Culture | Employees forcing smiles at work 'at risk of heavier drinking'

Maintaining a professional demeanour whilst interacting with colleagues is good workplace etiquette, however, the health ramifications for those who consistently put on a ‘happy persona’ at work can be extremely damaging, a new study by Science Daily has found.

The research states that those who conceal how they’re really feeling and put on a fake smile in the workplace – especially in customer-facing roles – are far more likely to turn to alcohol than those who truly reveal their emotions.

Science Daily enlisted the expertise of researchers from Penn State University in Pennsylvania and the University of Buffalo in New York to monitor the drinking habits of over 1,500 volunteers within public-facing roles such as teaching, nursing and jobs in the food industry.

The team then compared the data from the National Survey of Work Stress and Health to formulate their results. The data included information on how often volunteers in the survey felt the need to supress or fake positive emotions in the workplace, how impulsive they are and how much autonomy they feel they have.