This study examined the overall aspects of kindergarten teachers’ emotional labor, the
differences in it according to their personal and institutional variables, and the correlations
of their emotional labor with job satisfaction and social support. Subjects consisted of 334
kindergarten teachers, working at public or private kindergartens in Seoul, Korea, and the
data were collected through a questionnaire including ‘Emotional Labor of Teaching Scale’
(Brown, 2011), revised ‘Job Satisfaction Measurement Scale for Childcare Teachers’ (Lee,
2007), and ‘Indirectly Perceived Social Support Scale’ (Park, 1985). The results of this study
were as follows. First, the kindergarten teachers’ perceived emotional labor level was slightly
over the average in general, and among the sub-categories of emotional labor, deep acting
was the highest and surface acting was the lowest. According to the variables, significant
differences were found only in their kindergarten types and working hours. Second, as a
result of examining the correlations between sub-categories of emotional labor and job
satisfaction, deep acting was positively correlated with job satisfaction, while surface acting
was negatively correlated with job satisfaction. Third, in terms of the correlations between
sub-categories of emotional labor and social support, natural emotions and deep acting were
positively correlated with social support, while surface acting was negatively correlated with
social support.