Service quality, emotion recognition, emotional intelligence and Dunning Kruger syndrome

This study investigates the extent to which hospitality employees are aware of their facial expression/emotion recognition abilities in interacting with customers. As a sign of satisfaction and service quality delivered, facial expressions and emotions may have significant implications. The study measured the actual emotion recognition abilities and their self-efficacy beliefs regarding their emotional abilities of 527 hospitality employees in Turkey. The results show that a significant proportion of hospitality employees are not fully aware of their facial expression/emotion recognition abilities and that many of them tend to inflate their abilities. The study has important implications in terms of employee efforts put into tasks (such as effort and concentration), self-development and training, and employee risk-taking behaviour in service encounters.