Abstract

To determine the effects of flight attendants' emotional labor and emotional stability on their psychological burnout, we sampled 255 flight attendants for a questionnaire survey. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, as a result of analyzing each scale depending on flight attendants' demographic variables, it was found that their psychological burnout differed significantly depending on such demographic variables as sex, age, career length, working position and monthly working time. Their emotional labor differed significantly depending on their sex, career length and age. And their emotional stability differed significantly depending on their age, working position, career length and monthly working time. Second, emotional stability was negatively correlated with psychological burnout, and such sub-variables of psychological burnout as "emotional exhaustion", "impersonalization" and "lack of accomplishment" were negatively correlated with emotional stability. Third, a sub-variable of psychological burnout as "emotional exhaustion" was correlated positively with emotional labor. Fourth, the variable affecting psychological burnout most was found emotional stability, followed by monthly working time and age. In conclusion, for increasing the productivity of airline industry some considerations must be given to airline employee's physical and psychological well-beings, and lastly the implications for the future research of burnout antecedents in airline were also discussed. (Korean J Str Res 2007;15:149∼155)

• Keywords: [Emotional labor, Emotional stability, Psychological burnout, Flight attendants;