Emotional labor (KELS®11): scale development and validation in the Korean context

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health Psychology
• Organizational Behavior
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Emotional labor involves managing emotions to meet job role requirements.
• The study addresses the need for a revised, validated tool for assessing emotional labor in Korea.
• The Korean Emotional Labor Scale (KELS®11) is a revision of the original KELS-24 (2014).

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a revised Korean Emotional Labor Scale (KELS®11).
• To establish practical applications and guidelines for KELS®11 in Korean workplaces.
• To provide a reliable measure for the intensity and magnitude of emotional labor.

Main Methods:

• Expert review of the KELS-24 to derive the KELS®11.
• Self-administered survey with 359 service industry workers.
• Validation using burnout and depression scales, reliability analysis, and ROC curve analysis for sex-specific cutoffs.

Main Results:

• KELS®11 comprises 11 items across four subscales: emotional regulation, emotional dissonance, organizational monitoring, and organizational protective system.
• The scale demonstrated good validity and reliability.
• Sex-specific reference values were established to identify high-risk groups for emotional labor exposure.

Conclusions:

• KELS®11 is a validated and reliable instrument for measuring workplace emotional labor.
• The scale accounts for individual, organizational, and cultural contexts.
• It offers critical considerations for emotional labor measurement in occupational settings.