Is “faking” emotions always bad? Exploring the relationships between teachers' emotional labor, expressed enthusiasm, and teaching quality

With a sample of 64 teachers and their 533 students, this research examines how teachers' self-reported emotional labor relates to student-reported teaching quality, with student-reported teacher enthusiasm serving as a mediating factor. Multilevel modeling analysis reveals that, at the student level, higher perceived teacher enthusiasm is associated with greater student-perceived teaching quality. At the class level, teachers' faking emotions is associated with higher class-perceived teacher enthusiasm, which in turn, corresponds with higher class-perceived teaching quality. Our findings shed light on the intricate nature of teachers' emotional labor by uncovering a positive and indirect link between emotional labor and teaching quality. Copyright © 2025 Elsevier Ltd.