Emotional labor research within organizational psychology has largely benefitted by adopting process models of emotion regulation into emotional labor models. However, relational, contextual moderators and antecedents of the emotional labor process are sorely missing from extant research. This study sought to further explicate the role of these factors on emotion regulation using the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) process model. Using a simulated negotiation scenario, this study investigated the role of information processing (mediation by relative power, manipulated through number of opponents engaged) and opponent's affect (angry vs. happy) on subsequent emotion regulation strategy adopted. Utilizing a sample of 326 undergraduate psychology students, results suggest that participants experienced emotion contagion and drew meaningful inferences about own performance from their opponent's affect. However, only affective reactions -- not performance inference -- were related to participants' emotion regulation. Further, relative power did not mediate the relationship between number of opponents and information processing. Exploratory analyses instead suggest information processing, epistemic motivation, experienced power, and relative power moderate the relationship between affective reactions and performance inference and subsequent emotion regulation. Theoretical and practical implications of results are discussed, along with future suggestions for following research.
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