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Updated: Mar 28, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition
Published on: February 1, 2012
Does job complexity mitigate the negative effect of emotion-rule dissonance on employee burnout?
Bettina Kubicek1, Christian Korunka1
1Department of Applied Psychology: Work, Education and Economy, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna , Universitaetsstrasse 7, Vienna , 1010 Austria.
Abstract:
In interactions with clients or patients, human service workers are at risk of experiencing discrepancies between felt and organizationally mandated emotions (i.e. emotion-rule dissonance). Given the documented detrimental effects of such discrepancies on employee strain, the present study investigated whether job complexity mitigates the relation between emotion-rule dissonance and employee burnout using data from a two-wave panel study of eldercare workers (N = 583, 16-month time lag). Structural equation modelling revealed that emotion-rule dissonance at Time 1 preceded emotional exhaustion and depersonalization at Time 2. Beyond that, employees whose work offered job complexity were found to suffer less from emotional exhaustion and depersonalization when encountering discrepancies between felt and stipulated emotions compared to employees who conducted noncomplex work. Thus, designing complex tasks appears to be a crucial starting point for alleviating employee burnout in jobs that provoke emotion-rule dissonance.
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