Exploring the Managed Heart, Reaction Paper Example

Labor has been the leading product for any individual to sell in order to survive and provide for his or her life throughout history. The pattern of considering labor has changed considerably within the last century or so, but the fact that any labor is difficult and demanding has remained visible. Hochschild (1985) investigates the evolution of labor awareness and the extent of labor intrusion on the individual’s personal and social life from a historical perspective, noting that exploitation of the Age of Industrial Revolution did not become obsolete in the progressive, democratic 20th century and, as one can see, in the third millennium as well.

Hochschild introduces the notion of ‘managed heart’ in his work, emphasizing the business value that is currently attributed to emotion management. More than that, the author argues that emotional labor is not only a professional necessity for the overwhelming majority of employees nowadays (about half of women, one third for the total population). It is also transmitted into the private life of people who recognize the necessity of managing their emotions and making themselves feel something on a daily basis due to a number of external and internal factors shaping their life (Hochschild, 1985).

The author starts his analysis with the recollection of the inhumane labor conditions, exploitation of child labor at the end of the 19th century described by Karl Marx. He includes the story of one child’s mother who had to carry her child to work where he had to work 16 hours a day, how she had to feed him near the machine because of his inability to leave the working place etc. (Hochschild, 1985, p.3). Surely, such a moving illustration of inhumanely difficult child labor can hardly leave anyone indifferent. There is no doubt that modern working conditions seem to be infinitely more comfortable and suitable, respecting the human dignity and the human rights.

However, further on Hochschild gives an example of a flight attendant whose work is to smile and be joyful, sympathetic –  positive emotions are a must into her working schedule disregarding the state of mind and humour she is at any given moment. Here the author argues that modern labor may be to a certain extent even harder than the labor used to be more than a century ago, while the boy who worked at the wallpaper factory for 16 hours a day was not obliged to love or hate the wallpaper he produced. Judging from this fact, Hochschild makes an assumption that emotions have become a part of commerce and can be sold and bought as well as tangible consumer goods:

“Now that advertisements, training, notions of professionalism, and dollar bills have intervened between the smiler and the smiled upon, it takes an extra effort to imagine that spontaneous warmth can exist in uniform – because companies now advertise spontaneous warmth, too” (Hochschild, 1985, p.5).

Hochschild also stresses the effort that has to be made by modern workers to manage their feelings as compared to the physical coordination that was only needed from industrial workers in the previous centuries. He compares the flight attendant with the same boy at the factory, analyzing the effort that he had to make while working that concerned only physical one, and the flight attendant who has to conduct both physical and emotional coordination that produces a particular impact on her psychological state. As he gives the direct quote from the impressions voiced by a flight attendant, it becomes clear that the emotional work they do is a part of their life that they do not govern any more – their smiles are not sincere but have become

“an extension of make-up, the uniform, the recorded music, the soothing pastel colors of the airplane décor, and the daytime drinks, which taken together orchestrate the mood of the passengers” (Hochschild, 1985, p. 8).

Surely, Hochschild does not object to the fact that emotional labor is highly beneficial nowadays as nobody wants to be serviced by employees who are nervous, irritated or tired – people pay money for the mood they get. Nonetheless, the critical question posed by Hochschild is what price the emotional labor workers have to pay for the emotional labor they conduct, what it comprises and how it affects their lives (Hochschild, 1985, p. 8-9).

Making the relevant judgment from the objectives of the research, Hochschild conducted his research in three areas – the nature of emotions, their display and the emotional labor concept itself. He dedicated the most part of his attention to the patterns of managing emotions people have been currently revealing in their private and public lives (Hochschild, 1985, p. 11). As a result of multiple considerations through the prism of gender approach or differentiated approach according to specialization of emotional workers Hochschild found out the innate procedure of emotional labor’s influence on the human life and ability to express emotions:

“to manage private loves and hates is to participate in an intricate private emotional system. When elements of that system are taken into the marketplace and sold as human labor, they become stretched into standardized social forms. In these forms, a person’s contribution of feeling is thinner, less freighted with consequence; but at the same time it is seen as coming less from the self and being less directed to the other” (Hochschild, 1985, p. 13).

Hochschild summarizes his research in the fact that both the child from the 19th century wallpaper factory and the female flight attendant nowadays have to detach themselves in the working place in order to survive the pressure and to manage their work. However, the principal difference existing between them is that the former had to detach himself physically, performing automated labor, and the flight attendant has to conduct emotional and psychological detachment, which is much more ruinous for the personal life and psychological state of an individual (Hochschild, 1985, p. 17). One more conclusion at which Hochschild arrives is that management of emotions is closely connected with the perception of rules. It often happens so that people understand they either have no right to have particular feelings, or they should not have them, or it is inappropriate to have ones. The fact that feeling management has mutated from not expressing to not feeling is fascinating. Hochschild tries to ground this phenomenon by exploring the long evolution of managed feelings in employees working in the sphere of emotional labor and coins a term “transmutation” of feelings in the attempt to explain this notion (Hochschild, 1985, p. 19).

Summing up findings of Hochschild and analyzing the conclusions he makes in the process of his study, it is highly relevant to note that he generally agrees with the positive effect of feelings’ management. He agrees with Freud on the issue of its ability for an individual to hear him- or herself and discover the inner feelings and emotions more clearly and distinctly (Hochschild, 1985, p. 21). However, Hochschild still poses much value over natural, spontaneous behavior that is observed nowadays:

“Both the growing celebration of spontaneity and the jokes we tell about being robots suggest that in the calm of feeling, Orwell’s 1984 came to disguise several years ago, leaving behind a laugh and perhaps the idea of a private way out” (Hochschild, 1985, p. 23).

The present conclusion underlines the author’s belief that emotional labor is a highly negative phenomenon in the modern society and  needs reconsideration both from the public and the private point of view. Emotional labor and tight emotional management have brought about a large set of psychological problems and disorders to the contemporary population, which should not be left without attention. The growing value of natural emotions and revelation of a personality in its uniqueness and spontaneity have never been appreciated, being considered inappropriate and sometimes even embarrassing. It is enough to recollect the behavioral code of the upper class, the strict code at work people follow. Nevertheless, the present epoch is likely to witness reconsideration of value of emotions and naturalness of human beings, and rising appreciation of being humane and genuine.

Works Cited

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. Managed heart: commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press, 1985.