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The Socialization of Emotion:Learning Emotion Managementat the Fire StationClifton Scott & Karen Kroman Myers

In a variety of fields, particularly human service occupations, the management of

emotion is a precondition of employee and client well being. Based on qualitative datafrom participant observation and interviews, this study examines how firefighters are

socialized to manage feelings and emotional displays. It concludes that firefightersrecognized a need to manage their own emotions and those of their clients in order to

deliver adequate service. Veteran firefighters facilitated the use of emotion labortechniques among newcomers by considering the emotion management knowledge andcapabilities of job candidates during employee selection processes, providing habituated

emotional events, and reinforcing customer service expectations. Newcomers activelyparticipated in their own socialization to local emotion expectations through

observational information seeking, retrospective surveillance, and performance of anormative newcomer role demeanor. The article concludes by offering practical and

theoretical implications.

Keywords: Emotion Management; Emotion Labor; Socialization; Proactivity; Emergency

Response Personnel; Human Services

In an increasingly service-based economy, most U.S. employees work to provideservices rather than manufacturing or selling traditional products (Meyer & DeTore,

1999). For many of these workers, organizationally-prescribed emotions make up a key

ISSN 0090-9882 (print)/ISSN 1479-5752 (online) q 2005 National Communication Association

DOI: 10.1080/0090988042000318521

Clifton Scott (M.A., Northern Illinois University) and Karen Kroman Myers (M.A., University of New Mexico)

are doctoral candidates in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University.

Correspondence to the first author: Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University,

P.O. Box 871205, Tempe, AZ, 85287-1205, USA. Tel: 480 965 7060; Email: [email protected]. A previous

version of this manuscript was presented at the 2002 convention of the National Communication Association,

New Orleans. We are grateful to Sarah Tracy, Angela Trethewey, as well as Editor Joann Keyton and the three

anonymous reviewers at JACR for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.

Journal of Applied Communication Research

Vol. 33, No. 1, February 2005, pp. 67–92

component of both their jobs and the services they provide (Hochshild, 1983; Tracy,

2000; Tracy & Tracy, 1998). In the human service occupations, where members striveto “meet human needs that are required for maintaining or promoting the overallquality of life” of clients (Zins, 2001, pp. 6–7), the management of emotion is also a

precondition of employee and client well being (Bolton, 2001; Hafferty, 1991;Lois, 2001; Smith & Kleinman, 1989; Tracy & Tracy, 1998). Whether a doctor, 911 call

taker, or funeral director, employees who work in emotionally-charged human serviceoccupations not only labor to manage their own emotions, but often emotions of their

clients in their efforts to comfort, seek cooperation and compliance, or provide adviceand treatment, frequently in the context of life-threatening and tragic events. Given

the disturbing levels of turnover and burnout in many human service professions(e.g., social work, nursing, law enforcement, primary and secondary education)

(Gaines & Jermier, 1983; Hom & Griffeth, 1995; Miller, Stiff, & Ellis, 1988), the scarcityof research exploring the antecedents and conditions of emotion work in the humanservices is regrettable. The problems of burnout and turnover in these fields suggest

that scholars should examine the positive and negative contributions of socializationprocesses, particularly as they relate to emotion management, but these factors are

rarely addressed in the literature.The scarcity of empirical work on the socialization of emotion is not limited to

research on human service occupations. Regardless of occupational domain, fewstudies have examined how organizational socialization processes are related to

feeling and display outcomes (Ashforth & Kreiner, 2002), and even fewer haveexamined the specific process by which newcomers learn to experience and displayemotions in ways that are consistent with organizational goals (for exceptions, see

Hochshild, 1983; Katz, 1990; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). Indeed, though it has beenargued that scholars and practitioners should attend to socialization and training

practices that foster particular emotion displays (Kramer & Hess, 2002),organizational socialization research has focused on how newcomers learn

to think and act rather than how they feel and display emotions (Ashforth &Saks, 2002).

Scholars are thus challenged to identify socialization processes that facilitateemotion labor practices that curtail the disturbing turnover and burnout rates that

often accompany work in human service occupations. This study explores the processby which members learn to manage emotion in accordance with organizationalnorms and job conditions by examining the socialization of emotion in a large,

municipal fire department. These and other emergency response workers have aparticularly difficult charge as they labor to communicate with calmness and

competence in emotionally-volatile circumstances that require precision,skillfulness, and speed, managing their own emotions as well as those of their

clients (Tracy & Tracy, 1998). Firefighters are routinely exposed to dangerous andemotionally-demanding situations, yet turnover in this organization remains

uncharacteristically low.1 This study utilizes interview and participant-observationdata to develop an understanding of why and how firefighters learn to enact emotionmanagement norms.

68 C. Scott & K. K. Myers

Theorizing Emotion and Socialization Processes

Emotion Management

A number of scholars have examined the role of emotion in organizations, theorizing

feelings and emotional displays as central to processes of rationality, control,

resistance, customer service, and alternative modes of organization (Fineman, 1993,2000; Hochschild, 1983; Martin, Knopoff, & Beckman, 1998; Mumby & Putnam, 1992;

Waldron, 1994), but few studies have investigated contexts in which it may be a

necessary, indeed vital, employee function. A number of organizational scholars haveargued that emotion display rules are intended to benefit the organization but are

potentially harmful to the long term well being of employees. They maintain that

emotion labor,2 the effort exerted to control the display of private feelings in the line of

one’s work, is potentially detrimental to those who must perform it (Fineman, 2000;Hochschild, 1983; Meyerson, 2000; Tracy, 2000; Waldron, 1994). These studies of

emotion labor have persuasively highlighted the dangers that lurk when feelings and

emotional displays are commercialized and commodified, particularly in customerservice activities. However, some have argued that emotion management may actually

benefit employees, assisting them in coping with stress, avoiding negative emotional

contagion, and reaping the rewards of emotional engagement in client interaction(Conrad & Witte, 1994; Shuler & Sypher, 2000). However, what seems missing from

the literature is a direct, in-depth examination of how these emotion labor techniques

are learned.One way organizations formally or informally encourage members to regulate

emotions that are deemed socially objectionable or undesirable is through

normalization (Ashforth & Kreiner, 2002). Members reframe difficult situations and

preserve the status quo by diffusing or recasting emotions in a manner consistent withthe organization’s cultural values. Ashforth and Kreiner claim that methods of

normalizing are particularly useful in organizations and professions whose members

must manage emotions due to uncomfortable situations on a daily basis(e.g., hospitals, morgues). Making the extraordinary seem ordinary through

normalization of what outsiders would consider nonroutine experiences and

situations is a central feature of socialization in organizations that must regularly dealwith traumatic human events (e.g., fires, suicides, disasters, injuries). In such contexts,

emotional reactions must be at least temporarily reduced through rituals that offer

members a sense of control (Ashforth & Kreiner, 2002). Since newcomers to such

organizations often lack experience with emotionally-charged situations, they arelikely to consider traumatic events nonroutine and experience heightened uncertainty

when they encounter them.

