Emotional labor and professional engagement in sport psychology professionals

The complexity and nuances of the world of sports mean that sport psychology professionals (SPPs) work with a unique clientele in a range of non-traditional environments, working conditions, and professional roles, providing a unique and specialized service within the field of psychology. Such working practices give rise to the experience of a variety of discrete emotions in the course of their professional lives. Nevertheless, the experience and expression of such emotions are not always compatible with effective practice, therefore, practitioners must often engage in emotional labour, namely, the management of feelings or their expression to comply with perceived professional role requirements. A substantial body of research has identified emotional labour as a central factor in the emergence of emotional exhaustion. The present study aimed to explore how the SPPs’ experience of emotional labour is connected to their emotional and physical exhaustion, potentially impacting their commitment to their profession. A total of over 2200 SPPs from around the world were invited to participate in the study by completing an online survey. A sample of 560 SPPs (47% females) completed the survey, aged 21 and 79 years old (M = 39.9; SD = 12.1). The professionals in the sample (85%) had professional experience ranging from 1 to 49 years (M = 11.2; SD = 10). They indicated that they dedicated about half of their time to applied activities (45.2%) and the remaining to teaching (27.8%) and research (26.9%) related activities. The findings of this study help to identify their experience of emotional and physical exhaustion.