In private life we try to induce or suppress love, envy, and anger through deep acting or "emotional work," just as we manage our outer expressions through surface acting.

But what happens when this system of adjusting emotions is adapted to commercial purposes? Hochschild examines the cost of this kind of "emotional labor." She vividly describes from a humanist and feminist perspective the process of estrangement from personal feelings and its role as an "occupational hazard" for one-third of America's workforce.