught to

manage their emotions and look at their situation from the other side. By doing

this, the flight attendants can create a happy and more comfortable setting for

the passengers. On page 113 in the book, it states that the fight attendants

should imagine a reason to excuse an obnoxious or unruly passenger. This is what

Delta teaches: emotional management. The other issue is emotional labor. The use

of emotional management is emotional labor. They flight attendants use surface

acting in everyday work life. They are there to make the passenger feel

comfortable and happy. This is a cover sheet for the flight attendants emotions.

They are in a way bottling up their feelings to produce another feeling. The

problem with emotional labor and surface acting are they become a part of that

person. Hochschild thinks that this is a bad thing because one will never break

away from the emotional labor and in turn have trouble expressing their inner

feelings, (deep acting) in their private lives. In summary, emotional management

is emotional labor. Emotional management is the learning how to deal with

situations. Emotional labor is the actual use of the emotional management.

Learning emotional management is helpful, but can affect that person?s

lifestyle. When they use emotional labor, they are hiding their inner feelings

to create are better atmosphere for others. People using this might never be

able to distinguish the difference between their surface acting and deep acting.

Hochschild?s sees this as a problem for the people affected by this emotion

manipulator. This will affect their friend?s, family, and the rest of society.