Emotional Labor in Dementia Research

TL;DR

This paper explores how researchers in dementia studies manage their emotions during participant interactions, highlighting both benefits and risks to their well-being.

Contribution

The paper introduces the concept of emotional labor in dementia research and offers peer-critiqued recommendations for managing it.

Findings

Nine research scenarios involving emotional labor were identified in dementia research.

Case studies illustrate the emotional challenges researchers face when interacting with dementia participants.

Recommendations are proposed to help manage emotional strain and support researcher well-being.

Abstract

The concept of emotional labor refers to the regulation and management of emotions within the workplace. This labor may involve a dissonance between the emotions that are internally felt and the emotions that can be externally expressed. The concept of emotional labor can be applied to the emotional management that occurs during research often when directly interacting with research participants. These emotions can have a positive role in building rapport and enabling the researcher to understand the participant’s world. But equally, it can lead to emotional strain and potentially have a negative impact on researcher well-being. In this paper, we apply the concept of emotional labor to dementia research. While there has been attention paid to ethical issues in dementia research, this has often focused on the impact on the participant and not the researcher. Within this paper, we first draw on the literature to provide an overview of the role of emotional labor in the research context. Within the literature, we identify nine research scenarios where emotional labor might occur within dementia research. We then present three case studies illuminating our experiences of emotional labor within dementia research. These case studies provide illustrative examples of some of the research scenarios identified in the literature. To synthesize the learning from the literature and our case studies, we propose peer-critiqued recommendations for managing emotional labor in dementia research. We conclude by considering the implications for other health researchers.

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