Organizational socialization processes appear to be key in the normalization ofnewcomers’ responses to emotionally-charged events. Some empirical analyses have

addressed how organizations train newcomers to enact certain emotion labor

techniques, but those studies featured bill collectors (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987) and drillsergeants (Katz, 1990), who usually inflict rather than respond to emotional trauma.

The current study examines the complex, communicative process by which

Socialization of Emotion 69

newcomers are socialized to work under emotionally-charged, life or death

circumstances. As an early step in examining emotion management in theemergency-response context, it is important first to clarify the conditions in whichemergency response members learn and maintain emotion labor techniques.

RQ1: What emotion management challenges do emergency response workers face?

Organizational Socialization

Van Maanen and Schein (1979) defined organizational socialization as “the process bywhich an individual acquires the social knowledge and skills necessary to assume anorganizational role” (p. 211). The current study focuses on socialization processes and

other communicative behaviors that occur during the first year of the newcomer’stenure, as it is during this time that recruits are oriented toward their jobs and

organizations through formal and on-the-job training and are most actively engagedin negotiating their new roles through interactions with peers and supervisors (Jablin,

2001; Van Maanen, 1978; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979). Importantly, newcomers learncognitive and behavioral norms during this entry phase, knowledge that becomes the

basis of everyday communication (Ashforth & Saks, 1996; Jablin, 2001; Schein, 1968).Although some studies have mentioned that newcomers learn emotion rules duringentry (e.g., Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987), empirical analyses typically do not explore how

emotion management practices are learned (Bolton, 2001; Lively, 2001). For example,Bolton states that new nurses learn to cope with the stress of simultaneously serving

and controlling patients by adopting “professional faces,” but the study was notdesigned specifically to examine the process by which neophyte nurses learn to acquire

this apparently-necessary demeanor. If scholars are to offer practical suggestions abouthow members of emotionally-challenging occupations can learn to deal with the

affective challenges of their work, investigations of the individual and organizationalprocesses that lead to various emotion management techniques are necessary.

Therefore, this study investigates the socialization of emotion labor by exploring thefollowing research question:

RQ2: How are newcomers socialized to conform to emotion management rules?

Proactive Socialization

The reduction of uncertainty is essential to successful organizational learning(Weick & Ashford, 2001) and adjustment (Kramer, 1994; Kramer, Callister,

& Turban, 1995; Miller & Jablin, 1991; Miller, 1996; Teboul, 1994). Newcomersmust learn about performing tasks and also about the nature of local expectations

for behavior and communication in unfamiliar organizational environments.Socialization scholars are beginning to examine the proactive process by which

newcomers adjust to their new roles and organizations. Rather than conceiving ofnewcomers as passive receivers of socialization messages from veterans, some argue


that newcomers play an active role in their own learning (Ashford & Black, 1996;

Kramer, 1993, 1994; Miller & Jablin, 1991). Newcomers acquire knowledge in partthrough proactive information seeking (Kramer et al., 1995; Miller, 1996; Morrison,

1993; Teboul, 1995).Information seeking assists newcomers in mastering tasks, clarifying their roles,

learning about the organization’s culture (acculturating), and socially integrating(Morrison, 1993). Through the use of these learned scripts and interpretation

schemes, recruits develop normal responses to internal and external organizationalstimuli. Newcomers may seek information through a variety of strategies such as overt

questioning, testing limits, indirect questioning, surveillance, observation, disguisingconversations, and third party questioning (Miller, 1996; Miller & Jablin, 1991;

Morrison, 1993; Teboul, 1995). However, studies of information seeking have notexplored how knowledge of local emotion norms is acquired. Thus, it would be helpful

to learn whether and how newcomer information seeking facilitates the learning ofemotion labor techniques.

RQ3: How do members of an emergency response organization activelyparticipate in their own socialization to emotion rules?

In summary, organizational socialization indoctrinates newcomers with explicitrules of conduct as well as the organization’s implicit norms of behavior. One

significant organizational norm learned through informal socialization with particularrelevance for firefighters and members of other human service occupations involves

proper management of emotion. More than most occupations, firefighters and otheremergency response workers must control human emotions to render aid and to

comfort clients in emotionally-charged situations. This study examines thesocialization of emotion during early tenure in a fire department.

Methods

Procedures

This study features a qualitative research design consisting of interviewing and

participant observation conducted in one large, municipal emergency responseorganization, the Plateau City Fire Department (PCFD).3 A qualitative examination of

the socialization of emotion in this setting provides at least two advantages. First, giventhe small number of studies designed to explore the socialization of emotion and the

relative difficulty of interrogating emotion management practices with social-scientificmethods (Meyerson, 2000), qualitative methods enabled the authors to obtain

textured accounts of these phenomena in service of grounded theory. Second, thecommunication of emotion in this emergency response setting is essential to the

delivery of client service but may hinder its provision as well (Schuler & Sypher, 2000;Tracy & Tracy, 1998). Thus, an in situ examination of the delicate emotion work of

firefighters enabled insight into everyday emotion management dilemmas experiencedby members of this and likely other emergency response occupations along with


the socialization practices that bring about emotion management techniques intended

to resolve them.The authors utilized participant-observation methods to witness and experience

dominant socialization and emotion management practices by conducting ride-alongs

with groups of firefighters who worked together in 24-hour shifts and documentingthese in field notes. Here, the authors assisted with station chores, observed training

sessions, prepared and shared meals, and accompanied the firefighters on fire andemergency medical service (EMS) calls. As part of the process of participant

observation, the authors conducted ethnographic interviews—spontaneous, informaland unstructured conversations with participants (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002)—and

reconstructed them in field notes. The data set includes 13 periods of participantobservation at five fire stations, totaling 81 hours. Periods of field observation ranged

from 2 to 24 hours ðM ¼ 6:23Þ; generating 103 typed, single-spaced pages of fieldnotes. This project was IRB approved and participants signed consent forms.

In addition to participant observation, the authors conducted a total of 18

interviews. Interviews with seven probationary firefighters and six station captainsranged from 31 to 125 minutes in length ðM ¼ 72Þ: The probationary firefighters

(“booters”) interviewed ranged in tenure from 5 to 11 months ðM ¼ 8Þ: The sixcaptains had been firefighters for 8 to 22 years ðM ¼ 14Þ: Ages of booters and captains

ranged from 20 to 41 years. These interviews were semi-structured, audio recorded,and transcribed. The remaining five interviews were relatively unstructured,

exploratory in nature, and conducted with participants who held high-level positionsin the department (a deputy chief, two battalion chiefs, and two trainingadministrators). The interview sample (16 men and 2 women; 15 Caucasians, 2

Latino-Americans, and 1 African-American) was generally representative of the larger,department population. When transcribed, the interviews generated 206 single-spaced

pages of data.

Data Analysis

Analysis began during the process of data collection when theoretical memos were

constructed as part of the process of recording field notes. Theoretical memos includeearly ideas about potential codes, how events under observation might relate to one

another and existing theory, and impressions about the direction of the entire project(Glaser, 1978; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Once data collection was complete, the

authors used constant comparative analysis to identify recurrent issues andexperiences identified in the participants’ comments and authors’ field observations(Strauss & Corbin, 1998). First, the authors analyzed the data separately, noting

emergent themes and issues. Next, they compared analyses, noting consistencies anddiscrepancies in interpretations of the data, and composed a tentative master list of

relevant themes. Separately, the authors returned to the transcripts, rechecking theconsistency of analysis and identifying relevant quotations that exemplified salient

themes. They discussed differences of interpretation until both were satisfied with oneof the options or they reached a compromise. Once discrepancies were resolved,


the authors combined similar themes and eliminated those not directly related to the

research questions at hand.

