TORONTO, December 19, 2002 -- If you fake happiness at work, your job satisfaction will increase and you will be less likely to want to quit as a result, a new study has revealed.

Stéphane Côté, an assistant professor of organizational behaviour at the University of Toronto's Joseph L. Rotman School of Management and Laura M. Morgan of the Harvard Business School, have just published a paper in the December 2002 issue of the Journal of Organizational Behaviour.

Although their research found that faking pleasant emotions increased job satisfaction, suppressing negative emotions did not do the same. The authors found that suppressing negative feelings of frustration actually decreased job satisfaction and increases intentions to quit.

The paper, "A longitudinal analysis of the association between emotion regulation, job satisfaction, and intentions to quit," examined part-time employees in the service industry in the Ann Arbor, Michigan, area at two points in time over a one-month period. The goal of the paper was to advance knowledge of the relationship between emotion regulation and job satisfaction and intentions to quit. Emotion regulation is defined as "the efforts of workers to change the emotions that they display to customers and co-workers."

The research found that amplification of pleasant emotions - faking or exaggerating pleasant emotions by smiling and behaving in a cheery manner -- actually increased the employees' personal job satisfaction, which in turn reduced the intention to quit. But the research also revealed that those employees who suppressed negative emotions - keeping their frustration or anger bottled up - experienced reduced job satisfaction and increased intentions to quit.

Some of Côté and Morgan's findings refute the prevailing belief that "emotion work" - any attempt to regulate emotions -- is inherently stressful. "We found that when people faked a pleasant emotion, that did not lead to the stressful effect that previous studies have shown it would, so this is counter-intuitive," says Côté. "Rather, acting happy actually increases your job satisfaction. When people did this emotion work, they were more satisfied in their job. When people amplified their pleasant emotions, even if they were putting on a show, and even if those pleasant feelings were fake, other people might not have known that, and other people likely responded to these positive displays in a favorable way." The authors believe that the employees who amplified their happy emotions increased their personal job satisfaction because they created a more pleasant work environment around them.

People are strongly affected by how others see them, Côté said. "We are confident that there is a relationship between amplifying pleasant emotions and increased job satisfaction, and that the former influences the latter.

However, when it comes to negative feelings such as frustration or anger, their findings support the prevailing view that emotion regulation leads to stress. "Our second finding was that suppressing unpleasant emotions, or hiding feelings of anger or anxiety, decreased satisfaction on the job and in turn led to increased intentions to quit." Based on that finding, Côté suggests that employees with negative feelings should have a way to express them. "Should you let it all out when you need to vent? Yes, but not in front of your customer."