Whether at home, work, or in a social setting, sometimes you just can’t let anyone know what you’re thinking. A new study from Rice University, the University of Toronto, and Purdue University involving employees who must maintain a neutral disposition in a work setting examine the toll this may take.  Due to the energy required to meet this need, the researchers suggest the employee has less less energy to devote to work itself.

The study concluded that individuals who must avoid appearing either overly positive or negative — such as journalists, health care professionals, social workers, lawyers, and law enforcement officers — simply suppress expressions of emotion more than their counterparts in other similarly oriented professions where expression of emotions is necessary and expected.

According to Daniel Beal, assistant professor of psychology at Rice and co-author of the study: “Our study shows that emotion suppression takes a toll on people. It takes energy to suppress emotions, so it’s not surprising that workers who must remain neutral are often more rundown or show greater levels of burnout. The more energy you spend controlling your emotions, the less energy you have to devote to the task at hand.”

Beal and co-authors, John Trougakos of the University of Toronto and Christine Jackson of Purdue University, concluded that these individuals will generally engage in higher levels of suppression as they maintain a the necessary neutral appearance necessary to meet the expectations of their managers or even the public.

An unexpected consequence, according to the study, noticed that customers who interacted with an individual seeming devoid of emotion gave a lower service rating and thought less of that person’s organization. Indeed, even though the need to maintain a neutral disposition may be necessary for a variety of reasons — such as maintaining trust and/or keeping others calm in difficult situations — it still may elicit a negative reaction from others.

“When an employee is positive, it transfers to the client or customer they’re working with,” Beal said. “Because of that good mood, the client or customer then would rate the organization better. But if an employee is maintaining a neutral demeanor, you don’t have those good feelings transferred. If an organization’s goal is to be unbiased, then that may trump any desire the organization has to be well-liked.”

The study, “Service Without a Smile: Comparing the Consequences of Neutral and Positive Display Rules,” will be published in the next issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology.

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Additional Source: Medical News Today.