Results and Interpretation

The Context of Firefighter Emotion Management

The first research question asked about the types of emotional challenges membersface in this emergency-response organization throughout their tenure. Firefightersregularly face a variety of critical situations in which they and their clients feel strong

emotions. In a given day, they may resuscitate a heart attack victim, save a family’sburning home, or rescue a motorist from a mangled car. Compounding this

unpleasantness, clients that firefighters encounter are often extremely emotional asthey fear for their lives, watch their possessions being destroyed, or witness the loss or

injury of their loved ones. Dealing with clients in these situations requires firefightersto be understanding, patient, and calm. Yet very few booters had previous experience

working with accident victims. Most of them encountered these types of emotionally-charged situations for the first time after academy training on the job as Plateau Cityfirefighters. Participants identified several challenges as they labor to manage emotions

in the course of their jobs, including the need to prevent emotions from interferingwith job responsibilities, maintaining the right level of emotional intensity, and

managing clients’ emotions in emergency scenes. Both newcomers and veteransargued that emotion labor techniques were necessary to learn because of these

challenges.

Managing one’s own emotions so they don’t interfere

Participants described a need to prevent strong negative emotions from interferingwith job tasks. Many of the firefighters described an emotion management techniquecalled buffering (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995). Organizational members buffer

emotions when they attempt to compartmentalize their emotions in order to preventthem from interfering with daily activities. Buffering enables firefighters to

concentrate on providing medical service, ignoring otherwise gut-wrenching scenes.Captain Nelson, tenure 21 years, described how he was able to buffer emotions by

focusing his attention away from blood and gore: “As a medic, you see somedevastating things, but you go on and you treat the patient and you don’t look at a lot

of the other stuff. You kind of focus on the job to be done.” Ben was also keenly awareof this critical component of the job:

You know that it is your job, your responsibility. . . . You can’t stand back and cry andpanic and feel bad because no one else is going to take care of that person. That’s whyyou’re there. You took the job knowing you’d experience that. It’s like, you’re incharge, now. If you crack, there’s no one else. It is your responsibility. It can be hard.(Ben, booter, tenure 5 months)

Firefighters acknowledged a range of negative emotions such as fear, disgust, and stressthat could potentially interfere with their abilities to administer medical care or fight


fires. If they allowed themselves to feel these natural human emotions, they would not

be capable of focusing on their job responsibilities. These comments reflect a view that

firefighters must perform as professionals—rational and calm—even in the worst

situations, an effort that often requires a refocusing of emotions toward tasks and away

from feelings that may not be productive in the moment (Ashforth & Kreiner, 2002;

Buzzanell & Turner, 2003).

In another sense, firefighters need to manage their own emotions on scene in

order to avoid exposing their frustrations to clients and other members of the

community. Rather than controlling one’s own emotions to focus on the task,

firefighters need to manage negative emotions in a manner that prevents them

from being exposed to the client, preventing the escalation of negative client

emotions. For many, this meant masking negative emotions with a “good

attitude.”

If you’re grumpy or tired or worn out or don’t want to be here, then you go and tryto help somebody, they can tell that. You can’t hide your attitude. . . . If you start theday like that, and you go on calls and you have a bad attitude, you’re not going to getanywhere with your patients. . . . It’s pretty much just self-destructive. (Lonnie,booter, tenure 5 months)

In addition to keeping a bad mood to themselves, Lonnie also described a need to

avoid displaying negative emotional reactions to the clients themselves. Participants

consistently mentioned a need to retain a positive attitude while providing service on

nonemergency calls. According to two captains, certain segments of the population

call 911 when they need minor medical services or prescriptions, and these calls were

labeled “nuisance calls” or “bullshit calls.” Maintaining a professional attitude is

toughest in this type of situation:

It’s easy to do the right thing, easy to give somebody good customer service when it’scritical. When you go on a drowning, it’s easy for us as medics to go on and do theright thing for the patient. . . . It’s more difficult at 3:00 in the morning when you’vebeen up three or five times through the night and you are physically and mentallyexhausted and you go on this person who called you because their wound is drainingand they had surgery two weeks ago and they want us to change their bandages.(Captain Lamont, tenure 21 years)

Surprisingly, almost all of the participants explained that these “bullshit” calls are

much more difficult to manage emotionally than the more traumatic EMS calls (e.g.,

gruesome car accidents) or even fires. As one captain described it,

A 3:00 a.m. bandage call is way more hard to manage emotionally than a drowning.There’s less of a complex task to focus on, so it’s easy to begin focusing on how angrythe calls make them feel. Judgmentalism is the biggest challenge to providing goodcustomer service on these calls. We can’t relate to their lack of problem-solvingability. (Captain Willis, tenure 12 years)

In addition to this explanation, nuisance calls may also be particularly frustrating for

firefighters because they often perceive the work as servile. Firefighters often regard

clients who generate bullshit calls as low-class and thus threaten to taint the high-status


occupational identity of firefighters (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999). Remaining calm and

empathetic during nuisance calls often requires firefighters to prevent escalation ofnegative reactions by resisting the urge to judge the client or the situation, a practice thatis challenging at best. For example, two booters said that they try to remind themselves

that they may not know the customer’s background, and although it might not haveseemed like an emergency to them, to the customer, it was. As these comments indicate,

emotion labor practices associated with local expectations of courteousness andservitude require that members neutralize negative emotion by mustering feelings of

compassion. Performing their role in this way required firefighters to remindthemselves that they were human service professionals. Consequently, both booters and

more experienced members of the PCFD indicated that they engaged in emotion labornot only in tragic situations, but also when they were required to cheerfully provide

emergency service for what they perceived as minor medical needs. Even still,firefighters also acknowledged that having some connection to inner emotions wasnecessary to protect themselves from the dangers of complacency or fearlessness, a

concern addressed next.

Managing the right level of emotional intensity

Several participants emphasized that another emotion management challenge was notto avoid or mask feelings altogether but to control them in order to maintain a suitable

level of emotional intensity. For example, as Wayne describes, many firefightersperceived it necessary to balance the need for aggressiveness in the face of dangeragainst the necessity of making rational decisions on the fire ground.

Every station likes aggression, but controlled aggression. Yeah, there’s a differencebetween being aggressive and having controlled aggression. Just being aggressivecan mean that you go out of control, and you wouldn’t think about safety issues.If you’re on a fire mount, and you are like real aggressive and you’re notcontrolled aggressive, then you can get hurt. But if you are doing controlledaggression, then you are able to see the whole picture, think about what canhappen, think about what the safety issues are. . . . That’s real hard to do real earlyin your probationary period. It takes a while to even get that way. (Wayne, booter,tenure 11 months)

Several participants described the rush of emotional arousal and adrenaline they feel

when working a structural fire. This is perhaps not surprising, considering that onlyabout 10% of the PCFD’s service calls involve fire. When the opportunity to fight a

structural fire arises, firefighters describe a strong urge to attack aggressively. However,this over-eagerness could prove deadly, and the deaths of fellow firefighters serve asreminders for some.

