Why Faking a Smile All Day Can Lead to a Drink After Work

Drawing on a large, nationally representative survey of American workers who deal daily with customers, patients or the public, this study tested whether the effort of faking or suppressing emotions at work spills over into after-hours drinking, through a self-control lens: managing your emotions all day draws on the same limited capacity used to regulate other behaviours, including alcohol intake. Surface acting was robustly related to heavy drinking overall, holding up even after accounting for job demands and general negative mood. It predicted drinking specifically after work among employees who were naturally impulsive or who had little autonomy over how they did their job, and this effect was stronger in one-off service encounters, a call centre, a coffee shop, than in ongoing service relationships, nursing, teaching, where the emotional effort seemed to feel more worthwhile.

As a cross-sectional survey, it can show a robust association rather than proving surface acting directly causes the drinking, and self-reported alcohol use carries its own limitations. Its value is specificity: it isn't emotional labour in general that predicts the after-work drink, it's specifically the faking version, and specifically for people whose jobs or dispositions leave them with the least capacity to regulate it, a genuinely actionable distinction for who might need more support.