When we lost [a firefighter in a large warehouse fire], I’ve never seen so many grownmen cry in my life. I didn’t even know the guy and I cried. . . . He died. What makesme so special that it wasn’t me instead? It brings you back. A lot of guys get aSuperman mentality. “We’re firefighters. We drive a big red truck. We go in a fire andwe walk out every time.” Suddenly, you lose one, and it brings you back down thatyou’re just as mortal as he is. (Ben, booter, tenure 5 months)


As Ben indicates, firefighters must also be mindful of the danger inherent in losing

touch with their emotions. Emotions such as fear may be useful in maintaining anawareness of the danger of the firefighters’ work and their own mortality. Drawing onFreud, Hochshild (1983) argued that when members repeatedly labor to manage their

emotions for organizational purposes, they may lose the signal function of emotion.Thus, their ability to monitor the world around them may become compromised.

Similarly, firefighters can become complacent when routinized emotion managementinhibits their capacity to sense danger and risk. As the above quotation suggests,

without fear firefighters might be tempted to pay too much attention to putting outthe fire and attempt to do so in an unnecessarily aggressive way, losing sight of the very

real dangers involved in their work.

Managing clients’ emotions on sceneIn addition to the felt need to manage one’s own emotions, participants also claimed

that they must labor to manage the emotions of their clients. The nature of emergencyresponse work is such that members interact with clients in the midst of distress or

tragedy, and management of client emotion is necessary, for example, to obtainmedical information (e.g., medical history) or compliance (e.g., lying still while an IV

is being inserted). Firefighters are keenly aware that their customers could judge thegravity of a situation based on emergency workers’ emotion displays. For example,

Captain Lamont, tenure 21 years, relived a rescue call in which his emotions revealed agrim prognosis to his patient: “I had this one guy at a house fire that was burnt fromhead to toe and he was lying on the stretcher when he asked me, ‘Am I going to die?’”

Lamont said he knew the man’s injuries were extensive and that he would probably die,but he did not know how to respond. The patient interpreted Lamont’s hesitation.

Lamont continued, “The hesitation is all you need to hear in my voice.” Many yearslater, Lamont still appeared to struggle with his management of that communication.

His story is an example of how customers and loved ones would be affected if rescueworkers did not manage their emotions for their clients’ sakes. Thus, as Lamont’s story

exemplifies, firefighters reported that they must often engage in what Tracy and Tracy(1998) call “double-faced emotion management,” neutralizing their own emotions in

order to calm the strong emotions of patients and loved ones.In summary, the booters and captains were clearly aware of a need to manage

emotions in a variety of situations and for a range of purposes. First, they perceive it

necessary to manage their own emotions so that negative affect would not interferewith their ability to perform their duties. Next, they argued it was necessary to

maintain a kind of emotional equilibrium such that they would not become numbedto beneficial emotions such as fear, which could not only protect them from danger

but also allow them to attack fires or other emergency situations with feelings ofurgency and control. Finally, firefighters described a need for double-faced emotion

management in which they control their own emotion displays in an effort to managehow clients interpret the severity of situations. The participants all seemed to graspand interpret these emotion labor rules with surprising similarity. As a result of these


widely held beliefs about the requirements of emotion work, new firefighters develop

an ability to control how they express emotion to customers. The next section beginsto describe this socialization process.

Socializing Newcomers to Emotion Rules

The second research question examined how the firefighters were socialized toconform to local emotion rules. As was previously described, neophyte and veteran

Plateau City firefighters recognized a common set of emotion management norms.However, little or no formal training focused on emotions and emotion displays.

Instead, training emphasized technical skills and organizational operations. Thesocialization of emotion was brought about through emotion-based employee

selection processes, repeated exposure to emotional events, and the communication ofcustomer service expectations.

Selecting for emotion management capacity

Department leaders identified selection processes as a primary mechanism ensuringthat members would be able adequately to enact preferred emotion management

strategies. As Captain Lamont describes it, leaders who interviewed and hired newfirefighters sought candidates they perceived could manage their emotions aroundpeers and clients.

We can teach [booters] how to be a firefighter. We can teach [booters] how to be anengineer and drive the trucks. We can teach [booters] how to be a medic, but if[they] don’t have any people skills, if you are 20 years old and you come to us andyou can’t get along with people, then we have our hands full, but we have very few ofthose because I think they get weeded out in the hiring process. (Captain Lamont,tenure 21 years)

This “weeding out” can occur in a variety of ways. First, prior to formal interviews,candidates must spend significant time participating in ride-alongs in which potential

job candidates observe firefighters performing their duties on calls and at the station.While these hopefuls are learning about the occupation and organization, they are also

being watched. Job candidates are aware that they are being evaluated by departmentmembers who may choose to pass along judgments to those administering theselection process. During station visits and ride-alongs, candidates are not yet

employees of the department and thus cannot fully demonstrate technical competence(e.g., medical skills, rescue skills). However, they can attempt to convince veterans that

they have essential communicative traits by conforming to display norms learnedduring vocational or organizational anticipatory socialization. To the participants, this

informal process appeared to weed out those who do not display the emotionalcharacteristics necessary to succeed. As Captain Nelson, tenure 21 years, described it,

“Essentially, to get [hired], you have had to have spent some time in a fire station.You’ve got to understand the culture. . . . to even get through the interviews. Thatpreparation is essentially done in the fire stations.”


In addition to ride-alongs, candidates must endure a lengthy interview process after

passing a series of exams. During participant observation, the authors observed riders

acquire information about what to expect from the formal interview process. Riders

were told what sorts of interview questions firefighters had been asked, what questions

are perceived as being used most recently, and how to best answer these questions. As

Captain Lamont describes, a number of interview questions are designed to assess

emotion management capacities.

This job requires essentially the support of people around you, that you have asupport network in place. There’s typically questions about mental wellness. How doyou, through the course of a 25- or 30-year career, plan to keep yourself mentallywell? I know that’s one of the questions, and then. . . . we want to know what youknow about resources available to you if you are having emotional problems.(Captain Lamont, tenure 21 years)

As the captains argue, good firefighters possess more than just technical skills. They

also need an “attitude” that will enable them to provide good customer service and

also allow them to get along with fellow firefighters with whom they must work on

24-hour shifts. Asking station-based members to watch and report on job candidates

on ride-alongs gives the PCFD insight into how the candidates are likely to perform

emotionally once hired. Captains stated that they look for signs of congeniality, an

ability to get along with the crew, and a capacity to handle the stress of the emergency

response workplace. Ride-alongs function to weed out candidates for whom

firefighting may not be a suitable career and to give members an opportunity to see the

candidate in action.

The department’s tendency to select recruits who have friends and family in

the department is also notable. During interviews and participant observation, the

authors encountered many members who explained their decision to seek a job in the

department by pointing to a friend or, more likely, a family member who was a

firefighter. The long tradition of nepotism in the department is perhaps best

represented by Captain Whaley’s, tenure 20 years, comment:

A lot of them come to us and we know something about them because you’vewatched them since they were shitting green. . . . This department is full of thesepeople. They know it, they understand it, they grew up in it.

This kind of nepotism may have a variety of consequences for the department, not

the least of which is a predilection for candidates who, in varying degrees, are aware

of the emotional persona associated with the firefighter role and the emotion

management practices necessary to enact it. Such comments indicate that

anticipatory socialization by family and friends in the occupation and department

served to familiarize booters with emotion norms, enabling them to integrate more

easily, a process of organizational osmosis (Gibson & Papa, 2000). Newcomers with

early and ongoing exposure to the organization’s culture prior to entry seemed to

possess a more nuanced understanding of local emotion demands and practices. This

knowledge was acquired and applied in a seemingly natural way, likely a product of

lifelong contact with PCFD values, norms, and social practices. However, in addition


to emotion-based selection processes, repeated exposure to affective events also

facilitated the socialization of emotion.

Repeated exposure to emotional eventsOnce members had been selected, repeated exposure to emotionally-charged events

also seemed to foster a sense of emotional detachment among members. As CaptainJones, tenure 20 years, put it, “I’ve seen about 1500 dead people in my time. It’s old

news. Over time, we just learn to focus on the job.” Unfamiliarity with environmentalstimuli may bring about shock and surprise among newcomers (Louis, 1980), but

repeated exposure to emotionally-challenging stimuli can also habituate and diminishemotional reactions over time (Ashforth & Kreiner, 2002). Several participants

described formal skills-based training procedures as helpful in fostering this kind ofrepetition.

I think probably one of the things that keeps us from going down that road isthe training that we receive, not necessarily in dealing [emotionally] with theincidents, but just training and, like as a medic, you see some devastating thingsbut you go on and you treat the patient and you don’t look at a lot of theother stuff. You kind of focus on the job to be done. I think that probablyprevents us from, and I don’t think most guys, you just don’t see it where guyslose control of their emotions. (Chaz, booter, tenure 11 months)

The formal instruction that members receive about technical procedures appears toprovide a point of focus for members as they encounter trying circumstances. Thiscauses the gruesome to seem less out-of-the-ordinary, enabling the booters to move

past the shock of the situation. These techniques also enable organizational membersto direct their attention and emotional responses in ways that are congruent with

organizational objectives. Recruits described that they found these techniques useful,not only in overcoming painful emotions associated with exposure to potentially

gut-wrenching situations but also in taming the rush of energy new firefightersexperience in the field. For example, Wayne claimed that his ability to enact

“controlled aggression” was enhanced by repeated instruction and exposure intraining.

In the academy you really, the first day when you go to the burn house, they tell youwhat they want you to do and what the atmosphere is going to be like. It’s going tobe hot, but you still want to get in there and get it on. They try to control you andyour aggression. You have to learn to control your own aggression. That only comeswith experience. It’s doing it time and time again. (Wayne, booter, tenure 11months)

Repeated exposure to dangerous, emotionally-charged situations not only hones

technical skills but also socializes booters to the normal chaos that they will experiencein their work. Such repetition normalizes situations that would otherwise be

interpreted as disorderly, dangerous, and uncertain. Although tempering emotions sothat firefighters stay safe and can focus on their work is a necessity, another PCFD

expectation is controlling emotions to project a pleasant attitude to customers.


Customer service expectations

Formal training at PCFD places a heavy emphasis on professionalism and providingoutstanding customer service. For example, in 1995 PCFD published a customerservice guide, the importance of which was made clear when firefighters received their

copies of the booklet stapled to their paychecks. Moreover, applicant interviewquestions are often related to customer service topics discussed in the guide, and the

authors observed riders learning about the appropriate answers to such questionsduring ride-alongs. Additionally, new firefighters are required to attend customer

service classes and must sign a customer service “contract” stipulating that they willremember to “do the right thing” and always leave the customer satisfied. The

department’s mandate for providing good customer service may not requirefirefighters to smile as they are connecting hoses to a fire hydrant, but it does mean

laboring to display emotion in ways that reflect favorably on the department,particularly during client interactions. This is an expectation that seasoned membersreinforce during interaction.

We have to teach [booters] that those people are customers, but it’s important thatwe treat those people right because it’s, we’re in a fishbowl. Everything that we see,people are watching us, and they are seeing how we treat people. . . . We do remindthem of it. We do say, “Do you remember what you told the people in your interviewboard? Don’t you remember sitting across the table from the committee and tellingthem that you knew that you were going to have to work hard ambulancing, and . . .that you were always going to do the right thing?” (Captain Whaley, tenure 20 years)

Given the opportunity to choose, most of the firefighters admitted that they wouldprefer to just do the task at hand and not have to interact with many of their customers. As

Captain Whaley suggests, holding firefighters accountable to the pledge they took whenthey interviewed for the job is an attempt at keeping firefighters from expressingresentment toward the more disagreeable or ignorant customers. The superior-

subordinate interactions Captain Whaley describes serve as a means of reinforcing thedisplay rules that emphasize a customer service focus via emotion management.

In summary, the firefighters in this organization are socialized to manage theiremotions in several ways. First, prior to employment they are given an opportunity to

preview the type of stress they will experience as firefighters and are selected based ontheir perceived ability to be able to project a positive attitude. Second, in the training

academy they are socialized to emotionally charged situations through habituatedexposure in simulations. Finally, they are required to make a pledge to project a goodservice attitude as part of their employment agreement. Those who lose sight of that

commitment are reminded. However, as we discuss next, even as booter emotionmanagement is closely monitored and enforced by veteran firefighters, booters also

actively participate in their own emotional socialization.

Proactive Socialization to Emotion Rules

While the second research question focused on the efforts of veteran firefighters tosocialize newcomers, the third research question asks about newcomers’ proactive


efforts to learn and conform to local emotion rules. Although the PCFD exerted

considerable efforts to train and influence newcomers, the proactive participation ofbooters in their own socialization toward proper feeling and emotion expression wasevident. The data indicate that booters proactively discipline themselves and gain the

confidence of more senior members by performing the organizationally-prescribedrole of “humble booter,” by covertly observing veteran firefighters, and by

retrospectively surveilling the emotion labor practices of veteran firefighters.

Performing the booter roleBooters are expected to perform a distinct role at PCFD, and learning the

communicative behaviors associated with this role also aids them in learning tomanage emotions. Ben, tenure 5 months, described how the role of the booter is

introduced in the training academy: “Everyone talks about your booter year and howyou have to bust your hump. You are supposed to be seen and not heard. Nobody talks

to you and everyone treats you like garbage.” As a result, booters leave the academywith some relatively clear expectations about their roles and the expected emotionalperformances associated with them:

I expected the first year to be kinda rough. . . . You have to basically try to look busythe whole time. . . . You’re the one checking the tripod, you’re cleaning the station,you’re doing the dishes, you’re doing all of the busy work. All of the guys are takingnaps while you’re mopping the bay, stuff like that. Basically, it’s just like a rite ofpassage. You put your time in, you prove to the guys that you’ve got a good attitude.(Lonnie, booter, tenure 5 months)

Booters also expressed a keen awareness of the negative consequences of failure toenact this role. As Chaz, tenure 11 months, put it,

It’s draining. But you can’t show that you’re a wreck. . . . We’ve got a lot of time onour hands, so there’s a lot of talk that goes around the fire department. Word getsaround. It’s actually kind of high schoolish.

Some firefighters and captains used the term “hazing” to describe the way booters

are treated. Similar behavior has been observed in other studies of high-riskorganizational environments, such as white lower-class gangs (Miller, Geertz, &

Cutter, 1961), high-steel iron workers (Haas, 1977), and hospitals (Goffman, 1951).Because firefighters work interdependently in high-risk situations (e.g., extinguishingfires, saving lives), hazing is a method veterans use to ascertain whether or not the

booter can be trusted at the emergency scene. Captain Jones, tenure 20 years, put it thisway: “Fighting a fire is like a thirty-minute fistfight. When they work hard at the

station, we feel like we can trust them to work hard on the scene.”In the context of emotion labor, performing the subservient booter role, including its

associated emotional displays (i.e., appearing to have a good attitude about hard work,not displaying negative emotions associated with hard work) is an emotional

performance in and of itself that communicates trustworthiness and allows the booterto publicly acknowledge his or her place in the station’s hierarchy. But working hard andappearing to enjoy it by displaying “a good attitude” seems to be a crucial performance


that booters must enact competently if they are to prove themselves worthy of group

membership and capable of performing emotion management on the job.Therefore, emotion labor is central to the performance of this newcomer role

because its mastery requires that the newcomer hide negative emotions associated with

subservient behavior by appearing to enjoy rather than abhor the overwhelmingresponsibilities of being the booter. For example, four of the booters at separate

stations described a ritual in which a firefighter, often a supervisor, will try to trick thebooter into breaking character:

One of the captains will come up and say or tell me why don’t I take a break. If I sayokay, that is bad. . . . Or like doing the dishes. They say they will help, but you mustsay you will take care of this. Or, they might say, “Why don’t you come sit down?”You must say you have things to do and not get caught being lazy. If you sit down,then they know something lazy about you. (Michael, booter, tenure 4 months)

Nearly all of the booters interviewed underscored the importance and fragility of a

booter’s reputation, which follows the newcomer from station to station. If the booterfailed to demonstrate his or her work ethic by not conforming to the emotion rule of

appearing to genuinely enjoy grunt work, the consequences for the booter would bedire. Had Michael failed to conform to display rules by, for example, displaying relief

at being allowed to sit down rather than wash dishes, then he might be labeled “lazy”in a culture that values a strong work ethic, particularly among booters.

At first glance, these performances seem unrelated to proactive socialization, but

laboring to display a positive attitude may serve as a kind of training ground forongoing emotion management. Consistent with Captain Jones’ comment above, if

booters can believably perform “a good attitude” about washing dishes andcompleting other menial station tasks, then veterans assume they are more likely to

manage emotions appropriately in other contexts as well (e.g., masking negativeemotions in the presence of clients). These emotional performances give booters an

opportunity to actively prove the extent of their socialization to the expectations of theorganization. If, as Ashforth and Saks (2002) argue, emotions are medium andoutcome of socialization, then these findings indicate that emotions provide at least

one method by which veteran firefighters evaluate the role adjustment of newcomersand their fitness to the organization. Moreover, when veterans are aware that this

emotional yardstick also may be applied to them, they are likely to employ knowledgethey have acquired about emotion rules and labor to perform in a manner that

measures up to expectations. As we discuss next, much of this knowledge is acquiredthrough observational information seeking.

Observational information-seekingIn many organizations, newcomers are actively involved in socializing themselves byseeking out information about organizational procedures and norms (Morrison,

1993). Organizational newcomers often utilize both covert and overt means ofinformation seeking (Miller, 1996). However, proactive socialization efforts worked

somewhat differently at the PCFD, where booters are expected to be seen but not


heard, and where newcomers struggle to earn a reputation as a good worker with a

good attitude. Those who overstep their bounds by over-engaging with more seniormembers can be rejected by other firefighters. The result would mean that they arenever encouraged to socialize with others at the station and are often not given

desirable station assignments at the conclusion of their probationary period.Therefore, many booters perceived the social costs of seeking information as fairly

steep and expressed reluctance about asking too many questions. Given these highsocial costs and the perceived fragility of one’s reputation, the strategic use of covert

information-seeking strategies rather than more overt tactics did more to protect thebooter’s delicate standing (Miller & Jablin, 1991; Teboul, 1995). As Captain Jones

bluntly stated, “They learn it by watching and keeping their mouths shut.”Although observing may appear to be a passive rather than proactive form of

socialization, it requires that newcomers actively interpret situations in light of theirown performance (Miller & Jablin, 1991). Rather than responding to events andsituations as they would naturally, booters learn to think and feel like role model

firefighters. Captain Nelson described how recruits learn to neutralize reactions toemotionally challenging situations:

I think a lot of it is seeing those who have been there, and the young kind of act likethe old. You see all this, and [incumbents] are doing their thing and they aren’t evenaffected by it, and that bleeds over into how you are going to do it. A lot of it is that,it is just the strong examples we had when we were coming through. (CaptainNelson, tenure 21 years)

By observing more senior members, newcomers learn to perform the role inaccordance with local emotion norms. Booters also indicated that they actively observe

other crew members to determine which behaviors they intend to adopt. One booterdescribed how he learned what were acceptable reactions to troubling situations in the

field:

Just sit back and hear and listen to how everything works. You see what the new guydoes versus the old guy. That is part of being a booter. You don’t know what isacceptable. So you sit back and wait to see what happens. (Michael, booter, tenure 4months)

Observational information seeking was also evidenced by booters’ knowledge of the

ways veteran firefighters cope with and display emotions both out in the field and inthe station. For example, Ben talked about how firefighters, especially those with

children, often experience strong emotions during and after EMS calls involvingchildren:

Kids depend on you. Adult trauma is a rush. When it is pediatric, it is different. . . .Youwatch guys when they get back to the station. They talk a lot to their children whenthey have gone out on a pediatric trauma. You can see all the lights on the phone lightup. They’re all calling home to talk to their kids. (Ben, booter, tenure 5 months)

Ben’s comment indicates his awareness that even firefighters who pride themselves ontheir ability to handle difficult human rescue situations can allow themselves to feel


grief when children are involved in service calls. Several participants described local

emotion management norms in such situations. After a traumatic pediatric EMS call(e.g., a child struck by a car), firefighters who are close to children of a similar age(e.g., one’s child, niece, or nephew) will often call these loved ones. Neophyte

firefighters claimed that it helps them make sense of the situation retrospectively byreminding them that their loved ones are indeed safe. Moreover, several of the

firefighters admitted that following pediatric calls, the crew often informally gathers todiscuss the tragedy of the call.

These comments suggest an explicit awareness among newcomers of dominantemotion labor techniques, knowledge acquired covertly and informally but actively

through observational information seeking. As Bandura (1977) argued, much oflearning a role involves internalizing and mimicking behaviors and reactions of

others. Still, the importance of learning by watching and mimicking may beexacerbated by the strong situation (Mischel, 1977) of the PCFD. Strong situationsexist when members have a definite consensus as to the right way and wrong way

to behave. In such contexts, social structures strictly regulate member behaviors,even the way members think of themselves. When entering strong situations

such as the PCFD, newcomers are compelled to adapt rather than negotiateroles (Ashforth, 2001). But in such strong situations, admitting that you do

not know what others consider common knowledge can cause embarrassmentand fear.

In addition, some of the reluctance to engage in overt information seeking may berelated to socialization processes that first collectively socialize newcomers in thetraining academy, then assign the probationary firefighters to stations where they are

the only booter on their shift. Such a formal, collective socialization process may causenewcomers to feel a bit isolated from peers and fairly cautious as they develop social

relationships with other crew members (Van Maanen, 1978). As a result, rather thanask direct questions, an overt information-seeking strategy that could expose their

ignorance and diminish their reputations in the eyes of more senior members, theywatch, hoping to learn all they need to know. Captain Rossen (tenure 12 years)

confirmed this by saying, “They don’t learn to deal with their emotions in any kind offormal way, but they watch and learn. Then they fake it until they make it.” As we

discuss next, “making it” often required retrospective surveillance of emotionalknowledge.

Surveillance

Several booters reported that veteran firefighters modeled “tricks” they used to handlemore troubling aspects of the job. While some of the motivation for sharing these

emotion labor techniques may have been to prove to the booters that they themselveswere tough, the booters appeared to absorb these informal lessons, integrating them

into their own routines through retrospection. Each of the booters was able to sharebits of wisdom he or she had learned from conversations with other firefighters, eventhough they had not directly or indirectly solicited the information. For example, early


on, Wayne not only felt pressured but also responsible for saving each accident victim

he encountered. He shared this advice that was offered to him:

When I first came out of the academy, my first station, one of the guys on the crewsays, “You know, we didn’t put these people in the position that they are in. All weare doing is trying to help them get out of that situation.” I thought about that, andthat really kind of helped me. . . . I feel bad for them, but I didn’t put them in thatposition, so I’m there trying to help them. (Wayne, booter, tenure 11 months)

This method of reinterpreting his role in EMS calls enabled Wayne to buffer feelingsthat he might normally have toward patients by positioning himself in relation them.This reframing helped Wayne to make sense of how a professional should behave. As a

firefighter, he is there to help, but he cannot allow himself to become emotionallyinvolved in the situation. But more importantly than the content of the emotion

management technique, the surveillance tactic employed to learn it represents anactive but inconspicuous method of information seeking. What distinguishes

observation from surveillance is its retrospective quality. Here, booters learntechniques of emotion management by retrospectively making sense of previous

conversations and observations in relation to focal situations.In summary, newcomers are not mere passive recipients of socialization messages

regarding the feeling and display of emotion. Instead, they actively participate in theirown emotion socialization through observational information seeking and retro-spective interpretations of observations in order to perform the booter role. Through

informal socialization, the booters knew that merely performing tasks was not enoughto gain acceptance in the organization. Gaining membership at the PCFD required

that they work to learn to enact the emotional expectations of their new role.

Theoretical Implications

A primary implication of this research is that in some contexts, emotions can be and

should be productively managed, and such emotion labor may have a number ofpositive consequences. We found little variance in responses from firefighters

throughout the organization. Participants acknowledged that managing emotionsassisted them in controlling customer reactions and enabling them to do their work.

This suggests that rather than conceptualizing emotion labor as work performedpurely in the interests of organizations, emotion labor can be a valuable workplace skill

relied upon by organizational members. Such a conclusion is consistent with Conradand Witte’s (1994) contention that emotion labor is in many cases practicallybeneficial to members, providing emotional equilibrium in trying circumstances. In

light of recent scholarly disagreement about the utility of emotion management inorganizations (e.g., Conrad & Witte, 1994; Waldron, 1994), we believe these findings

suggest that there are indeed contexts where organizationally-prescribed modes ofemotion management are of benefit to employees.

Our findings also suggest that studying newcomers during their early tenure withthe organization is a particularly useful method for understanding the nature and


utility of emotion management practices because soon after entry these local norms

are most salient to newcomers (Ashforth & Saks, 2002) and because entering anorganization is itself emotionally taxing (Louis, 1980). Learning and performing

according to emotion norms, then, is significant rather than peripheral to the processof negotiating one’s role. To be certain, emotion management occurs throughout one’s

tenure (as does socialization), but these findings suggest that examining emotionmanagement practices without accounting for the socialization processes through

which they are learned blinds researchers to the ways in which the management of

emotion reflects and shapes members’ understandings of their organizational andoccupational roles. If, as Hochshild (1983) argued, emotion is way of understanding

the world, then the manner in which members learn to manage their emotions mayhave consequences that reach beyond various emotion labor skills or techniques.

Future scholarship should do more to explore the potential consequences of thesocialization of emotion upon membership negotiation, identity formation, and

identification processes. It may not be enough to study the consequences of variousemotion labor practices without addressing the processes through which these are

learned.

In addition to formal training that specifically seeks to bring about emotionmanagement practices, learning to focus on the procedures involved in the completion

of tasks may aid emotion labor practice by offering members a locus of control. Asdescribed above, participants in this study reported that one way they learned to

manage emotion was through the technical training they received, training that wasnot explicitly related to emotion. By focusing on the standard operating procedures

they learned at the training academy for completing tasks, members were able toprevent their own emotions from interfering on the emergency scene through rituals

of normalcy (Buzzanell & Turner, 2003). Previous conceptualizations of the

relationship between socialization and organized emotion have focused on thestrategic indoctrination of various emotion management techniques (Ashforth & Saks,

2002; Hochshild, 1983; Katz, 1990; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987) to the exclusion of othersocialization practices that, however unintentionally, also enable and constrain

emotion work. It would be productive for future scholarship to explore further howother socialization content reinforces or conflicts with the socialization of emotion.

In contrast to other studies of the socialization experience, this study has focused onhow members are socialized to enact normative emotion labor practices. Yet what

remains unanswered is how the process of learning emotion management helps

newcomers deal with the strong emotions that accompany the socialization processitself. The authors often wondered whether the emotion management techniques that

newcomers learned to apply, for example, in interactions with clients might also servethem in coping with the emotional challenges that accompany the process of adjusting

to a new organizational role. Conversely, it may be that emotion labor techniques thatare specific to the socialization process itself (e.g., masking negative emotions related

to hazing, substituting “a good attitude” for feelings of frustration or stress) enable orconstrain how members learn to manage emotions in contexts that are more directly

related to their occupational roles (e.g., emotion labor in customer service contexts).


Therefore, future studies should consider how the socialization of emotion and the

emotions of socialization are related. Ashforth and Saks (2002) argue that the entryprocess is “saturated” with emotion, that emotion is both medium and outcome of theentry process, and that emotion mediates the attractiveness of the organization and

individual adjustment. More empirical work that demonstrates the presence of thesefunctions and explores the relations between them would advance the study of

organized emotion considerably.Miller and Jablin ’s (1991) typology of information-seeking tactics described ways

that newcomers reduce uncertainty about task-related dimensions of new jobs.However, the findings suggest that the more covert tactics they describe are relevant to

the process of acquiring information about emotion management as well. Therefore,one implication of this study is that information seeking behaviors are not limited to

cognitive tasks, since newcomers may also seek information as a means of reducinguncertainty about local feeling and emotion display norms. Yet these findings dogenerally support Miller and Jablin’s model, as this analysis found that members

employed covert information-seeking tactics because of the high social costsassociated with the more overt tactics.

This study has concluded that newcomers are active participants in the socializationof emotion rather than passive recipients of socialization tactics. Not only do they

actively participate in information seeking behaviors through which they acquireinformation about local emotion norms, but they also attempt to perform emotions in

ways that strategically indicate their conformity to these norms. While Kramer andHess (2002) argue that members manage emotions to maintain relationships and treatothers with respect, these findings suggest that another related function of emotion

management for newcomers may be the performance of conformity and adjustment.Future scholarship should further examine the emotional performances associated

with the socialization process. For example, little is known about the impact of suchemotion labor on the ways newcomers are monitored, evaluated, and accepted or

rejected. To what extent do veteran firefighters monitor newcomers’ emotions as a signof their adjustment? Participants in this study suggested this was the case at PCFD, but

future research should ascertain the prevalence and potential outcomes of this practiceacross multiple organizations.

Practical Applications

This analysis also suggests a number of practical applications. First, these findingsimply a need for training in emotion management, particularly in stressful, humanservice organizations and support Kramer and Hess ’s (2002) claim that organizations

should provide formal training for employees about various emotion managementpractices. While the participants in this study acquired information about a variety of

emotion labor techniques, it is safe to assume that not all methods veterans employ areequally effective or healthy for employees or customer relations. While emotion labor

may have negative consequences for members (Fineman, 2000; Hochschild, 1983;Meyerson, 2000; Tracy, 2000; Waldron, 1994), this study provides further evidence for


others’ claims that emotion management may serve productive functions as an

organizational communication practice (Conrad & Witte, 1994; Kramer & Hess,2002). However, since the often-covert means through which our participants learned

about emotion norms are potentially less accurate than more overt tactics (Miller &Jablin, 1991), formal training might counteract the reluctance of members to discuss

openly emotion management concerns and techniques they find more or less helpfulin particular situations. Also, more productive information seeking practices might be

encouraged by training managers in emotionally-demanding occupations to generate

awareness of the often-covert means by which newcomers seek information aboutemotion labor practices and educate supervisors about how to invite more direct

information seeking (e.g., direct questioning) from newcomers on the topic. Suchtraining might heighten awareness among managers of their ability to purposefully or

accidentally construct memorable messages that encourage and discourage specificemotion management practices through language that frames ambiguous situations in

ways that suggest appropriate responses (Stohl, 1986). Since emotions are a means ofinterpreting situations, leaders may reduce uncertainty and ambiguity for newcomers

by framing equivocal, unanticipated, and emotionally-trying situations through

discourse that assists newcomers in categorizing events and emotional responses inconstructive ways (Fairhurst & Sarr, 1996). For example, as demonstrated earlier,

dialogue between veterans and newcomers may foster storytelling about pastsituations that (re)affirms particular emotion management techniques by framing

recurring situations in particular ways.These findings also suggest that the explicit or implicit requirement of self-

socialization eases newcomers’ transitions and may foster their adjustment. Asdescribed above, the PCFD expects job candidates to invest a significant amount of

time orienting themselves toward the organization prior to entry. In order to make it

through PCFD’s rigorous selection process, these candidates must generate anddemonstrate their understanding of the organization’s emotion management norms

learned during ride-alongs and in time spent in the station. In other words, candidatesmust simultaneously seek information about and perform their understanding of the

organization before officially gaining membership. This informal prerequisite seems toresult in a more realistic job preview, an accurate image of a job acquired prior to

entry, which may result in fewer incidents of premature turnover (Dean & Wanous,1984). Newcomers are less likely to enter the organization with inflated expectations of

what it will mean to be a firefighter in the PCFD because of this practice. While little

consensus exists regarding why realistic job previews are beneficial (see Hom, Griffeth,Palich, & Bracker, 1998 for a review), our findings, combined with the exceptionally

low turnover rate at PCFD, suggest that realistic job previews are more easily fosteredwhen organizations formally or informally require some level of self-socialization

prior to entry.Consequently, those practitioners that organize employee selection processes should

consider the extent to which they encourage job candidates to be proactive in seekinginformation about the organization and job under consideration. For example,

allowing job candidates to shadow current employees, a practice similar to


the pre-entry ride-alongs described above, may facilitate proactive information

seeking prior to entry, a pattern of communication that our findings suggest enablesthe applicant to assess more adequately their fitness for the job and organization. Thismay be particularly important in emotionally-demanding occupations. Having job

candidates shadow members as part of an effort to develop realistic expectations of thejob and organizational norms (of which emotion management is one) is a relatively

economical, simple practice that can be extremely beneficial not only for theorganization through, for example, reduced turnover (Dean & Wanous, 1984) but also

for the individuals who join them by reducing the likelihood of violated expectationsor unwanted surprises (Louis, 1980). This may be particularly helpful for the

prevention of turnover in those human service occupations where the management ofemotion is a central part of the work role.

Therefore, this study provides further evidence for practitioners on the importance offacilitating open pre-entry communication between job candidates and firefighters.First, although it may not be practical for many organizations to open their doors to job

candidates, as does the PCFD, by offering job candidates increased access to informationabout the organization, its culture, and even the emotional expectations of the job,

newcomers can make better decisions about the desirability of the position and they canbe better prepared to assume their organizational roles upon entry. Second, all

organizational members who supervise newcomers can benefit by understanding thesignificance and often-covert nature of information seeking during entry processes. By

encouraging newcomers to ask questions about local emotion practices andmaintaining a simultaneous awareness of the inevitably high social costs of suchinformation seeking, the socialization of emotion in affectively challenging occupations

may come about in a manner that fosters better retention and role adjustment.This study offers empirical insight into how socialization processes facilitate the

communication and implementation of emotion management expectations in ahuman service organization. The organization socialized booters through employee

selection processes, repeated exposure to emotional events, and by reinforcingcustomer service expectations. Newcomers also actively participated in their own

socialization to local emotion norms by seeking information about emotion labortechniques and engaging in emotion-laden performances that demonstrated

adjustment to their new roles. By recognizing the importance of socializationprocesses to the learning of emotion management practices in occupations thatrequire it, scholars and practitioners may enhance the experiences of newcomers as

they adjust to emotion work.

Notes

[1] According to the training academy division chief, “Our turnover rate is almost nil. In the 16years I have been on the job, I only know of three firefighters leaving the job for another job.”

[2] Some scholars, most notably Hochshild (1983), distinguish between the terms “emotionmanagement” and “emotion labor,” but in this article the terms are used interchangeably.

[3] All names, including the name of the organization, are pseudonyms.


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Received July 30, 2002Final revision received February 12, 2004Accepted March 8, 2004


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